by Xavier Neal
As soon as we’re completely naked, I’m sinking myself down on top of him and releasing a loud cry of his name, “Bailey….”
He groans from underneath and his hands clasp my hips with enough force to create a twinge of pain. After thrusting his cock deeper, he shamelessly implores, “Again, Kenny. Say my name again.”
The demand seems miniscule yet I know it’s submerged in more emotion than either of us could ever verbally express. I let my body rock and his request sweetly falls from my lips like the answer to a prayer only I have the power to grant. “Bailey.”
A faint whimper seeps from him seconds before he sits up to cradle me completely in his arms. His mouth drags itself across my flesh while he continuously pumps harder. Between breathless moans and languorous kisses, we climb together towards a euphoria I’ve only felt once before. Our bodies start to heave in oscillation until we’re hoarsely crying out in unison. Our orgasms collide in a silent, primal devotion to one another. The roars escaping are intertwined in relief and rapture.
Bailey’s forehead hits my chest as he struggles to catch his breath. My fingers toy with the damp strands close to the back of his neck, body still trembling with aftershocks. A soft sigh of love leaves him and I smile sweetly.
Finally, he looks up, blue eyes swirling with tenderness. “I love you, Kenny. I always have…I always will.”
The words bring me back to a time where I thought just knowing that was enough. In a refusal to repeat the past, I state, “Then tell me everything.”
His eyebrows furrow.
“You love me?”
“Yes.”
“You want this to work? For us to…I don’t know…actually have a chance at working?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Then tell me everything.” My fingers continue to roll around his locks. “No more, ‘it’s complicated’ bullshit, Bailey. Before we do this again,” I point to where our bodies are joined, “I want to know everything you’ve protected us from. Everything that’s kept us apart.”
His hands slide around and grip me tightly. “If I do that, you have to make me a promise?”
“What’s that?”
“You have to promise that no matter how awful, how hateful, how disgusting the things that come out of my mouth are….you’ll never walk out of my life again.”
Our eyes lock in shared desperation of hope that this is really it. That this is the opportunity we’ve been waiting our entire lives for. In a solid voice, I swear, “Never. Again.”
“Hey,” Thomas whispers, gently nudging me awake. “You can go sit with him now.”
Startled I had fallen asleep, I give my face a quick rub, and ask, “Did I really fall asleep?”
He smiles. “Yeah. Not sure what the holdup was, but you drifted off.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up sooner?”
“Because you need it,” he says firmly. “Now, go to Bailey’s room and go back to sleep. Text me in the morning whenever you want us to come up. I’ll make sure to fill in both sets of parents and the McCaws.”
I offer him a smile of gratitude. “I appreciate it. And you, so much Thomas.”
He stands and extends his hand to help me up. “It’s what big brothers are for…”
We hug and split separate ways. I greet Bailey’s nurse on my way to his room, the look on her face worrisome. Rather than question her about it, I slip inside, and drag my chair to its usual position. For a brief moment I simply stare at my frozen lifeline. My soulmate silently suffering in a prison I can’t rescue him from. Again. I link my hand with his and lean back staring at our joined hands. Our joined lives. The sight of our union only acts as one more reminder that I need to listen to that voicemail. I need to know if I’m pregnant again. I need to know if I have to start preparing to bring life into this world as much as I might have to start preparing to brace myself for a life leaving it.
Bailey
The air around us seems too thick to breathe. “Are we close Emma?”
She glances over at me from the same spot she’s been leaned against in the cave for…days? Weeks? Months? How long has it been? How long have we been trapped here? How much longer are we- no. Me. How much longer am I going to be imprisoned by my own mind?
I attempt another deep breath, this one even harder than before to take. “Are we?”
Rather than answer me, she states, “It’s not the air, Bailey. It’s your lungs.”
My mouth moves to demand more information when her hand waves in a circle. All of a sudden there’s a projection on the cave wall to our right. Immediately, I know the defining moment. It was one of the single most amazing nights of my life.
“Sorry we had to leave your mom’s early,” Kenny apologizes while I unlock the front door.
I offer her a kind smile. “Baby, it’s fine. You’re not feeling well. That’s a good reason to get you home.”
She begins to grin but it quickly grows into a grimace. She throws a hand over her mouth and rushes through the house for our bathroom. I stop myself from running after her. She’s been fighting this stomach bug for over a week and apparently having me hold her hair back while she vomits is just “too embarrassing”. Never mind the fact it was me who held it back when she was thirteen and ate more chocolate cake than should’ve ever been consumed by one person. No puke situation could ever be more cruel than that one.
I toss the keys on the couch side table and linger in our living room. Just knowing that it’s ours keeps a smile on my face. It didn’t take as much convincing as I was imagining it would to convince her to give up searching for an apartment and just move in. Really it only took two sex filled days in bed and one breakfast brought to her there. If it were up to me, after we made love on the futon, she would’ve never left. We spent the rest of that night, six weeks ago, kissing and crying, screwing and screaming, fucking and forgiving. I told her almost everything. Almost. After hours and hours of spewing secrets and shame, baring every bit of my shattered soul I could, there were still minor details I felt were better left unsaid. She needed to know the hate that kept us separated but she didn’t need to know exactly how often that hate almost killed me.
I slowly stroll for our bedroom and enter, the space that because of her is now actually lived in. While we had a couple of agreements to buy new furniture like a king sized bed that neither of us had shared with anyone else, the other little touches are all Kenny. Our fuzzy blue floor rugs. Our mismatched throw pillows. The quirky framed artwork from friends she went to school with, but no longer is in touch with. A wall decal of Emma’s favorite quote ‘The man who has no imagination has no wings’ with bird silhouettes surrounding it. My absolute favorites however are the framed photos that are on our nightstands. Mine is home to one from our past, the same one I stared at for an entire summer before my father ripped it to shreds and then tried to break my nose over it. I was stunned when I learned Kenny had a copy in one of her old photo albums. Her nightstand on the other hand is home to a picture from our now. Our present. Our future. We took it on our first official date outside of this house. One of my arms is draped over her shoulder from behind while she’s leaned into me, staring up at the camera, beaming beautifully. We went to see one of the indie films she had designed a poster for at the artsy theater downtown. In the background if you look close enough you can see just the corner of it. That night we watched the film about an out of work comedian who paved his way into the industry before grabbing some Thai and having sex in my truck like teenagers too impatient to wait for better timing.
Flopping onto the edge of the bed, I call to her, “You okay, Kenny?”
The toilet flushes, the water runs, and then the door opens revealing a very miserable looking girlfriend. Damn I love the simple ability to be able to call her that. She leans against the frame. “Tell me you weren’t just sitting there listening to me vomit.”
I lean back on my palms. “Would that gross you out?”
“Uh….yeah! That
would be really weird. Like fetish weird. Tell me that’s not a kink I need to get used to.”
A smile hits my lips. “It’s not. I actually just sat down.”
The relief on her face is momentary as another sallow color hits her cheeks.
Concern has me sit straight up. “Do you need me to get you some crackers? Or a Sprite? Or run to the store for….I don’t know something to help? Should we go to the doctor? Should we-”
Her lifted finger hushes me. She pulls it to her lip and takes a minute to gather her composure, the green color fading almost as swiftly as it came. Afterward Kenny says, “I have to tell you something.”
“It better not be that you want me to stay away again,” I scold, leaning forward on my elbows. “I told you I don’t care if I get what you have. I’m gonna stay around to take care of you. You’re my girl. I’m not leaving your side. I-”
“I’m pregnant.”
Those two words silence my voice yet lower my jaw. My eyebrows twitch in question, but when she nods I know I didn’t mishear her. I know my biggest dream is about to become a reality. A walking, talking, laughing, hugging, loving reality.
She ruffles her messy hair. “I took a test this morning and was going to tell you then but I didn’t want you to be distracted while we were at yours mom’s. I know things are just starting to mend between you and Jess and with her bringing the baby I just-”
“Say it again,” my voice quietly commands.
Her face tilts at me in question. “What?”
“Say. It. Again.”
Kenny slowly repeats, “I’m….pregnant.”
This time I leap onto my feet, punch the air in victory, grin like a loon and toss my arms around her.
With a puzzled look, she states, “You can’t possibly be this excited.”
“You’re right,” I agree and grip her tighter. “I’m even more excited and am trying to calm it down because you don’t seem too happy about it.”
Kenny’s hands land on my biceps. “We’ve only been dating a month and half, Bailey. It’s crazy enough, I just…moved in. Now a baby? Isn’t it all…a little fast? A little too much all at once?”
“It’s a little late.” My argument receives a scowl. “Look, rationally, sure. Fine. It’s crazy, almost insane to date someone, move in with them, and get them pregnant in six weeks. But come on, Kenny. As far as I’m concerned this is long overdue. This is how it should’ve always been. This is how it should always be. I have spent my entire life waiting for this exact moment. The one where I could hold you in my arms just like this and hear you say those perfect words.”
She melts from my admission. “Well…when you put it like that…”
I let my smile brighten.
“Don’t get your hopes up yet. It could be a false positive, you know. Home pregnancy tests do that.”
“It’s not a false positive.”
She touches my cheek. “I doubt it is too, but I need to make an appointment and get everything actually confirmed.”
The desire to throw my hands up in excitement grows again. Unfortunately, it’s denied by her breaking away and rushing back for the porcelain alter I’m sure she’s tired of praying at. She groans as she hurls again and I have to restrain the urge to grin. Yes. Having my girlfriend throw up everything she’s ever eaten is awful, but the reason behind it is the best thing to ever happen to me. Kennedy waves a hand at me to go away and I insist on going to the store to get her something, anything that could help.
After spending almost an hour, mainly staring at everything in the baby aisle, and picturing the use for every object in our lives, I grab a twelve pack of sprite, saltine crackers, soups, and the perfect candy surprise for when she’s in better spirits. By the time I make it back home, she’s sprawled herself out in bed, her naked body barely covered by the sheet. I sit on the edge of the bed closest to her. Gently, I stroke the hair out of her face and soak in her essence. It’s something I do often. Whenever I’m working late and she’s unable to wait up for me, I use my break time to slip in here to watch her rest. It’s as if someone captured the heart of tranquility and gave it a mocha frame of perfection to be displayed in. Just watching her breathe in and out pulls me to a level of calm I never fathomed possible. The pure peace she radiates pacifies the hatred I fear is nestled too deep in my DNA to ever be torn out. The self-loathing instilled in every scar etched into my flesh. The doubt that the ache has finally been subsided permanently rather than briefly.
Too excited to even possibly try to sleep, I slip into my shop, and head straight for the project I worried I would never have actual purpose for. I yank the white sheet off and stare at the piece of furniture waiting for the love it’s been denied for so long. It used to hurt too much to give it any sort of attention. And now? Now it’ll be the most beloved thing I’ve ever built with my hands.
“Em’s crib,” Emma sighs sweetly.
Speaking seems too difficult, so I nod.
“Which was actually how you started the custom business to begin with. You were working on it one night, early in your marriage to Kim, shortly after the miscarriage, when she asked you about it. She hoped it was for the child you’d share some day, but you told her it was for someone else. Someone who paid. Then later, when working on it started to take a toll, you lied and said they changed their mind. Wanted something else.”
“She didn’t need to know the truth. Not then.”
“The truth of you building a crib for a child with a woman you weren’t ever actually certain you’d be with again or how relieved you were that you’d never have to build that piece of furniture for the child you two lost?”
My eyes shut as I continue to struggle to get air into my lungs. I hate my subconscious…
“Remember if you hate me, you hate yourself.”
“Parts of myself for sure.”
“Like the part of you that felt like shit that night Kim asked. The part of you that hated to have to lie to her in order to protect your true feelings. The part of you that has always lied to protect who you really love.”
My silence returns.
“But being able to work on it again the night Kenny told you she was pregnant made you finally believe all the hiding was done. That this time it was safe to work on the crib because it had actual promise of it having a purpose. That knowledge erased the previous guilt over it from your past.”
I can barely groan in agreement.
“Is that what we’re really doing here, Bailey?” Em’s voice seems more haunting than comforting. “Letting you rewrite your life? Attempting to erase the gritty by masking it as a fight to get back to the love you’ve barely had time to enjoy because you’ve spent more time chasing her than actually having her? Are you here to convince yourself you weren’t just an asshole? That you weren’t actually just a run of the mill dickhead who hid behind a curtain of excuses? Are you here to convince yourself your past wasn’t a complete waste before you die?”
Hearing the last word constricts my chest too tight. “Is this that moment?” I lift my head and let our eyes meet. “The one where I die?”
Em watches, a mix of sympathy and bafflement swirling in her eyes. “You tell me.”
Kennedy
“What do you mean you need me out of the room?” I try to ask without too much irritation in my voice. “Is something wrong?”
The doctor refrains from indicating anything useful. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cooper, I really need you to leave for the time being.”
“But-”
“Nurse Janet.” He motions his head towards me.
She gently ushers me out and quietly insists, “We will let you know the necessary information as soon as possible. For now, please wait in the lobby.”
Her choice of words causes me to ask, “I shouldn’t leave?”
Despite the doctor’s best wishes I’m sure, she gives me a brief shake of the head before rushing back in to assist him.
I clutch my bag tightly to my chest and slowly
trek down the hall for the waiting area while my mind is reeling rapidly over the multiple possibilities of what’s happening in his room. Thoughtlessly my legs manage to autopilot me to the seat I feel has my name engraved on it at this point. Collapsing into it, I shut my eyes and try to direct air into my lungs. Without permission my mind starts down a crooked path of what ifs, each more horrifying than the last. Typically it’s Bailey who stops the runaway train of madness when I jump on it. He has a way of knowing how to pump the breaks, extend his hand, and sweetly demand I get off. Seeing the option to allow my mind a moment to run away from the present back to the past, I take it.