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Forty Two

A/N: Hi! Just wanted to give a small trigger warning before this chapter. There is slight talk about suicide and topics of that nature so as always, if that makes you uncomfortable for any reason, please do not hesitate to reach out to me and I'm more than willing to catch you up on anything you may have missed if you choose not to read! Thanks :)

continuation of April, 1999

Saturday slowly but surely rolled around and I had just gotten back from the grocery store where I stopped to restock up on Isaiah's diapers. I honestly have no idea how that kid goes through so many, it's really getting out of control at this point. I seriously can't wait until he can be potty trained.  

As soon as I got myself settled in, I put Isaiah down for a nap and then began to put away his diapers as I waited for Marshall to come over. He told me he would be over at around 3pm when he called and asked for my address, but who knows? Maybe he'll get busy and be late. Maybe he wont even come. That'd be kinda nice, considering the amount of anxiety I've felt all day from this inevitably horrible encounter we were about to embark on. 

I was just so nervous about what he had to say to me. I mean, I knew roughly what would come out of his mouth. A lot of swearing, a lot of anger, and a lot of blame. While I do think some of it is warranted, I know good and well everything that happened wasn't all my fault. He played just as much of a roll in it as I did, and I'm gonna make sure that's known. I'm sick and tired of these men thinking they can just walk all over me, even Marshall. I still have so much love for him, but I'm not gonna be his punching bag. All I ever tried to do was what was right for me, and now for Isaiah. If he has a problem with that, I'm more than happy to show him the door. I'm not taking it anymore, not now, not ever again. 

Once I was done with the diapers, I figured I may as well start on unpacking the boxes that I had left untouched for the last few days. All of Isaiah's stuff was mainly unpacked, as well as the kitchen and bathroom stuff that we needed immediately, but the stuff that was less essential were still sitting in boxes, basically just collecting dust at this point. I figured I'd start with a few of my bedroom boxes to see where that took me, and then maybe Marshall would be here by then. 

I started by carefully unwrapping all of my framed pictures that I had and placing them all intentionally throughout my room. I put my favourite one of Isaiah and my mom on my bedside table, quickly moving on to place the rest of them on my dresser and a few of them out in the living room. Once that was done, I added my lamp to my bedside table but when I plugged it in and turned it on just to check that it worked, there was no light. I groaned to myself as I realized I was gonna have to go get some new lightbulbs tomorrow. I decided to move onto putting some of my clothes on hangers to organize them better in my closet, but just as I was starting is when I heard a few loud knocks on the door. 

I huffed out a confident breath and began making my way towards the front entrance. I quickly unlocked the door and swung it open without any hesitation. "Yo." Marshall jutted his chin out at me as he stepped inside. 

"Hey, how are you?" I asked meekly, losing the confidence I had just a few moments ago as I re-closed the door, locking it once more. 

"Good. How are you?" His tone was sharp and almost a little bit snippy? I quickly regained back all that confidence and crossed my arms as I went into defence mode while he began making his way towards my couch and I followed. 

"Fine." I returned his short attitude and we both sat ourselves down on either end of the couch.

"Why you got an attitude already?" His annoyed-looking eyes glared at me. 

"Why do you?" I snapped back. 

"I don't." 

"Me either."