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The car is silent and suddenly I feel like bursting into tears and doing some seriously messy, hardcore ugly crying. I don’t give in to the impulse, mostly because I don’t want to look like a hormonal wreck. Maybe I am, but I also hate that it might already be the changes going on inside of me, so I batten down the hatches and make sure my eyes stay dry.
And I finally risk a glance over at Daniel.
He raises a brow at me and shit. Shit on so many sticks. Shit on an infinite amount of sticks. Daniel’s eyes aren’t dry. His cheeks aren’t either. He’s just sitting there, holding an icepack to his manly goods, crying silent tears.
Which of course makes my dam bust loose and now we’re both sitting here in his car, in the hospital parking lot. At least he’s quiet. I’m not. I start hiccupping after a minute, and then the snot starts flowing and the sobs come harder and harder until I’m shaking. Until I feel like I’m going to break apart and when I do, I’m not going to be blood and bones and other goo, I’m just going to be this great big bundle of salt water, like a water balloon bursting.
“Come here,” Daniel says softly, and when his hand comes down on my shoulder to gently guide me into the hard middle console, I’m in no position to not go.
He has big arms, arms s big that all he has to do is lean over and they pretty much encompass me and half his car. The middle leather and plastic part hits my side, but my cheek ends up resting on Daniel’s warm shoulder. The fabric of his t-shirt is soft under my skin, and he’s hard under that. A wall of thickly padded muscle and bones twice the size of mine. He’s strong and he feels strong, and right now, that’s exactly what I need. My cheek is near his left side, and when I calm down enough to slow the sobs to a less painful rhythm, I can hear his heart whomping under my ear.
What man can be told his going to be a father right after being tea bagged by his own cactus and having to endure god knows what in the hospital room for an examination, and still have a steady heartbeat?
Daniel’s thick fingers stroke through the strands of my hair, soothing me while it feels like I’m ripping apart. His question more than shocks me. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”
I wrench my head up to look into his fathomless, night sky eyes. “N-no,” I sob-choke. “W-why would y-you s-say that?”
Is that why he’s crying? Oh my god, did I just make him cry?
It hits me then, and I mean really hits me, that the most attractive thing about Daniel isn’t his attractiveness. It’s his good, sweet, mushy soul. It’s the fact that he doesn’t have an agenda of any kind. He’s totally and utterly unpretentious and that’s so, so rare.
“Well, it would stand to reason that you wouldn’t want an irresponsible asshole in your baby’s life. Do you think that I fall into that category? Into the same category of men who makes a child and then can forget that he has one altogether and get on with his pigheaded, selfish life, blissfully shucking his responsibilities and eschewing all cares?”
Okay. Yes. Shit. I made him cry.
“I didn’t mean it that way.” I wish I could pull away and go back to my seat and stop touching him, but instead I find my hand reaching over, my fingers coming to rest on the side of his jaw. His skin is so hot it feels fevered. “I just- I was trying to explain that you don’t get a choice. It’s my choice, and that doesn’t really seem fair to me because if you didn’t want a child, you can’t make me not have it.”
“I can’t believe you would say that.”
“I’m not saying it about you, I’m just saying it in abstract!”
Daniel’s head hits the headrest and my hand goes with it. I refuse to be dislodged. He’s hurting and he might even be angry with me, but he’s still got his arm wrapped around me, one hand resting on the crown of my head.
“I wasn’t trying to- to- to put a knife in you or comment about your personality. That- what I was trying to explain- I wasn’t trying to say you were that kind of man. I was just trying to tell you that if you didn’t want this, it’s okay. I was trying to be fair.”
“I don’t know if you can be fair in this. This isn’t the type of thing that’s fair or not fair. There’s a baby inside of you. Our baby. One day that person is going to be like you and me and have hopes and dreams, hurts, and wants, and- and- and life experience. I grew up virtually without parents. I don’t want that to happen to my child.”
