I'm A Twenty-Two Year Old Widow And I'm All Alone...

First Day At Home

Chapter Sixteen... First Day At Home

After the birth of my beautiful daughter Larissa, I was stuck in hospital for three days. And it was almost nighttime on the day I went home! Frustrating...

I was a little nervous about being home for the first time with my three day old daughter, but I was sure she would adjust well. Well, I hoped she would. And for the first night, Ryan had promised he'd stay the night. Anastasia, however, would be spending the night at my sister Chelsea's house with Nathaniel. The two had pretty much become best friends, and we'd only put them together to play about four or five months before.

They were cute together.

They argued over who got cuddles first with Larissa, in which Ryan asked her to let Nathaniel, since he was her cousin. Anastasia had whined that she wanted a picture with her little sister to take to school and show everyone, so we got one. And we got a nice photo of the three of them, with Larissa being held carefully by Anastasia.

Larissa was settled for the night, and I was laying in bed, talking to Ryan.

"She's gonna be just like her mom when she grows up," Ryan complimented. "Beautiful and intelligent."

"Oh, I don't know about me being intelligent," I chuckled. "Or being beautiful... but Larissa is. Hands down."

"So... I think she's settled for the next few hours," he said, yawning. "I'm uh... I'm gonna go off to bed."

"No!" I said a bit too loudly. He looked at me, confused.

"I'm a bit tired, Car," he smiled. "We can talk in the morning."

"No I mean... I don't want... you... I don't want you to go off to the spare room."

"Okay, honey. I'm confused."

"Stay with me tonight, please."

"Stay... in here?" he asked.

"Please," I breathed. "I uh... you can sleep in here with me, so that I uh... don't uh... have to uh... go and... I don't want to be alone tonight when Larissa wakes up."

Ryan stood up, paced around the room a few times, then came back and sat down on the bed next to me.

"You're not expecting... anything... to happen tonight are you?" he asked cautiously.

"No, Ry," I smiled. "I've wanted to ask you to sleep in my bed with me for the last week or so, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. And I thought that now would be... perfect."

"Oh," he laughed. "I'm sorry. I was just a bit worried... because you just had a baby..."

"Baby steps," I said simply.

"So... what would Lucas' parents say about this?"

"I don't care. They're not my parents. They're only in-laws. And they know that Lucas isn't coming back... and that I have to move on in my life. They can't judge me anymore... they never could! Lucas used to stand up for me when they would criticise me. They didn't always like me... his mom once called me the devil's daughter, because my ex boyfriend had tattoos and a motorcycle."

"I thought that you had been with Lucas since you were sixteen?"

"I had. But I was fifteen when I was with Hoyt. We were only together for like a month... never did anything, not even kiss. Because he's now gay..."

"Oh, that explains it..."

"Most people think that Lucas was my first boyfriend... and I usually tell people that, too. Mainly because Hoyt didn't... really... count. He was more... a friend."