AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I think I’m looking at it,” he said, gesturing around the room.
“No,” she said. “I did something. I’m really happy with it. I hope that you are too.”
She led him up the stairs, and down the hall, and his heart started to feel heavy. Like it hurt when it hit up against the front of his chest. “Alaina...”
“I got the nursery started. I know we don’t know yet if it’s a boy or girl. But I found all your stuff.”
She flung the door open, and a wave of nausea hit him.
What a fucking weird thing. To feel like he was dying just looking at this room. Just standing there.
“Alaina,” he said, looking around at the space. At the little toys up on the shelves, and the tattered rug at the center of the floor, and he couldn’t remember the place ever looking this organized before. The comic books. The comic books were there.
And instantly, he was back in a place he did not want to be. Huddled in a little tent he and his brothers had made in here, with the flashlight on, with him reading out loud to them while there was screaming going on downstairs. Crashing and violence.
Just trying to keep it so they didn’t hear.
And then he saw the army men.
That unopened box.
He’d told himself he wouldn’t open it till she came back.
“I didn’t tell you that you could get this stuff out.”
“I know,” she said. “But you didn’t say that I couldn’t... Gus, it was all in here and... I didn’t want to make the nursery my bedroom without talking to you, because we haven’t talked about whether or not we’re going to share a room, and I didn’t want to get into your space. Because I knew that you might not like that. But there was this room, and I thought that...”
“You thought you would drag out stuff from my horrible childhood. And put our baby in the room that I spent months in while I recovered from just about getting burned alive.” Just standing in here made him feel claustrophobic. “There’s rooms I don’t go into here. There’s stuff I don’t do. There is...”
“Gus...”
“You should have fucking asked,” he said. “This isn’t your playground. I gave you plenty of freedom, but I don’t understand why you didn’t talk to me about this.”
He was losing it. Losing his temper—he could feel it rising up inside of him, and he...he hated himself right then. He really did.
“I’m sorry,” she said, in a voice that was overly calm and soothing. Like he was a rabid animal and she was afraid of being savaged.
“It’s not enough,” he said. “I didn’t say that you could do this.”
And she just stood there, staring up at him. Then she reached out and patted him. She patted him on the shoulder like he was a puppy dog, and not like he was a man standing there about to lose it. “You don’t need to come in here for now. I think it’s a good place for a nursery. Unless you want to share rooms.”
“You want to share a room with me?” he asked.“Look at me.”
“You’re having an emotional reaction to something that is emotional for you. I didn’t realize that it would be. I’m sorry about that. But we have the space we have, so we’re going to have to make some decisions. But we don’t need to do it now. I was excited...”
“Well, I’m not excited.”
She flinched, and he could tell that he’d hurt her, and he didn’t know why he’d said that. Because it had been to hurt her, and that was a dick move.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It is. You can...you can say what you need to.”
“I hate it,” he said. And then he turned and walked out of the room.
And slammed the door. He slammed it, like an angry teenager.
He waited for her to yell. Waited for her to dissolve. To recoil. To tell him that he was horrible. Because he deserved it. Because she was getting too familiar, and he was getting too comfortable. And there it was. All up there. Little boxes of trauma that she’d unpacked like they were just toys. And they weren’t justfucking toys, and they never could be. Just like that could never just be a childhood room.
It couldn’t be anursery.
