A Little Bit of Us (13 page)

     James smiles sadly and his sad eyes light up, “He went through a bout of depression. Started shoving Maya away. She’d been so strong, so brave through the ordeal. There was this one time he got so bad, just wallowing. Wouldn’t let anyone help him bathe or shave. And by god he stunk.” I nod
in agreement and crinkle my nose in disgust. That was an awful week. “She went right up to him and took a pair of scissors to his shirt.”

     He wouldn’t let the nurse bathe him and he wouldn’t listen to reason so I cut his shirt off, he was too weak to protest, I held up a pair of adult diapers and threatened, “Dad, I swear to god if you force me to traumatize not only myself and you as well by cutting your clothes off, wheeling you into the garden and spraying you with a hose… the hose because right now I think you’ll clog the shower with how much filth is crusted on your body… I will put you in one of these and I will take pictures and I will never forgive you, I really don’t want to see the tool that created me.” My dad’s eyes went as wide as saucers, he nodded whilst staring at the scraps of fabric dangling over his shoulders and chest. “Christ dad, you really stink.”

     “He certainly never argued with her again, nobody takes one of Maya’s threats lightly.”

     “Yeah, that snapped him out of i
t, once he was clean and healthy in the mind things got better. He let me take him out to places, he stopped being embarrassed by the oxygen tank and lived his last few months as best as he could.” It was a great win on my part.

     Considering all of the drama of the session James and I left on a good note. I get the shrinks point now, she wanted us to think of something we’d been through together because it helps pop that angry bubble you’re in. You know? Plus she doesn’t analyze us, she’s just like an educated friend. She doesn’t go into detail she just asks the right questions and lets us work it out ourselves. I think this is a great sort of therapy because she could sit there and tell us what to do but if it doesn’t match our way of thinking it’s never going to get through to us. I’m stubborn as a mule and James is sensitive, we are complete opposites so we need to figure things out together in our own way. We should label it the Jaya way, James plus Maya equals Jaya? No takers, no? Ok then. Moving on.

     We go for lunch
at McDonald’s, I eat all of my large meal and finish off James’ as well. What a wise man he’s becoming, I’m referring to the fact he doesn’t comment at all on the amount I eat, even when I eat two brownie Flurry’s straight after. He laughs when I get brain freeze though.

    So now we are at my new doctor’s, waiting to get one of those 3D sonograms
. Shouldn’t be waiting long the receptionist told us, HA, been here an hour and twenty minutes already. During which time I’ve paced the room a thousand times, gone to the bathroom twice only to now need it again and have read and re read the only magazine available that isn’t from the seventy’s.

     “Maya Freeman,” its Joh
nson now but I don’t correct her.

    
We head into the dark room, I hoist myself up onto the bed and roll my top up to expose my belly. James sits on the chair by my side after placing our coats and such on the chair in the corner. Am I nervous? A little bit. Part of me is worried something’s wrong with him, he’s kicking fine but my belly is so small. I looked online at pictures of other pregnant women at twenty weeks and they are huge compared to me. My belly has rounded and you can tell I’m pregnant when I’m lying down but it’s still so small. James is concerned, he’s been a nervous wreck since we walked in.

     “Hi, my name’s Amy, I’m the ultrasound technician,” she smiles and plops herself on the stool by the machine. “You’ve paid for a 3D sonogram today?”

     We both nod and she broadly smiles. She doesn’t look old enough to be out of diapers, the fact she’s chewing gum is extremely unprofessional but the way she’s going at it on the machine is telling me to shut up because she clearly knows what she’s doing.

Give her a chance, she probably just has bad breath or something.

     I’ve been wondering when you’d pop back in my head conscience. She squirts the cool gel on my stomach and starts moving the prong around. I lay back and look at James who is staring at the side of the screen. After clicking a few more times she turns the screen around. It’s brown and black this time but I can see the baby.

     “Everything is fine. All measurements are perfect,” we both sigh with relief. “You’re just a small carrier, my sister was the same.
Do you want to know what you’re having?” she says as she measures him by dragging ovals across the screen.

     “We’re having a boy,
they told us at the last ultrasound,” James grins and takes my hand. I see the baby’s face, he’s sucking his thumb, or what looks like he’s sucking his thumb. We see his leg move and my stomach goes bump. I laugh. “He doesn’t like being spied on.” His little eyes are closes, his nose, yes! I’m almost certain he has my nose. James has a nice nose but if I have to look at a nose all day I’d prefer it to be my own.

     “You say you’re having a boy?” she says and frowns
in concentration at the screen. We both nod. She moves the prong a little further to the left. “This is definitely a girl.” A what? “Yep, look, see. No penis.”

     “Really?” James breathes looking a little shocked. There’s a grin plastered on my face, I actually feel happy. “That’s, great.”

     “I’m sorry you were misinformed. It happens sometimes,” she moves the prong so we can see my baby’s face and not her moo. “I hope you didn’t buy anything you can’t return.”

     I shake my head and let out a laugh, “No, not yet.”

     James kisses my lips softly and rubs his nose against mine, “A girl. I guess we can’t call it James.”

     I laugh, “No but we can call her Maya.”

     “I love you and everything babe, but hell will freeze over before I give my daughter a childish name like Maya.” I feign offence and slap his arm. For once I don’t feel so bad about this pregnancy. Especially now I’m having a girl. I never claimed to not be selfish or a little shallow.

     We leave the doctors with a couple of pictures, DVD’s and matching smiles, our fingers laced between us as we head to the car. “What do you want to do?” James asks as I switch up the heating.

     “We need to sort my closet out, get rid of my clothes.”

     “You’ll be able to wear them again in a few months.”

      Probably not, “Most of my clothes will be out of fashion by the time I can wear them again. Not all of them just the ones I don’t wear anymore. We’ll donate them to a thrift store or something.”

     He nods with a smile, “Ok. Let’s do that.”

     “I’m only going to refill it anyway.” I announce with an excited smile. “Most likely this week. I hope they do maternity clothes by my favorite Designers.”

     We have been sorting my closet out for the last two hours, I have so many clothes and some I haven’t seen in years. Let’s not forget the fact I had movers pack and move my things.

     “What is this?” James asks and holds up a bright green wrap dress. I shrug, “I think it’s from neon day at school.”

     “Neon day?”

     “Yeah, we were rebelling against the uniforms.”

     “Sounds cool, we’ll keep this,” for some reason he likes the look of said dress. Yuck, at least it has sentimental value. We continue sorting through my things until there’s a huge pile on the floor bigger than James whilst sat down. He’s somewhere behind it putting it all into bags. “Most of this stuff still has tags.”

You have a problem.

     I don’t reply I just continue grabbing and throwing stuff over my shoulder. By the time I’m finished my back is aching, I’m sweating like a pig and I’m as hungry as a horse. James is still bagging things up when I lay on the bed, just to rest my eyes of course. I’m asleep before I can even shut my eyes.

     I stir a little from my forgotten dream as light fingers trail across my forehead, they push the hair away and soft lips connect with my temple. My hands reach up, I grab the solid warm body leaning over me and pull it down beside me. So tired, so comfy. The body curls around mine and strong arms go around me. This is nice. Now sleep.

     Ok, matern
ity clothes suck. Maternity bra’s suck, maternity anything sucks. The only thing I actually like are the dungarees, because they’re cute. I wouldn’t wear them outside though. All of the jeans and such have fabric waistlines which is stretchy and looks ridiculous. According to Marie her friend never wore maternity clothes she just wore leggings and nice long tops and stuff. So we vote for that.

     “My back hurts,” I moan for the tenth time since leaving the house this morning. “And your perfume is pissing me off.”

     Marie laughs and slides her arm around my waist, “Lucas told me you got barred from the movie theatre.”

     I groan and
bury my face in my hands, “Nothing like the time you streaked through college.”

     “You said you’d never bring that up!”

     “This is also one of those times.”

     She scrunches up her face in mock irritation, “You’re no fun.”

     Grinning wickedly I skip over to the baby clothes section, for girls. Marie couldn’t believe it when I told her the first ultra sound person in LA made a mistake. So I’ve agreed to look at some bits for girls. Might get me in the mood. I was so wrong, looking at all of these tiny dresses and pants and shoes… oh god. This is so messed up its unreal.

     “I can’t do this! Remember when I volunteered at the animal shelter for a day and I forgot to feed the dogs.”

     Marie bursts into a fit of laughter, “Oh my god! You were like, why won’t they stop barking at me!”

     It was only their lunch… I was on my own with Marie
and two others who were with the other animals. She never told me they’d need feeding. I could barely remember to feed myself.

     “And that time you dropped Summer
’s hamster.” She continues and my heart plummets a little more. “And that time you…”

     “I get it, I suck,” there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to raise a child. I’m still a child in my own head. I feel like I’m losing every piece of me.

     I never wanted a pet growing up, never even asked for one. My dad got me a goldfish, we all know how that turned out, I’m sure I’ve told this story already. It died by choking on a stone and I don’t even remember its name. There was this guy who used to jog my way with his dog when I was in high school and the lead broke, the fucking thing barreled me over and unfortunately it was huge! Then it started humping me! I kicked it by accident whilst trying to scramble away and the guy had a go at me. That’s not even fair and it still aggravates me to think about. It’s not like I purposely kicked the dog and aimed for its balls. And of course I felt bad. What if that happens with my daughter, what if I sit on her or something? That’s possible right?

     What if I forget to feed her, or I feed her too much? Or if she won’t stop crying. Do I put her in another room? That doesn’t sound right. This is so wrong on so many levels!

     “Breathe,” Marie chuckles and cups my face with her hands. “You’ll be fine. I promise.”

     “Would you be fine if this was you?”

     “Nope.”

     “Well, I’m worse than you,
so how’d you figure that one out?” I prod her in the chest and fold my arms in a strop. “This sucks.”

     A woman comes over with a happy face which irritates me further, “Can I help either of you?”

     “No,” I snap and turn to leave. I hear Marie apologize to her before following me. “Let’s go finish up our Christmas shopping.”

    
I get Lucas a new phone, because his is so outdated the Mayan’s are probably asking for their brick back, I get Jacob a couple of band T-shirts with his favorite bands on the front and an awesome glow in the dark bright green wrist watch. He’ll hate it. What exactly do you buy a guy that has everything he loves? Something he hates of course! Amelia is easy, anything pink and girly. Dresses and toys are now on order. For Sylvia I gift her with a spa day. Marie got my car but I get her a spa day too, can’t not give gifts for Christmas, same for Summer and also Jessica just in case we start talking again anytime soon, I miss that girl.

Call her.

She’s the one with the issue.

If she’s truly you’re friend then it doesn’t matter who’s at fault.

She shouldn’t even care about Maya’s love life. It’s none of her business.

And that attitude is the reason we are so fucked up in the first place!

I have to agree with that. I’ll think more of it later.

    
Now for James, what can I get for James? Ties, socks, some sexy underwear with superhero comics on them. Shouldn’t I get him something meaningful?

     Wait a minute, is that… “Marie, it’s her.” W
e both lean sideways around the pillar we’re stood by whilst looking at men’s clothing for James. Sure enough, there’s bony blonde walking with an older man. “Probably her sugar daddy. What a slut.”

    
Marie snorts as we assess the too skinny female clinging onto the older man with grey hair. He leaves her side and right at that moment she turns our way. I jump back, attempting to hide, my back bashes into Marie’s chest, Marie stumbles and her knee connects with the back of my knee which causes it to buckle. I fall but she catches me and falls with me. We both tumble backwards and crash into a row of clothes. The mannequin to the side also falls, Marie protects my body with hers and it lands on her back, she grunts but seems unharmed. There’s a clothes hanger digging into my side. Fuck.

     “Oh my god, are you ok?” a few people in the store come over to help us up.
Marie and I brush ourselves off, take one look at the mannequin whose head has fallen off and is rolling away and burst into our usual cackling laughter. “They’re ok.” Someone else says in relief.

     “I’m so sorry,” I gasp for air and try to calm my laughter.
“I’m completely off kilter what with the bump.” I point to my noticeable bump. The store worker waves me off as they get to work on tidying up the mess. “I’ll pay for the damages.”

     The guy just laughs and waves me off again. Then my happy moment is gone when I catch the eyes of bony blonde who has clearly come to check out the commotion. The evil she gives me is seriously weak. Honey, I can do that so much better. Let me show you.

     “Blonde,” I say and Marie steps beside me. Now you think my scowls are scary, get a look at Marie’s she has the scary eyes down to a T. “Wrecked any marriages recently?”

     “Just yours apparently,” she glances
down at my stomach and frowns in confusion. “That didn’t take long.”

     “Yep, she and James are very happy,” Marie adds with a smug smile.

     Bony’s scowl comes back full force mixed with a sneer and then it softens. “Tell James I said thank you so much for getting me a job at Martin’s Gaming Corporation. He was right, the pay is so much better.” Blonde bitch say what? “Yeah, did he not tell you he was still seeing me after you left? By the look on your face I’d say not.”

     Oh she didn’t. What the hell do I say to that? Marie grips my arm and shakes her head. Then she starts unbuttoning her jacket, I know what’s about to happen so I grip her arm and shake my head.
This isn’t worth fighting over, I don’t believe her. I refuse to believe her. James wouldn’t risk everything for that.

     “Be careful bitch,” Marie hisses menacingly. “If it was James who got you the job. Then Maya can…” I slap my hand over her mouth and start pulling her away
without looking back. When I get her outside she gasps for air. “You psycho bitch, what’d you do that for?”

     “Umm… you are aware that if you say that and she
loses her job anytime soon I could get my ass sued.”

      “Good point. Who you calling?”

      Who the hell does she think? I want to get to the bottom of this. Please don’t be true, please. “James.”

     “What’s up baby?” I can hear the smile in his voice.
Damn him.

     “Did you by any chance get
bony blonde a job at Martin’s Gaming Corporation?” ok, that didn’t come out as strong and demanding as I would have liked.

     “Babe,” he sighs and I immediately know it to be true. “I couldn’t just fire her…”

     Well! “Why the hell not?” I’m shrieking now. Marie is pulling me to her car. “James?”

     “Because I fucked her Maya, if I fired her she could
’ve sued my ass off for unfair dismissal. So I got her a different job. She was a good worker it didn’t take much… babe. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

     “Did you see her after?”

     “What’s brought this on?”

     “Did you see her at all afterwards?”

     “No!” he shouts and I believe him on this at least. “Of course not. I got her the job and sent her on her way. I traded her with one of their guys. I’m sorry…” yeah, you always are James. I hang up and stamp my foot, “God dammit.”

    
“Chill, what’s happened?”

     “Nothing I can’t handle.”

     She grins wickedly, “I love that look on your face. It means trouble.” Oh yes it does my dear. Yes it does.

     This brings back memories, fabulous memories of the time I stuck as many items as possible to James’ ceiling. I love my brilliant mind. Bump. Baby loves it too.

Seriously consider this.

You know what they say about sex… it’s a good way to relieve tension. Just saying.

Don’t do this. You know you’ll regret it.

     I won’t regret a thing. Now all I have to do is wait. Evil laugh full blast, should really invest in that fluffy grey cat I mention so much. I’ll just wait until the kids born and put her in one of those fluffy all in one things, sit her on my lap and stroke her hair. Whilst doing the evil laugh. Of course I’ll need a spinning chair too…

Our girl is back!

It’s a shame she’s acting like a nun in the process.

     “Hey,” James smiles nervously as he steps into the room. He leans over to kiss my forehead, I move so he gets my lips. I can see suspicion turning the wheels in his head. He’s wondering why I’m not angry but if I know James he won’t say anything. Eggshells remember? He’ll just be happy I’m finally being attentive towards him. I watch as a number of emotions flit across his face, finally ending with a smile, “I’m gonna go have a bath. Want to join me?”

     “Do you know what? I think I will,” his grin broadens when I agree and take his hand. He’s so predictable, every other day he has a bath at night
and the morning after he has a shower, my careful calculating proved tonight is bath night. It’s weird but kind of adorable and maybe a little OCD. Let the torture commence.

     Everything’s right where it should be, I double check on our way into the bathroom. James leans over and twists the taps on. He even pours in some bubble bath. Then he turns to me and pulls me to him. His hands don’t waste time ripping my top from my body. By ripping I mean ripping, I just heard it tear a little. I don’t mind, it’s really hot.

     I feel his hands flatten
on my stomach and he sinks to his knees, he smiles and kisses the space above my belly button and then below before releasing the knot that is holding my sweats up. He tugs them down and makes me step out of them, I can tell by his trembling hands that he’s losing control and fast. Especially since I’m not wearing any panties. Before my right foot hits the floor he has it over his shoulder and his mouth is right there. His tongue is seriously right there, on that perfect spot, the one so many men never get but he gets every fucking time.

     My hands grip his too long hair and I moan low in my throat as he circles my throbbing clit with his moist tongue. I begin to shake with each swirl, each flick
of his tongue, and every single breath escaping him that cools my soaking core. My knee that is holding me up threatens to buckle. I’m so close, so damn close.

     “God,” I cry out as my back arches, I feel the tingling straight to my toes.

Even your hair is frizzing from this.

     “Don’t stop,”
I manage to bite out through my clenched teeth. My hands wrap tighter in his hair almost to ripping point, my hips buck against his face, so damn close. “James.” The peak is there, I’m on the edge and about to fall. My leg drops and his hands pull mine from his hair. I don’t have time to adjust before he’s standing in front of me with fully dilated pupils and ragged breath, his lips moist with the taste of me. His mouth slams onto mine, I don’t think I’ve ever met this James before, this one’s an animal. This isn’t an angry fuck, or a frantic fuck, or a fuck full of love. This is a man who has lost control.