As a teenager, it was hard to fathom that I would ever be a part of something like tonight. We'd been here many times before, sat around the kitchen table in Amanda's house, arguing over the real rules of whatever game we were playing. Tonight was different, though. Tonight was the first night that we had been here since we'd become parents and there was something about having our little boy sleeping soundly beside us that made it feel more complete than it ever had.
I often wondered if my parents wished they'd tried harder, if they wished they'd held more family nights, or even held a conversation that didn't result in mum throwing a loop over the mere mention of a female name associated with me.
Watching him sleep, that little tiny chest rising and falling, and seeing how content he was caused something deeper than happiness within me. It was almost like someone had taken every ounce of protectiveness from my body and used it to build a guard around him.
Leah had developed it first, perhaps unhealthily. She had vowed to protect him from things that we couldn't even guarantee would happen. Then, somewhere along the line, the madness of her claims began to make sense to me. Here I was, deep in thought at family night, thinking of the things I would say to him should he ever need to tell me something that would be difficult for him.
Maybe feeling this for myself was what made me understand Rhys. He wanted to protect Liv from the possibility that one day I'd forget her, and he wanted to do that because he knew how I'd felt when members of my family slowly began to forget me. Leah didn't have that same experience, that had become evident to me pretty early on. Her family supported her in every decision, sometimes to her detriment. They would pick up the pieces of the sillier decisions she made, and be there to celebrate the more positive ones.
It didn't mean she was less adequate to understand than me, I just felt it gave me that edge in understand Rhys, even if I could tell that Leah was more than a little done with him right now. Maybe that would be the silliest decision I would make.
"Soph?"
"Hm?" I widened my eyes, startled by the sudden hand on my leg.
"Your go. You okay?"
"Yeah, sorry. Just admiring."
Amanda chuckled, her eyes glancing over to where mine had been before I was rudely interrupted.
"Who could blame you? He's just perfection."
"He is." Leah smiled.
I wondered how many members of my family had cooed over my sleeping frame as a baby and called me that. Perfection. It was so easy with a baby, so easy to think that they could be the next prime minister, or someone who came up with a cure for cancer. So easy to think that they would always follow the path you hoped they would, whatever that path was. I wondered if my family looked at babies differently now. Perhaps, I had been the example that not all perfect babies end up perfect adults.
"Soph?"
"Sorry. I'll be back in a second."
I wasn't quite sure what had gotten into me, I just knew that I needed to not be in that setting for a few minutes. It wasn't there fault, they hadn't done anything to make my mind reflect on things that should've been buried years ago, but I couldn't help but think maybe I'd needed this to surface for a while now.
I stepped outside the front doors of the house, trying to inhale as much of the fresh air as I could in the hope it would force my body back to normality. Nothing seemed to be working, my breathing still shaky and my lungs feeling like they couldn't release the excessive air I'd tried to heap into them.
"I've got you. Breathe. I've got you."
That sound. The mixture of that comforting voice and the arms that wrapped around my waist loosely enough to not make me feel more restrained but tightly enough to reinforce that she had me were the only things that could communicate to my brain that it was the only thing stopping me from breathing normally.
"I just -"
"It's okay. Just focus on your breathing. You don't need to try to explain. I've got you."
Truth is, I didn't really know how I would explain it. Everything had been fine, better than fine. We'd both been excited to reunite for family games night, we'd even been counting down the days and telling Teddy, who didn't actually understand. Everything had been fine until I started to wonder what perfect really meant. I knew that perfect to my mum hadn't meant that I'd ever love a woman, I knew that my label of perfect to her had been erased the day that I told her. What if who he becomes isn't perfect to the people he wants to be perfect for?
"I'm sorry."
"You haven't done anything, Soph."
I knew she meant that. It was hard to believe it, though, when in my own head I'd very clearly made a show in front of her family.
"They're going to think I've lost the plot." I chuckled.
"Do you need to go home?"
Her voice was calming, reassuring in letting me know that she wasn't at all angry at the idea that I might need to leave early. Her arms that were fitting around my waist were tightening slightly as my body relaxed, almost like she was following some kind of step-by-step plan.
"You won't be angry?"
"Not at all, Soph." She pecked my shoulder.
"I don't know what's came over me. Please don't tell them."
"Go get into the car, I'll sort the rest out."
As if she thought I might get kidnapped on the driveway, Leah walked the ten footsteps from the front porch to the car with me, gently helping me into the passenger seat and kissing the top of my head before she disappeared back inside. She returned a few minutes later, the car seat clutched in her hand and the front door closing behind her to prevent anyone trying to wave us off. Teddy woke as she fiddled with the seat, a tiny sigh leaving her body as she covered it with a cough in fear I would think she was even slightly irritated.
"Shh, baby. We'll be home soon." She whispered, now pressing a kiss to his forehead.
I bowed my head, bringing my hand up to try to rub some kind of get a grip message into my brain. Leah finally made it to the drivers seat, gently taking my hand from my face and interlocking our fingers before she began the drive home. It was silent, a content silence. I knew she was giving me a platform to speak, but for some weird reason I didn't want to him to hear, even if I knew he wouldn't understand.
He woke again as she removed him from his seat in his bedroom, attempting to place him into his cot.
"C'mon, mate. Not tonight." She whispered.
I watched from the doorway as she gently rocked him back to sleep, giving him an extra few danger minutes before placing him into his cot. She screwed her face up in anticipation before tiptoeing towards me, nodding her head towards our own bedroom.
We got changed in more silence. Every part of my brain was screaming out to acknowledge the idea that she might be too angry to speak to me but every time I got close she would flash me that little smile across the room. Finally, she placed herself into bed and pulled back the covers on my side, opening out her arms and dopily smiling up at me again.
"I told them you'd been feeling a bit sick all day, by the way." She mumbled into my hair.
"Thank you. I am sorry."
Tears. More tears than I even knew I could cry began to flow from my eyes. She didn't force me to talk, instead just letting me sob it out when I knew some part of her would be panicking that I would wake Teddy and cause her to have to choose between comforting me and him.
"It's just so stupid."
"What is?"
"The reason that I'm crying." I sobbed, half chuckling as I realised how ludicrous I was being.
"Do you think you could tell me? If you can't it's okay, we can wait until you're ready."
"What if he isn't always what they see as perfect?"
"Hm?"
I shrugged. I wasn't sure what else I could say. It made perfect sense in my head but she wasn't in it. She didn't know what it felt like to not be viewed as perfect, and I wasn't sure that she could put herself in those shoes.
"Like you weren't always perfect to your family?"
She was apprehensive about that question, that much was evident. It was clear she was stuck somewhere between wanting to let me know she knew what was going on in my head, even if she hadn't been through it, and not wanting to plant something in my head that wasn't already there.
"I didn't think you'd understand." I whispered in disbelief.
"I do and I don't, Soph. I won't ever know those feelings you have from that time but I can understand them from an outsiders perspective."
"They all probably swooned over me like that. I was probably perfect, until I wasn't."
She stayed silent for a minute, I could feel her head cocking to the side in that typical I'm thinking, don't interrupt the process stance that she takes. She pulled me closer, letting my head fall into the crook of her neck as some kind of safety blanket.
"He's not always going to be perfect to everyone, Soph. That isn't reality. Right now, they're saying he's perfect because he's just a baby. Yes, maybe someday they'll think he was perfect until he... but then that's on us to tell him that he's perfect to us. Because that's what this is about, Soph. It's about us working together to always make sure that no matter how many times the world beats him down, which it will no matter what we do to protect him, that he has a home wherever we are that will support him. We'll teach him right from wrong, brave from stupid, confidence from arrogance, and happiness from selfishness. Sometimes, he'll do things that even we won't find perfect. He doesn't have to be perfect to everyone, Soph. He won't be able to please everyone, just like you don't have to fight to do that anymore either."
Maybe that was all I needed right now. Perhaps, tomorrow that wouldn't be enough for me. I wasn't really sure, but for now she'd managed to give me some kind of peace of mind. I didn't speak, just gripped her waist a little tighter.
"It's different this time." Leah whispered.
"What is?"
"This fight you think you're up against."
"How?"
"Because this time you aren't against your family, Soph. This time you have a family right behind you."
That was definitely all I needed right now.