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“Marry me, Adley! Marry me! We have to get married! Let me show you. Can we do this now, please? Can we be a family? Can we make this official?” He fires question after question as he sits forward in the chair, leaning over the arm facing me.
I put my hands up, creating a barrier between us. “You need to calm down. I knew this was going to send you into a tailspin. This was never on my plan, you know that. You know I was never going to get married, and kids were never a thought-”
“But we’re here now!” he interjects, emotion dripping from his words. “It wasn’t my plan either. Until I found you. Until youchoseme. Adley, why? Why can’t we do this?”
He’s come out of his chair now and is kneeling on the grass in front of me. It’s all too much, the pressure, the questions. And I explode. “Because I can’t be your new addiction!”
He rears back as if I’ve slapped him, hurt evident on his features as he says, “An addiction? Is that what you think is happening here?”
He stares at me, and I can’t look at him because I know I’m making this worse, breaking him when all I should be doing is building him up. He shakes his head, scrubbing his hand over his mouth and down to his chin. “So, you don’t think I’ve changed after all?”
“I’m afraid of going backwards.”
“If you’d let us, we can move forward! Is that why you won’t tell me yes? I love you Adley, and I’ve loved you from day one.”
“Bill, I know you love me. I love you, but every time you see me, you say you want to marry me. It’s become just a passing statement now. Might as well say, ‘hey what’s going on?’ It doesn’t mean anything if you say it all the time. It’s become something you do as a joke, to get a reaction, not because you actually mean it.”
“Adley, you have no idea the plans that I had for us! And still do. I’m sorry that I put a pin in those original plans. I’m sorry that I stole time from us and that it’s taken us so long to get here, but I cannot believe that you think it’s just a passing thing. That it’s just something to say. It’s the furthest thing from a joke!”
He stands, putting distance between us as he says, “But that’s what you all expect of me, right? That it’s good old Billy having a good old time.” He throws his hands up and his voice rises. “This isn’t a good time for me! This is a forever time! I want you! I’ve wanted you since I was twenty-one years old!”
I stare at him, his words running on a loop through my mind.
“We’re committed, right? You’re my girl?”
“Yes, Billy, we’ve been over this. It’s only you.”
He drops to his knees again, begging in front of me, and it’s breaking my heart. “So why won’t you go all in with me? Why do you want to keep that house? Why can’t you move in with me for good? We’re sharing space most of the time, anyway.” He takes my hand. “Don’t you love being with me?”
“Of course I do. It’s not about that. You know I need that quiet time to write.”
He holds my eyes as he replies, “No, that’s just your flimsy excuse to bail on me. I think you need a safety net to escape me.”
I swallow hard. “It’s not that. I don’t know. I’m afraid and -”
“What do you need? You want an elaborate show? Or do you want to run to the courthouse? Tell me, Adley. Tell me and I’ll do it. Anything you want.”
I’m silent. I have no idea what to say. I want to scream out,I justneed you, but he wants so much more. And I don’t know how to be that woman for him.
“You want me to back off? I won’t ask you again, Adley. But I’m not leaving. I’m going to be here working for us, for our baby. Working to be good for both of you every damn day. Until you see it. Until you see I’m not that guy anymore.”
The tears come harder. I know I’m breaking us. I know I’m breaking him. I’m not letting him step into the man I desperately want him to be. He’s fighting for it tooth and nail and I’m still throwing up a wall.
“Have you been to a doctor yet? Please tell me you didn’t take that first time from me.”
His voice wavers and all I want to do is grab hold of him. I want him to hold me, to tell me we’re both going to be okay. That we’ll both make it, and we’ll have a normal life and a loving household. That we’ll be with his family at all times. I can’t lose them. I’m understanding now my fear is not just losing Billy, but losing them.
“I have an appointment on Friday.”
“I’m going with you. You’re not taking that first from me.”
He stands and heads back into the house, not another word to be had.
** *
I went to bed,and I waited for him. I don’t know if he came to me or not, but when I woke in the morning, he wasn’t beside me.
My heart sinks and I worry about how he spent his night, but I couldn’t babysit. I had to let him come to terms with the baby and where we go from here. We don’t need things to change with us. There’s going to be enough change adapting from two to three.
