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I set down my brush and slowly make my way to the front door then just stand there. Maybe he’s left and I can just go back to painting. I’m about to turn around when the bell rings again. Instead of standing there a moment longer in this torturous limbo I wrench the door open.
“Carson.” The word escapes me on a breath. I’m not even sure I said it loud enough for him to hear me. He’s got on a pair of loose fitting jeans that are sitting low on his hips and a faded,plum colored polo shirt. His hair is getting just a little long on the top and I barely resist the urge to reach up and run my fingers through it. How the hell is it fair that he looks so good when I know exactly how I look in my old, paint stained clothes and messy hair.
“Hey, Bianca.” He gives me one of his little smirks and I want to melt on the spot but instead I remind myself that he shouldn’t be here and I shouldn’t be talking to him. Not if I ever plan on getting over him. Okay, getting over him is a stretch, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do that, but I would like to limit the number of times I think of him a day from about three hundred to a nice manageable ten or so.
“You’re not supposed to be here, Carson. I thought I made that very clear.”
The smile leaves his face and I hate that I’m hurting him but I know I’m doing the right thing. Right? “I know you don’t want me here but will you please let me in. I have something I want to say and if you don’t like it then I’ll walk away and leave you alone. Forever. I just need a few minutes of your time.”
The thought of him leaving me alone forever shouldn’t feel like such a stab to the heart. “There’s absolutely nothing that you could say that would change how things are between us, Carson. I think it’s best that you leave.” I start to swing the door closed but he places his hand out and stops it.
“I don’t just have things to say, I have something to show you too. Will you at least let me show you before you send me away?” His voice has a tinge of desperation to it and my guilt comes rising up. I know I put that desperation there. What’s the harm in seeing what he has to show me? Plus, I could talk to him about seeing Oliver sometime. Maybe I could take him to his art class a few times a month.
I step back from my place in the doorway, creating plenty of room for him to pass by me. “Fine, but five minutes and that’s it.”
“That’s all I need, Sparky.” He passes so close to me I can smell his soap and it causes a tingling between my legs that I immediately shut down.
“I hate it when you call me that,” I mumble.
“No, you don’t.” That smirk is back and instead of making me melt it makes me want to smack it off his face. Instead I lead him into the living room and sit in the chair that’s facing the couch, that way he won’t be able to sit next to me. There’s no use in tempting fate.
He perches on the edge of the sofa, resting his forearms on his knees and clasping his hands together. The look in his eyes is so earnest and pleading they make my chest ache. We’re silent for a long minute, just staring at one another in the stillness of the house.
“You had something you wanted to show me?” I prompt him to move this along. I look and notice he didn’t bring anything over with him so I’m not quite sure what he possibly has to show me but his presence is starting to make me feel claustrophobic.
“I do. I just want to say something first.” I open my mouth to tell him I don’t want to hear it but he forges on before I can get the words out. “I know I’ve told you I don’t care about having kids, Bianca, and I know that you don’t believe me. I understand where your mistrust comes from. If I had experienced the same rejection you have over and over again for something I had no control over, I’m not sure what I would have done. But I know how I feel about you and even though you don’t believe me, I know what I want. It’s you, Bianca. I’m not going to change my mind about that. I know that words don’t mean much to you, that they can be twisted and rescinded. But I’m not willing to lose you over this so I did something that will hopefully showyou that I’m committed to you no matter what. Whether you can or can’t have children doesn’t matter to me. Hell, even if you could have them, I know you don’t want them and I’m fine with that.” He lifts slightly from the couch and reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a folded piece of paper that’s slightly crumpled, before holding it out to me. “I did the only thing I could think of that would give me even a chance of you believing me.”
I stare mutely at the piece of paper. Almost afraid of what it could be. I want to believe him, I really do. I just don’t. I guess that’s not true, I do believe he feels that way right now, I just think that odds are his feelings will change in the future and he’ll either feel stuck with me or he’ll leave me, shattered and broken. I don’t know how a simple piece of paper could change all that but I want it to. I really do but I’m terrified it won’t change a thing and that will be it. We’ll be done and over.
“Go on, take it,” he says gently after I make no move to take the paper from him. I reach out slowly and slide it out of his hand. I can feel his eyes on me, like a weight, while I slowly unfold it.
I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t this. It’s some kind of official looking form with a couple of pages stapled behind it. My eyes scan down the first page and I’m more and more confused the longer I look at it. That is until my eyes catch on one word.
I can feel my jaw drop and my eyes go big. I quickly look over at Carson who’s sitting and I suddenly notice how he’s nervously fidgeting with his hands.
“You got a vasectomy?!” Even though I didn’t really mean it to, the question comes out as a shout. I don’t know what to think. I’m feeling a bit stunned.
“I told you it was the only thing I could think of to get you to believe me that I don’t need to have children.”
“Are you crazy?” I’m pretty sure I yelled that too. I can’t seem to stop. Or pick my jaw up off the floor. He gets off the sofa and moves over to where I’m sitting, pulling me up out of my chair and wrapping his arms around my waist.
“I’m absolutely crazy, but you have to take some responsibility for making me this way.”
“Are you trying to say you getting a vasectomy is my fault?” I ask incredulously. That’s just what I need. Before, I worried that he would regret that he didn’t have kids because of me, now I have to worry that I made him get an entire medical procedure on one of the pieces of his anatomy I love the most.
He cups my face with his hands. “God, no Bianca. It’s not your fault, it’s not anybody’s fault. The thing is, it doesn’t matter. I love you so much the thought of having a child with anybody else is physically repulsive to me. If I was going to have children, which I’m not, it wouldn’t be with anybody except for you. So whether I got this done or not, it doesn’t matter. I’m not having kids. Shit, I hope that doesn’t mean my insurance company is going to deny it for not being medically necessary.”
He gives me a grin but I just smack his chest in response. “This is not the time to be joking,” I say while trying to hold in a laugh. It was a little funny.
“Babe, it didn’t matter how many times I told you that I loved you and only needed you and Oliver to be happy. Your mind wasn’t going to let you believe me and unfortunately for me, I don’t seem to be able to live without you. The only thing that’s ever really scared me, I mean truly terrified me, was the thought of losing you. I’ not just talking about when you were taken, I’m talking about these past weeks without you. I knew that I had to find some way to show you how I felt, that pretty words weren’t going to cut it. This was the only thing I could think of.”
“The only thing you could think of was getting a vasectomy? I think you need to crack open a book, maybe get some more education. That is completely insane, Carson.”
“Yeah, but did it work?”
He’s looking at me with such hope and love in his eyes while stroking my cheek. Is he crazy? Abso-fucking-lutely. Who gets a medical procedure to convince a woman to be with you? Apparently Carson. And I’m the woman he did it for. If I ignored this and just sent him away I’d be almost as crazy as he is. Almost.
“Look, this doesn’t give you carte blanch to go off and doing something stupid every time I’m mad at you but… yeah, it worked,” I say with a smile.
