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I know Mom can’t. I don’t like thinking about that either because my mom has weathered major health crises with the two people she loves. I’m aware those feelings add to the reasons I find having children unappealing. I don’t want to bring a baby into the world who would suffer the way I did. And while I’m intelligent enough to understand it’s unavoidable, deep down I don’t want to leave anyone else on this earth lonely and longing for me.
“You want me to experience motherhood, but have you considered for a second that isn’t whatIwant? I don’t need children to feel fulfilled. I left Gavin because I don’t want my mind changed. I want him to experience being a parent with someone else. He deserves to be happy and marrying me would’ve been tragic.
“Having a baby would have made both of us miserable because only one of us pictured our life as incomplete without kids.
“I’m allowed to be as selfish about this, Mom, as anyone who does everything they can to have a child when they’re told they can’t get pregnant. It’s okay not to want the responsibility of giving birth and raising another person. It’s okay to not have it in you.”
I was assured my father had my best interest at heart. However, when I went to my dad for advice because he was a doctor I trusted, he asked me something I’ll never forget.
“Paisley, what if when I was your age someone told me to not become a cardiologist and carry a child instead?”
"No one would have asked you that,” I scoffed. He was a heart doctor. I wanted a simple boutique I’d been planning my entire teenage years.
“And no one should ask it of you either.”
Suddenly, Dad’s dreams had the same weight as my own. It wasn’t that he was capable of something better than me. It was that I was capable. Period.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” My mother wipes her cheeks.
“It wasn’t his secret to share.”
“You don’t like babies?”
“Oh, I love babies. Other people’s babies. I plan to spoil Greer’s baby rotten.” I giggle lighthearted.
Mom gives me a watery smile and a hug. “Is there anything else you need to tell me?”
“I didn’t tell Jake about my heart surgeries and that’s why we broke up.” A straggling tear tumbles onto my lap.
She shakes her head. “That makes no sense.”
“Really, mom? He’s around tall, perfect women who prance around topless without zero scars between their boobs. Think Jake Ballentine wants to pass a short girl with a cardiac issue off as the epitome of womanhood?”
I hide my scar with pretty clothes. Not because it bothers me that I have a heart condition, but because the inquisitive looks and questions I used to get about it became intrusive. I don’t mind discussing it on my terms. But I’m also certain that I didn’t want Jake to see it—for him to see me as flawed—and that’s why neither of us getting fully naked when we fooled around was a relief.
Not to mention, I don’t want kids and Jake definitely held me closer when the subject of having a baby came up on the dance floor.
The only thing we did right was fight… And kiss.
Four days and I miss his kisses.
But Jake and I were so mismatched. My humiliation when he ran out is a taste of my own medicine. As a general rule, I’d say my health wasn’t his damn business, but I deserved as much for not disclosing an obvious problem to Jake. I’d begun caring too much about him and what he thought about me.
I even feel like I forced Jake’s hand by making him tell me he liked me. He said love—and both he and I know I was fishing for that word—so having our first time together blow up was a pie in my face. It shouldn’t come as a shock that Jake lies to get his way.
“I don’t know, Paisley. Far be it from me to defend Jake Ballentine, but from what I saw at the gala, you had Jake in a trance.”
“I’ll get over it.” I bat a heavy hand. He was just my hot-as-sin rebound guy. “It’s better this way. Plus, Jake admitted he threw the rock and shattered the boutique window.”
I wasn’t planning on admitting that to my mom.
It’s also something I deserve for being naïve enough to fall for a snake.
My mother gasps and hugs me, hard. Mom didn’t approve of me dating Jake. Yet she also didn’t put any major roadblocks in my way and I made sure if I spoke to her about him, it was in a positive light. It did little to change her ingrained opinion of him, but Mom also understands—even if I’m denying it—that what he and I had was special to me.
We look at one another and the fissures in my heart crack a tiny bit more. She’s still upset and crying because she can’t fix my life. And it hurts that I can’t fix hers and make losing my dad, and finding out he kept things from her, any easier.
My mother uses her thumbs to wipe my tears away. “You look so tired, Paisley. You need a vacation. You work too hard and should have taken a break before the wedding.”
