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“Oh believe me, hon. If some psycho ex of mine was stalking and threatening me, you had best bet your ass I’m asking for help,” she spouts. “I’m not going to let my pride get in the way of the safety of myself – or my child.”
She gives me a very pointed look to make sure her meaning is clear. It is. And I guess that’s where my thinking in all of this has been wrong – I’m not in this alone. Not anymore. From now on, I need to start thinking and making decisions for two people. I need to start making decisions that are in the best interest of my child. Not just me. Not anymore.
“As for Aaron’s role in the baby,” Olivia lectures, “that’s something the two of you are going to have to figure out. I mean, you obviously can’t force him to be a part of the baby’s life.”
“Unfortunately not,” I say softly. “I didn’t expect him to pull away like this. It’s actually the last thing I expected him to do.”
Olivia takes another drink of her coffee and sets the cup down carefully. She’s quiet, as if trying to choose her words carefully. Everything about Aaron and our relationship – such as it is – is entirely contrary to my nature. Everything we’ve done has been rash and impulsive. For two people who value logic and reason, we have acted in a manner wholly without those two qualities. We acted like a couple of lovesick kids. Well, drunk and lovesick kids.
But I’d be lying, if I said I didn’t enjoy it. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the feeling of acting on emotion, rather than nothing but cold logic for a change. I enjoyed flying by the seat of my pants and doing such unpredictable things. Basically, I got a taste of the chaos that surrounds other people and I liked it. I liked it a lot.
“Do you love him?”
Olivia’s question is so point-blank that it catches me off guard, leaving me sputtering and spitting for a moment. Do I love him? That’s a question I haven’t even asked of myself just yet. Our relationship is far too young to even be thinking about that question – let alone answering it right now.
“I don’t know, Olivia,” I admit. “I mean, I like him. I like Aaron a lot.”
Her smile is warm and genuine. “I can tell.”
My cheeks warm up again and I know I’m turning a deep shade of scarlet. “But I don’t know if I love him, Olivia. I think it’s a bit too early for all that.”
“Not necessarily. Sometimes, when you know you know,” she tells me. “Besides, you knew him in college, so it’s not like you’re total strangers or anything.”
“We kind of are,” I say. “College was over a decade ago now. People change.”
“Sometimes, people don’t,” she replies. “Not in some ways. Oftentimes, the most important ways.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say softly.
“Listen, I mean, I don’t want to get too up in your love life and all –”
“No? Since when?”
She laughs and gives me the finger. “I’m just saying that something about this guy really seems to light you up inside, Emily,” she tells me. “In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you this excited about the possibility of having a relationship with somebody. You’re different today than you were before you and Aaron reconnected.”
“I think that’s crap,” I respond.
She shakes her head. “It’s really not. The changes are small and subtle – something only your best friend can see, probably – but they’re there all the same,” she tells me. “Even if you’re not going to admit it to yourself, you care about Aaron. And you care about him a lot.”
I sip my coffee, rolling her words around in my head a bit. I can’t necessarily refute any of them outright – simply because I haven’t yet had the chance to sit, reflect, and self-evaluate all of them, or my feelings about them.
But just as I can’t refute them, I can’t necessarily confirm them, either. Oh, I let myself get caught up in the emotions he inspires within me. I let myself be swept away by his amazing good looks, hard body, keen mind, and razor-sharp wit. And I let myself be sucked in by his wiles and charms.
Does all of that equal love, though? I have my doubts. It seems to me, more a strong case of infatuation. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s real. Nor, I guess, does it mean it’s not.
I like Aaron a lot. But do we have a future together? I really don’t know at this point. It’s entirely possible that I’m firewalling all of my feelings for him at this point as I brace for what I feel is the inevitable brush-off. Something in the back of my mind tells me that he cares about me – I know he does. I can feel it. But that same voice tells me that’s not going to be enough to keep him by my side. It tells me the baby – specifically, my determination to keep it – is going to force us down two different paths in life. Which is why my brain seems to be taking the steps necessary to shield me from the pain of it all when it does happen. Which some part of me is ultimately convinced it will.
“I don’t know Aaron. Obviously,” Olivia starts. “But from everything you’ve told me about him, it’s that he’s a good man and in many ways, the two of you are a lot alike.”
“Uncomfortably so, sometimes.”
“Then you, better than anybody, should know and understand that it’s going to take him a little time to absorb all of this. From acting so impulsively that you two got married, to finding out he has a completely unexpected baby on the way – it’s a lot to take in,” Olivia continues. “And for somebody who is so brain-first as you’ve told me Aaron is, that’s going to rock his entire world. You need to give him a little time to absorb and process it all.”
“I’ve managed to absorb and process it all already,” I snap.
“Yeah, but that’s because you’re living with it twenty-four-seven. You feel the changes going on inside of you and can feel the life growing,” she replies. “For him, it’s still totally abstract. He can’t relate to it and so, as somebody who is used to quantifiable evidence, something lacking that is harder to get his mind around.”
I blow out a big puff of air. “Yeah, maybe.”
