Just A Small Town Girl (22 page)

“Get dressed and sit down,” I ordered when he stared at the jumble of clothes in his hands as if it was a foreign object.

Once his pants were on I took a steadying breath and chose my words carefully, knowing that would be the last time I spoke to him for a long time if ever.

“Do you love me Fisher? Actually don’t answer that. Did you love me? Before I got pregnant and before you proposed did you love me?” I uncrossed and re-crossed my arms, staring down at him.

“Yes to both, it kills me sometimes, but I love you Piper.”

“Then why did you call me a whore?”

“I was angry and I was hurt,” he hopped up to pull me into his arms and I stepped out of reach, gesturing for him to sit again. He sat, whispering, “I’m sorry, I should never have spoken to you like that.”

I acknowledged his words with a nod; it was too late for apologies. “You came here tonight and treated me like a slut.”

“I’m sorry Piper,” he scrubbed his hands up and down his face, beginning to grasp how hurtful his actions were.

“Why did you ask me if the baby was yours?”

“Because it was a possibility!” he wasn’t at all apologetic about this and I understood, “You said you weren’t sure yourself,” he shook his head, digging his fingers into the back of his neck.

I sank into the couch next to him, “But before I said that you asked, just because you saw me with Sam.”

“Because I proposed to you and you rode off with him,” he took my hands in his and I was reminded of doing the exact same thing in the exact same spot the night we first formally met.

“I was scared,” I sighed, “I just got divorced Fisher and you asked me to marry you. I was terrified.”

“Yeah that was dumb of me,” he laughed and I almost forgave him.

I pulled my hands back; focusing on my reason for making him talk to me in the first place.

“When you asked me if the baby was yours it hurt me,” he started to speak, but I put my hand up to stop him, “You made me feel like I really was the type of girl who might have no idea who her baby’s father was and that cut me deep. I was so hurt that I wanted to hurt you back, so without really thinking I told you I wasn’t sure, but I am sure who the father is. I’ve only had sex with one man in the last year.”

His eyes grew wide, “Piper, are you saying?” he paused, reaching out to touch my belly, but stopping just short, “I’m going to be a father again?”

I nodded, tears pricking at my eyes.

Fisher sank to his knees on the floor in front of me. His hands fell flat against the expanse of my t-shirt and he bunched it up so his palm could rest against my skin, feeling for our child.

“I’ve missed so much,” he didn’t accuse me, but his words sent streams of guilt to my stomach, bottoming it out. His thumb crossed over my brand new outie belly button as his fingers travelled my skin. “Marry me?” he looked up into my eyes and I could tell he wasn’t expecting a positive response.

“I can’t. Even if I wasn’t divorced I wouldn’t.” I placed my hands on top of his, pulling them away from me and readjusting my shirt, “You hurt me and you degraded me Fisher. I won’t keep you from your daughter, but I can’t be with you.”

“It’s a girl?” he smiled crookedly, leaning back to sit on his heels.

“It’s not for sure, but I think so,” I smiled, imagining my face probably looked a lot like his, “she’s due in October.”

“Have you thought about names?” his voice was filled with hope.

“We can do that together,” telling him gave me a partner in this. There was someone else to get as excited as I was about every detail and development, “Do you want to see the nursery?”

He nodded, following me down the hall to the extra room.

“Just ignore that,” I gestured at the male clothes thrown around half of the room, “Sam’s staying here this weekend.”

Fisher scoffed, running his fingers along the white painted wood of the crib.

“And that is exactly why I won’t marry you.”

His eyebrows shot up in question.

“You don’t trust me. Sam is one of my best friends and I have known him all of my life, but he had his chance. We don’t work as a couple and we never will, so why are you threatened by something as silly as him coming to town because he knew this weekend would be hard for me with you here?” I sank down to sit on the edge of the bed.

“I trust you. I just don’t trust him,” he sat next to me, still holding a stuffed penguin from the crib in his hands.

We sat in silence for a while and I wondered if he was as lost in his thoughts as I was in mine.

“Do you think we could ever try again?” the words came out like he’d been chanting them in his head.

I shrugged.

“I have some work to do, on myself, but maybe we could try again,” he slipped one hand into mine and brought my fingers to his lips for a kiss.

“You just found out you’re going to be a father, I read you the riot act, and I’m sure you’re feeling nostalgic about being home. I don’t want you to make any decisions you’re going to regret.”

Fisher sniffed out a humorless laugh, nodding, “Damn, you can be stubborn Piper,” he kissed my fingers one more time before separating our hands. “You’re still a visual learner,” he smiled at me before walking down the hallway and out of my apartment.

I opened my eyes slowly, I was so tired lately and the extra hours I’d spent crying over the official loss of my romantic relationship with Fisher before I finally fell asleep hadn’t helped. I scrubbed the crust from my eyes with my palms and sat up in bed.

“Situps aren’t going to be easy from here on out are they?” I asked the little lump under my shirt, smoothing my fingers over the fabric pulled taunt over it.

After Fisher had left the night before I’d spent an hour letting the warm water and steam from my shower soothe me. I let the water run over my skin to wash away his smell and soothe my back, but I’d been even more frustrated with the situation by the time I turned off the tap, slipped on a pair of boxers with another t-shirt, and crawled into bed where I laid awake for hours, pitying myself.

I stretched my arms over my head as I crossed the room to my door. It was halfway open when I stopped. There were voices in my kitchen. I pulled the door open the rest of the way and tiptoed down the hall, pressing my back against the wall when I got to the end. It only took me a few seconds to understand one of the voices was Fisher and the other was Sam.

“She’s special you know,” Sam was saying.

“Yeah I know,” Fisher’s voice was wistful.

“You treated her like shit.”

“I thought she was sleeping with you.”

“That’s because you’re an idiot,” I imagined Sam was pausing to take a deep sip from his cup of milk or orange juice, “If you know that girl at all you know she doesn’t have it in her to cheat on anybody. Hell, when I was sleeping with half the town I couldn’t even imagine her stepping out on me.”

“Telling me about how you screwed my girlfriend over really isn’t the way to make me stop hating you,” Fisher bit out.

“Oh, so now she’s your girlfriend? Now you care about her? Where were you the last four months asshole?” Fisher didn’t answer, so Sam went on, “Anyway, I’m not the one who came over here begging to talk. That was you. The way I see it, I can be as honest as I want and I really don’t have to give a shit what you think of me.”

Fisher sighed, “I came over here because you’re important to her. She cares about you and she’s important to me, so I’m going to have to tolerate you.”

“You really are a dick aren’t you? How did my smart girl miss that?”

“I’m not,” I heard the slide of a chair as Fisher slumped into it and the smoother sound of Sam lowering himself into a chair of his own before Fisher went on, “At some point I got confused in this whole situation. I loved her, I still do, but then she was married, then she was divorced, then you showed up, her fucking ex-husband, then she refused to marry me and ran to you, then she was pregnant. It was all so much all at once and I had an opportunity to bide my time until I went away, so I took it. Now I find out I’m wrong, she doesn’t love you-”

“Easy there,” Sam interjected, the wince on his face evident in his voice, but Fisher went on.

“She’s pregnant with my baby, which makes me fucking ecstatic in a sick Neanderthal ‘I put that there’ kind of way and scares the shit out of me because I already have one kid and I might not be a good enough parent to have another. And at the bottom of all this, all the shit I’ve done to her and the rollercoaster we’ve been on I can’t get away from one thing; I love that girl. I love her so much I can’t think about anything else while I’m away and within three hours of coming home I was back over here just to see her and touch her. I can’t stop myself from wanting her to be with me forever, even though I know I don’t deserve her. I’m even willing to sit here with you, her asshole ex-husband who has caused her the most pain and betrayal in her life,” he heaved out a breath, “actually the second most, I’m pretty sure I have first pretty locked down. Anyway, I’m willing to sit here and beg you to put in a good word for me because it physically hurts to know she’s given up on us and all I want is my girl back.”

“You might be screwed Fish,” I heard the sound of Sam clapping a hand across Fisher’s shoulder, “That girl isn’t anything if she’s not smart and anyone with half a brain can see that neither of us are good enough for her.”

I tiptoed back to my room; unable to listen to anything else Fisher had to say. His words brought on a fresh wave of confused tears I tried to choke down as I returned to my bed.

“I have a surprise for you,” Sam announced when he finally managed to shake me out of the fitful nap I’d had after overhearing his conversation with Fisher.

“What is it?” I wasn’t in the mood for surprises.

“I promise you’ll like it. Now get up and get ready. I’m making you some brunch.”

He backed out of my room without another word, leaving me to shower and slip into a hot pink sundress. The weather was finally nice enough for me to leave my skin bare and I found wearing dresses helped to make me feel feminine even though I was starting to think of myself as the incredible expanding woman.

“Wow, you look great, there might be something to that glowing pregnancy thing,” Sam kissed me on the cheek when I entered the kitchen and ushered me into a chair where a plate full of egg whites, fresh fruit, and a cup of oatmeal awaited me.

“Why are you being nice?” I said around a mouthful of orange.

“Because you’re my best friend and you look like you slept really bad and your ex-boyfriend is across the hall probably making you miserable just with his proximity and I wasn’t going to tell you to shake it off and learn to deal, so I decided on a bullshit compliment instead,” he smiled a sarcastic grin before tipping a mug to his lips.

“That’s more like it,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes.

I finished my plate in silence and Sam whisked it away the moment I shoved the last forkful of egg white into my mouth.

“Okay, let me go get the surprise, stand right here,” Sam turned my body to face the front door and immediately disappeared through it.

Moments later he emerged, holding the door open, so Riley could pass through the threshold in his half-march half-stomp.

“Mamamama” he squealed, when he saw me, clapping his hands and speeding toward me.

I dropped to my knees, forgetting the fact that it was getting progressively harder to get up from that position, and wrapped my arms around him when his little body fell into mine. Tears started to fall from my face into his full head of soft black hair and he leaned back, perturbed by the wetness.

“No!” he screeched, slapping his hands at the tears on my cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” I wiped the tears away, smiling to satisfy him even though more tears immediately replaced the ones I’d swiped at only seconds before, “I’m just not used to seeing you walk like such a big boy.”
“No!” he squealed again, still using his hands to wipe my tears away, but being gentler.

When he felt his job was done he placed both his hands on my tummy and rubbed, seeming fascinated by the bulge beneath the bright pink fabric.

“That’s your sister,” I whispered, moving his hands around on my stomach, “you’re going to be a big brother and even if you two aren’t close that still means you have to take care of her and love her and protect her from boys who want to break her heart.”

My voice cracked on the last bit, but Riley smiled broadly at me, seeming to understand. He poked at my belly and babbled baby talk to it before bending forward to press a sloppy kiss to the fabric.

“You’re going to be such an amazing big brother,” I swept the hair from his eyes, noticing he might need his first haircut and how much he looked like his father in the same moment.

“Mama” he cried again, pressing a slobbery kiss to my face. I assumed this kiss thing was something June had been teaching him.

I picked him up and stood with only minimal help from Sam.

“Thanks for the surprise,” I smiled at Sam while Riley tangled his fingers in my hair.

“It’s not from me,” Sam shrugged.

“He’s going to make me hang out with him if I want to see Riley?” I would do it because the perfect little boy meant that much to me, but I couldn’t believe his manipulation.