Black Rose

43.

I sat at the island, eating and lost in the galaxy of my thoughts. Almost a month ago, on Halloween to be exact, I remember us being on the couch, watching scary movies and eating junk food as a normal couple. When a pamper commercial came on I decided to go pop a new bag of popcorn. As I stood in the kitchen pouring the fresh popcorn into our previous bowl, Alex shouted my name from the living room. I decided to multitask; preparing our popcorn, I shouted back a what and the words he said caught me off guard. I nearly dropped the bowl on the marble floor as the sentence left his lips.

"I want to have a baby with you."

A shiver crept up my body as I tasted the salty snack in my mouth instead of the sweetness in front of me.

Although I do want a baby, I can't have one now. I can't bring a baby into this broken household filled with sin.

Neither one of us are clean. And neither one of us would have the time to give someone else all of our attention when we barely give each other our attention.

Every since those words left his lips I made sure to take my pills each and every day. I don't want to slip up and be carrying an unwanted child.

Would the baby necessarily be unwanted?

Holding a piece of hair in my hand, I stared in the mirror and waited for smoke to evaporate before applying the flat iron to my hair once again. A sound erupted from my phone, reminding me that I'm on the phone with Charlotte.

"Sorry," she apologized for her short absence, "my neighbor stopped by."

"Oh yeah..." I smiled as I placed the flat iron down and grabbed the oil sheen, spraying a different piece of hair. "How's your new house? Are the neighbors nice?"

Charlotte let out a soft laugh. "It's really nice, you should come visit soon. One of my neighbors is an old couple, they're cute. My other neighbor is a guy around our age."

"Is he cute?"

I laughed as I could imagine Charlotte rolling her eyes. "You are married, stop!" She laughed with me as I finished my hair. "But yeah, he's cute. Like really cute."

"Black, white, Mexican, Cub-"

"Majesty Anne Turner!" She yelled in her best attempt of a stern voice.

"What?" I laugh as I comb my finished hair. "I can't ask what race he is? I love my husband, thank you very much so please take those bad thoughts out of your head."

"Mhm." She hummed. "Speaking of Alexander..."

Furrowing my eyebrows, I unplug the flat iron and take my phone into the walk in closet with me. "Speaking of Alexander what?"

"He-"

"Hold on.." I murmured as I bent down, picking up a book that was hiding behind Alex's shoes on the top rack. I sat my phone on the small, oval shaped table that was in the middle of the closet before using the stool to get to the top rack. "What the hell is this?" I grabbed the dusty book and carefully hopped down from the stool. I noticed the familiar texture and furrowed my eyebrows. "Char, I'll call you back later." Before she could even say bye, I hung up.