Everything Unexpected (32 page)

“And you did,” I say. “You built something great.”

He smiles and looks around his office. “Yes, I did. But at a cost I hadn’t even considered before.”

I look at him, confused.

“It was too late by the time I realized it, but during that time, I wasn’t the only one sacrificing.”

My father sits back in his own chair, watching me. “All those nights I didn’t sleep, all those hours I spent in that small office, all that time I sacrificed with your mother, it never occurred to me she wouldn’t be okay with the sacrifices I was asking of
her
.” My father sits back up, leaning in closer to me. “I didn’t think of what her life was like those months, that first year. I left her on her own and expected her to be waiting for me when I was done. One day, she wasn’t.”

“I can’t imagine any of this happening,” I tell him, shocked.

“It did,” he answers.

I watch him as he thinks back to that time, replaying the scenes from his memory.

“The day I landed my first big client. As soon as the contracts were signed, I couldn’t wait to tell your mother. To show her it had all been worth it. That this company was going to make it. Just like I knew it would.”

“What did she say?”

My father laughs. “Nothing. She wasn’t there. She had already left to go stay with her sister, aunt Abby. She had left two weeks prior and I…forgot. Can you believe that? I actually forgot that your mother moved out. I felt sick when I got home. I realized then everything I had worked so hard for meant nothing if she wasn’t there for it.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you think?” he says, shrugging before looking me in the eye. “I went to go get her.”

I let out a small laugh. “Threw her over your shoulder and dragged her back home?”

A crack of a smile appears on his lips. “Not quite, but not too far off.” He shifts once more in his seat, crossing one leg over the other. “I went to Abby’s and refused to leave until your mother came home with me. Sat right there on the couch for hours while they ate dinner, refusing to offer me any, and then watched
Dallas
. For two hours. I knew they were sweating me out, but I stood my ground until she relented and finally let me speak my peace when she realized I wasn’t going to leave. And that’s when I told her none of anything I accomplished meant anything without her. That the success I had was only great if I had her to share it with. What took me too long to figure out was it couldn’t just be my success. It had to be ours. Together. I asked her what I needed to do to prove to her I finally understood that. She gave me a list.” He laughs. “A piece of paper she had ready in her pocket. A list of demands.”

“What was on the list?”

My father looks over at me, his expression turning serious. “Only one thing. To always put each other first.”

“That’s it?”

“Is there anything more?” he questions me right back.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if things are that simple anymore,” I answer.

“Things are always that simple, Shane. Putting each other first, that’s what keeps people together.”

“Leah doesn’t believe me when I tell her I’m ready to put her and the baby first. Or maybe she just doesn’t
want
to believe me.”

He shrugs again. “Then maybe you need to show her, not tell her.”

“And how do I do that?” I ask, turning my head to face him. “Go to her place and plant myself on her couch?”

“Do you think that will work?” he asks, grinning.

“I don’t think she’d even open the door,” I say. “I think I’m going to need a little more than a sit in.”

“So figure that out. Figure out what
she
needs to see to believe you,” he says. “When men are desperate enough, inspiration is not too far down the road.”

I laugh a little. “That’s good to know, because I’m pretty desperate. Right now, it feels like I’m at a pretty big fucking bump in the road.”

“A bump in the road is also a boost,” he answers.

I smile, thinking back to who told me that first. “Mom says that.”

“And she’s always right,” he adds.

I nod. “Thanks, Dad.”

He smiles and gets up from his chair, walking back around his desk. He picks up his glasses and puts them on before shuffling through some paper documents. When he notices I’ve yet to get up, he looks down at me with question. “Something else?”

It’s time for the real reason I came. And after this talk with my dad, I feel better about it. I’m done with fighting, rationalizing, arguing that I know better. That I have something to prove by doing this my way. Because the problem with
my way
is it only works if I’m okay doing things alone.
My way
only works if being with Leah and building a family with her comes second to everything else. And I don’t want it to come second. I want it to come first. It
needs
to come first. If Leah won’t listen to me when I tell her all this, then maybe my dad’s right. I need to show her.

“Yeah, there is,” I say, standing from my chair. “I’d like to talk to you about that job offer.”

WHEN I ARRIVE home, I’m feeling a bit better about things. I’ve begun to devise a plan in my mind. A plan to show Leah that she and this baby
are
my number one priority. A plan to show her that when I picture my future, she and the baby are what I see. And not because I have no choice, but because they
are
my choice. I also need to remind her that before there was a pregnancy, there was an
us
. It may have looked different then, but it was there and it was real.

Bryan is sitting at the kitchen counter reading through a stack of papers.

“Hey,” I say, coming around the kitchen counter, grabbing a beer from the fridge.

“What’s up?” he says, cocking his head once.

“Just taking care of some business. You?”

He motions to all the sheets in front of him. “Same.”

My eyes roam around our loft, and I start to mentally remove some objects from it and replace it with others. Configuring in my head a space that’s both welcoming and safe for a baby. I make a mental note to look up baby proofing on the internet. Which leads me to what I need to talk to Bryan about.

“So listen,” I start.

His head rises from whatever he’s been reading, a red pen catching my attention as he moves it back and forth between his fingers.

“I’ve been doing some thinking. Things are about to change for me. In a big way. And I need to start preparing for it. Preparing
this
place for it.”

He raises his brows and sits straighter on his stool.

“Look—”

Bryan raises his hand in the air, interrupting me.

“Shane, I get it,” he says, smiling. He slides the stack of papers he’s been flipping through towards me, turning them so that I can read what they say. They’re realtor listings. Places to rent in the area.

“You’re not pissed?” I ask, skimming through the sheets.

“Don’t be fucking stupid,” he says, taking the papers out of my hands. “Truth is, I’ve been looking for an excuse to leave you and this sorry place behind. You actually did me a favor knocking Leah up.”

I see the joking glint in his eye, but it’s also mixed with something else. I realize that me having a baby changes things for him too. Because if it weren’t for the baby, we probably would have stayed roommates much longer. Like Burt and Ernie. No wait, bad example. More like Joey and Chandler.

“End of an era,” Bryan says, holding out his fist.

I smile, bumping it. “Thanks for…you know,” I say pointing to the stack of papers.

He shrugs it off like it’s nothing, but we both know it’s not. “So when do you need me out by?”

“Sooner than later,” I tell him truthfully. “And I’m also going to need your help with something else.”

He nods, waiting to hear what I need. I feel bad for what I’m about to ask of him, but like my father said. Desperate men…

I’VE READ AND reread the same sentence over and over. My last hour has been filled with only these eight little words. The first eight words of a document approximately five thousand words long. You’d think that after an hour of staring at these same eight words, I’d have them memorized. Have a true understanding of their meaning, definition, interpretation. That I could repeat the sentence not only by using the words themselves but by streaming the order of the individual letters. But if someone were to come into my office right now and ask me what the first word in the sentence is, I’d be fucked.

This has been my week.

Every day is the same since I left Shane’s. Completely at a loss but trying, pretending to function.

I come to work early, hoping to get my mind thinking about anything else. I stay late because my day’s been wasted thinking about nothing but him. I sit at my desk for hours, staring at a computer screen and accomplish nothing.

I don’t fare much better at home either. My eyelids are continuously weighed down but I hardly sleep. My stomach growls constantly but I can’t eat. I’m lonely even though I’m never alone. I miss Shane so much it hurts. And because it hurts, I get angry. For one thing, two things, all things. I blame him for the way my week has gone. I blame him for not leaving my thoughts or getting out of my head. I blame him for the loneliness. I blame him for how much my heart aches because of it. I blame him that my heart aches at all. I was always capable of doing everything on my own because it’s the way it has always been. I blame him for that the most I think. I blame him for turning me into someone who
needs
someone else.

I was never that girl. I never wanted to be that girl. I was stronger than that girl.

Now, I’ve become that girl.

I don’t know if it happened slowly or all at once, but it happened. Shane wasn’t just a part of my life anymore. He completely took it over. And I stupidly let it happen.

I let it happen because he made me feel things I never expected. It happened because as confusing as it was in the beginning, it felt more natural to me than anything else ever did. It happened because I foolishly fell in love with my best friend.

And then, outside of Baoli, something else happened. A hint of truth began to show itself. One I tried to ignore but inevitably reared its ugly head on that sidewalk. It sucked having to come face to face with a woman he slept with while I was peeing on sticks, but she wasn’t the truth I didn’t want to face. Our truth ran much deeper than that. Riding in Shane’s Jeep, the crib still in a box tucked away, his place showing hardly any signs of preparation for things to come, I realized life hadn’t really changed for him. Life wasn’t changing for him. He was still living the same life except for one tiny little detail—the
reason
that got us to where we are. We didn’t happen naturally like I thought. We were forced together.
I
forced us together. Compelled him into a lifelong commitment because of a decision
I
made months ago in a doctor’s office. I didn’t give Shane the chance to fall in love with me. He never had the choice at all. Realizing that made me angry, mostly at myself but I took it out on him. I didn’t mean for us to have the argument we did, but that doesn’t make the reasons for it any less real.

I have no doubt Shane cares for me deeply. I have no doubt Shane will be a great father to this child once it’s here. But there are more ways to be a family than just the traditional sense. And this baby deserves that family more than a forced traditional one. As hard as it may be, I need to take a step back because this baby and me can’t be Shane’s plan—his future because of circumstance. So I’m keeping my distance for now. Giving us time to figure things out. Giving
him
time to figure things out. I refuse to trap us inside a traditionally shaped box when there’s a big chance we don’t fit in it. I know I can’t keep blaming Shane for where I—we—are now. I’m the one who brought us here.

I close my eyes just for a moment, telling myself when I reopen them, I will reread these eight words for the last time and understand them for the first. I will give my heart a rest and start using my brain.

My stomach growls, a reminder that once again, I’ve skipped breakfast. Not even a second later, baby throws a few jabs against my ribs, letting me know how unappreciative he or she is of not being fed. I tell myself I should head down to the café, grab something to eat, settle both our hungers, but my legs aren’t cooperating. The wave of exhaustion coming over me too strong to get me to move. So instead, I stay in my chair with my eyes closed, telling myself that I only need another few minutes and then I’ll be able to get up.