Chapter 22

~Emma~

 

I peer through the curtains of the living room window at the empty fields that seem to stretch for miles in the distance. There’s nothing there. No houses. No animals. No trees. No sign of life. Normally, that would be a relief to me. Seeing how still the world is just beyond my house. How peaceful. No threats for miles. No people.

But I’m not just thinking about me now.

It’s just after two in the morning. Dan is still asleep in my bedroom upstairs. I’ve been tossing and turning all night, unable to fall asleep. A case of insomnia brought forth by my recent worries.

It’s been about six weeks since Dan and I found out I was pregnant. I know it sounds crazy, but I’d barely had a reaction. I’d been a little shocked, sure. But, really, I’d just accepted it. It was what it was.

Until recently. Maybe I’d been in some odd state of shock right up until a week ago, because now the cold, hard reality of it all has finally hit me. Painfully.

I’m pregnant. Me. In a few months, I’ll be a mother. Holy hell!

I’d never wanted children. Never. For goodness sake, up until I’d met Dan a few months ago, I’d resigned myself to a life alone. So, with that being the case, children certainly weren’t practical.

How is someone like me—with my issues—going to raise a child? I can barely step outside the front door as it is. A million scenarios have been running through my head where the child will need to leave the house. Where I’ll need to take him or her out. What if the child gets sick and needs to go to the hospital? It will need to socialize with other children and have those play dates I’ve heard about. And how about when it’s old enough to go to school? I’ll have to take it, possibly even go to its games, parents’ evenings. I’ll need to take it shopping for clothes and school supplies.

Oh my God. What the hell am I going to do?

I don’t want my child to end up like me, so I’ll have to make sure it socializes. But that means I will have to as well by default.

Shit. Shit. Shit. This is just too much. What was I thinking? How come I didn’t realize any of this sooner?

I know I’m not alone. Dan is here with me. But I can’t burden him with all of those things. We’ll have to share the parenting. That’s what people do, right? Fifty-fifty? Shit. Who the hell knows?

Speaking of Dan, his reaction to the pregnancy has floored me completely. He’s been wholly on board. Excited. For a man known in the media as a playboy and a serial womanizer, who would have thought that he would’ve been so overjoyed by the news that he would now be tied down? Although, from the way he’d talked about Isabella’s deception surrounding her pregnancy, there had been some signs that he had wanted a child. When he’d spoken about it, I’d felt how cut up he’d been when he’d found out it wasn’t his.

But, even if he wanted kids, this is still extremely fast. We’ve only known each other for a few months and now I’m having his child?

Shit. I’m really freaking out here.

“Babe?”

I almost jump out of my skin as I hear Dan’s voice through the dark, still house suddenly. I release the curtains and spin around to face him. He’s making his way down the stairs in nothing but a pair of boxers. He’s rubbing his eyes tiredly, his hair is disheveled and wild from sleep.

“Did I wake you?”

“Kind of. I felt you weren’t there.”

Wow, that is one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me. He crosses to me and takes my hands in his, looking me over with concern.

“Is everything okay? Is the baby—?”

I flash him a reassuring smile. “Everything’s fine.”

His brow furrows and I can tell that he doesn’t believe me. He’s seeing right through me as usual. Damn him and his insane perceptiveness. “You’re upset about something. What?”

“I…it’s just really hitting me now,” I say, gesturing to my baby bump.

He smiles, amused. “Really? Wow, you have the longest delayed reaction known to man.”

Normally, I would laugh at his humor, but I just can’t right now. My mind is running through a hundred different scenarios of why this is a bad idea. Why me being pregnant and being anyone’s mother is so very bad.

“You’re freaking out?”

Of course I’m freaking out. “Why aren’t you?” I snap.

He squeezes my hands to get my attention and probably in an attempt to distract me from my freak out. “I think it’s partly because I’ve already been through this before when I’d thought Isabella was pregnant with my child. I’ve already had to wrap my head around it before. But it’s also because I love you, Em. I knew I wanted to be with you for the long haul before we even found out about this. While it is fast and if we’d had a choice I would have waited a couple of years, it still fits within my plans for us, you know?”

Oh God. I’d expected him to admit to me that he was actually feeling like I am and that he’d just hid it from me for fear of upsetting me, or something. But, no. He really wants this.

“Someone like me, with my issues, isn’t cut out to be a mother, Dan.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can barely step outside my own house. So many things involved in raising a child require me to be around people in all sorts of situations. I can’t…how can I…oh my God….” I pull my hands from his, unable to stand still now. I need to move around. I begin pacing the room, walking up and down, shaking my head as I try to figure this shit out and find some sort of solution. “I can’t do this,” I murmur. “I can’t…I’m not cut out to be a mother. This is all wrong…so wrong.”

He crosses to me, blocking my path and forcing me to stop pacing.

“Em, you’re thinking about too much at once here. All the worst case scenarios. Life doesn’t happen that way. It’ll be one step at a time. One bridge to cross every now and then. And I’ll be here for all of it. You won’t be doing this alone.”

“What if the kid gets sick and it needs to go to the hospital? What about taking him or her to school? What about socializing with other kids? Parties? Shopping? Day trips? Family holidays?”

“Whoa. Slow down, babe. Just slow down.”

I blow out a frustrated sigh. Why is he so calm? I try to move past him, but he grips my arms, holding me tightly and forcing me to look up at him.

“You are stronger than you give yourself credit for. You’ve overcome so much in your life. So many obstacles. So much fear. And you’re still standing. You’ve made it work. And that is exactly what we’ll do when the baby comes along.”

“But—”

“You let me in, despite everything. You didn’t think you had anything to give. You thought you’d be some sort of drain on me, I remember you saying. You thought you’d pull me into the shadows with you. But you don’t see what I do. You are my ray of light, Em. Your personality. Your innocence. Your independence. Your tough-as-nails streak. The way you care. The way you try at everything you do. And our relationship couldn’t be stronger, could it?”

“I…yeah…that’s true, I guess.”

“It is true. You brought me out of the shadows, Em. My comfort zone. When the baby is born you’re going to love him—or her—so much that nothing else will matter. Just like what happened with you and me, babe. We both had to leave our comfort zones in order to be together and make this work. But it was different to what you’ve been used to in the past with people pushing you too hard, forcing you to do things. We both wanted to do it, because of how much we cared about one another. I swear to you, the same thing will happen with our kid, Em.”

God, he’s good. He’s actually managed to quell my freak out, to ease a lot of my fears.

“One step at a time?” I murmur, still absorbing his words and thinking this through.

“That’s right, angel.”

I nod. “Okay. That I can do.”

He wraps his arm around me and leads me towards the stairs. “Come. We’ll talk more about it upstairs. We’ll go through your concerns, one by one, and figure it all out.”

“It’s two in the morning. Aren’t you tired?”

“I’m wide awake now, babe.”

“I’m sorry.”

He pulls me into him and says, “Don’t be. I’m glad you told me, Em. I hate it when you keep shit from me. This is important. Besides, if you’re not sleeping, neither am I.”

“I hope you still feel that way when the baby’s screaming all night long.”

He laughs. “I’m looking forward to it.”

I nuzzle against him. “You’re so sweet. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, angel,” he says, kissing my hair as he leads me back upstairs to bed.