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We both laughed as she’d gone from one extreme to the other and back to where she started and I knew exactly how she felt.
“When Olivia told me that Joshua was leaving and that she was giving Brent another try, I hated myself so much. It was as if I’d allowed myself to do nothing with my life and everything and everyone were in control of my happiness. I was like a surfer constantly waiting on a killer wave to catch the wave of a lifetime. Once I did that, I was back to ground zero.”
“Selling the app got to you, didn’t it?”
I shrugged, “Not really. It was an app. I had no real connection with it. I’d set out to do what I wanted with it. But technology is completely different. When it went life, I never felt the excitement the same way that I did when Joshua started to crawl or when Hazel was attempting to take her first step. Now, that had me on a fucking high.”
I sat back and then Hazel’s vocabulary changed from choco to “Fuk!”
Shit!
I need to keep my potty mouth under control, especially because Hazel’s older now. Ivy laughed as she said it and I covered my mouth as I started passing some of my muffin to Hazel hoping that she would go back to saying choco, which is exactly what she did.
“Phew!”
“What are we going to do with you Chad?”
I raised an eyebrow and stretched out my hand, “Give me another chance?”
She sighed, “But if we do go down that road then maybe we need to take it a lot slower this time.”
“Maybe?”
She took my hand and said, “Chad, just don’t lie to me again. I think that you did it because you wanted us to be together, but it wasn’t the best way to do it.”
I sighed, “I know. I learned my lesson, and I wouldn’t do anything to lose you again. Especially when I have a solution that will help both of us in the long run.”
“Oh?”
I nodded, “But as you said, one step at a time.”
“Yes. One step at a time,” she repeated, but I didn’t know if she was doing it for my benefit or her own. I leaned across the table and sealed her lips with my own. I had to kiss those lips. I missed them so much and every part of her. She was willing to give me another chance, something that I didn’t think was possible, but I knew one thing for sure. I wouldn’t fuck up again; I didn’t want to lose the two women that were special in my life. I wouldn’t be repeating that mistake ever again.
Epilogue
Ivy
Our lives had completely changed in more ways than one. It seemed that as careful as I thought I was with the pill, I’d missed out a few days. I wasn’t just pregnant, but I was unemployed, too.
Smith & Jones managed to find more than one contract that I’d been working on, and they were full of mistakes. I could say that it was planned and that there was a conspiracy theory about my dismissal, but it was clear that I spent most of the time daydreaming than I’d done working. I hated my job from the moment I started it, and I didn’t think outside the box.
It was as if I’d decided that being a mother meant that I had to give up my aspirations and my dreams. That everything I believed in had to be pushed to the side. But it was all in my mind. Chad had made me realize that as he talked about his new project and I didn’t hesitate in joining him on it. It was as if our relationship took a completely new turn as I learned that I was pregnant and we were no longer to take it slow.
Slow meant having a couple of picnics and meeting in Starbucks for lunch twice in one week. Kylie told me that it didn’t exist when you met the one, and she knew it from the moment that she admitted how she felt about Noah. Also, she was happy that someone had allowed Chad to grow up. She felt that the guys treated him like a kid. One that they never wanted to upset, but I’d allowed him to grow, and that was admirable. We’ve become close. Something that I didn’t think was possible after Chad had told me on more than one occasion that she hated him.
“Everyone’s coming,” Chad said as he ran up and down the stairs about twenty times. He was nervous. Nervous about the opening day. I couldn’t believe that he had gone from not knowing what he wanted to do with his life to a year of getting planning permission and trying to open a school. Not just any ordinary school, but the plan was to make it from a nursery to a preschool to a high school in time.
Those were the plans for the project, and I was happy to be a part of it. After all, I was knocked up and unemployed. I didn’t approach it gently at first, I dived into it. Especially the legal aspects of it and Chad even suggested that I open up my own practice. Something that I’d toyed with doing in the past, but I didn’t anymore because I was exactly where I wanted to be. I never thought that I would be the type of woman that would settle with just being at home with the kids. Partying and winning cases used to be my life. Now it was being invited to mother groups and talking about babies and the rest of the time, when I’m with Kylie and her friends, men. And I fucking love it. I never thought that it was possible, but being at home isn’t so bad after all. It just turned out to be a different challenge.
“Mommy’s wet herself!” Hazel shouted out and then I thought about it. As I managed to stand up from the wooden chair that I was sitting on, I was lost in my thoughts and smiling at my achievements and my new life that I didn’t think about my water breaking. I had another three weeks and five days to go before my delivery date, but yet this baby wanted to come out now.
“Now?” Chad asked as he ran down the stairs. He was running so fast that I was sure he was going to come down flying on top of me.
I shrugged, “Now.”
In my confusion, my eyes darted towards Chad, mom, Hazel, and Noah. No one moved, they were all looking at me with their mouths open.
I shouted at them to get them out of their trance, “We need to get to the hospital now!”
Chad started muttering, “But the baby’s not due.”
I nodded my head, and mom said, “The due date is just a guideline. Come on peeps; we need to get her to the hospital.”
When did mom use cool words like that?
The contractions started and I couldn’t think about their confusion any longer. Only mom seemed to be the one that was walking with me. The rest were just staring, and Chad was just pacing up and down chanting, “But the baby’s not due yet!
I squeezed Mom’s hand as the contractions started to get faster and faster. Maybe that was why I felt the need to go to the bathroom around three times when we got here. I kept going and sitting on the toilet and wondering why I didn’t seem to pee. But I was an emotional wreck after last week when we did go to the hospital, and I was convinced that I was in labor. The doctor said I had something called Braxton Hicks. False labor. So, this time I didn’t think that it was happening again. That was when Hazel just wet herself as she was coming down the stairs. I could see it dripping from her desk.
“Hazel, did you just wet yourself?”
She nodded, “Mommy did it!”
God! Now, my two year old who is going through the worst troublesome two’s that I’d ever heard of has now decided that she didn’t need to go to the bathroom. I could correct her. Explain what was happening, but I was in pain, and with Chad being completely useless I knew that I had to get out of here, with or without him. And judging by the trail of events it was going to be without him.
I didn’t know if Chad was in the car, nor did I care as I started to scream uncontrollably as the contractions started to get worse. We were supposed to be at the nursery and preschool to make sure that everything was in place for the grand opening tomorrow. I felt guilty at the idea that someone had to go back and clean up not only my water breaking but Hazel peeing in the school, too. Great!
I was thinking crazy things, I was about to have a baby, and I had cleaning on my mind. I remember reading about it was good to focus on something else, apart from giving birth which is great in text, but in reality, it was a fucking nightmare.
I squeezed mom’s hand so damn tight as Noah was telling me to take deep breaths and if Hazel wasn’t in the car I wou
ld have told him to shut the fuck up.
I knew all about the pair of them and their parenting and birthing plan when they had Natalia, their little daughter. I even said that I would do the same thing when I found out that I was pregnant, but fuck all that shit. I needed drugs.
God! Why is Hazel in the car?
After living with Chad and listening to his potty mouth all the time, I could have caught the potty mouth disease, and the only words that are on my mind are curse words all the fucking time.
As Noah parked up and said, “Good girl Ivy, you didn’t lose your cool. You kept up…”
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Shut the fuck up. And park the car!”
He went quiet and followed my instructions as the door opened and I couldn’t remember how to walk or anything. My eyes darted to Hazel who just sat in fright. I think that if she did want to pee herself again, she would have second thoughts about it.
Good!
All of a sudden I felt the need to have Chad by my side. I had visions of him still being at the school pacing up and down and repeating that the baby was early. As the contraction tore through my body; a tear escaped my eye until I felt a hand and it wasn’t Noah or even mom’s. It was Chad.
I smiled at him even as I was trying to grit my teeth at the same time as a contraction tore through me. I cupped his face, “You came?”
He nodded as I moved to the wheelchair and he carted me into the hospital. And I felt as if we were moving so fast, but then it could have been slow, but I was feeling light-headed. I remembered not eating this morning, and I never timed how long we were at the school, but we had been there a little while. I’d been feeling all sorts of emotions this morning, and now I knew the real reason behind it.
“I wouldn’t think of being anywhere else!”
Chad shouted as he pushed me through the hospital. It was as if seeing him made the contractions less painful or something. I was no longer cussing in my mind or even out loud. Mom took the chart to fill in our medical details while Noah was by our side and he was talking to the doctor and giving him a rundown on my contractions. I hated the way that I spoke to him earlier and wanted to tell him sorry. I turned into a mad woman in the space of minutes. The next few minutes didn’t feel so easy. If anything I started to go in and out of consciousness. I could hear different voices. And I felt movement. As if someone was taking off my dress. One minute I would open my eyes, and it would be mom by my side and the next time it would be Chad. People were coming in and out, but I felt weak. Nothing made sense anymore.
