GWEN
"Why do you hate me?" Marnie wailed. "I thought we were friends!"
She staggered behind me into the kitchen as if I'd dragged her through a three-hour bootcamp instead of a ten-minute workout video.
I could only shake my head. "Mar, you can't be that unfit."
She collapsed in a heap on the kitchen stool. "You underestimate me, babe. My body's a work of art. Au natural. I wasn't built for all your exercise nonsense." She sniffed her armpit and made a face. "Yeah, I definitely wasn't built for exercise."
I wandered to the pantry and looked inside for a distraction. So much food, but nothing good for eating away my troubles.
I tapped my fingernails on the pantry door and asked over my shoulder, "You want anything?"
Marnie shook her head. "I'm burning up! There's no way I'll be able to keep anything down until my core temperature is back to chill-0ut mode."
"You did one ten-minute workout."
"Hey! Judgey fit person! I'd like to remind you that exercise was never part of the agreement when you asked me to come over for moral support."
I raided the leftover banana bread on the counter. Shoved a bit in my mouth. "What else were we supposed to do?" I gobbled up another bite. "We were going stir-crazy! We needed to do something."
"We?" Her mouth dropped in disbelief. "We were going stir crazy? I'm no legal nerd like you, but I object to that statement, Your Honor."
I dodged her objection by stuffing the rest of the banana bread in my mouth. The 'we' part was a bit of a stretch. Marnie was perfectly happy reading trashy magazines and gossiping about her neighbors. I was the one too restless to sit still.
The wait for Toby to bring Noah home was excruciating.
My eyes had been glued to my phone. Checking the time. Checking for messages. Toby sent a few cute photos of Noah on their adventures around the park. That didn't help.
My nerves stayed twisted tight. Not because I was worried about Noah—he was safe with his Daddy. No, I was biting my fingernails down to nothing because every minute that ticked by was another minute closer to Toby coming back.
My first face-to-face conversation with him in days had been... awkward.
He said hello. I shoved the baby bag at him. He just kind of nodded and took it. I passed Noah, and he waved goodbye. The end. We were like strangers instead of two people who'd practically grown up together.
And I was absolutely dreading round two.
I wandered aimlessly around the kitchen. Maybe I should tidy up? Wipe down the benches again? How much time would that waste?
Maybe Marnie was getting sick of me floundering, or maybe she knew me too well because she asked, "So, what time is Dickface bringing Noah back from the park?"
I shrugged. "Later."
"Later?"
"Yeah. Later." I wasn't admitting a thing—even to her. "I don't care what time."
Marnie was skeptical. "Schedules and you are like peanut butter and jelly. You can't have one without the other. You care about the time. You've been checking your bloody watch every two seconds since I got here!"
I grabbed the kitchen sponge and started scrubbing like a mad woman at the invisible spots on the sink. I doubled down, pretending Marnie's questions were no big deal. "I don't care what time Toby comes back."
"Since when?"
"Since now."
Marnie's eyebrows raised, waiting for a better explanation, but I didn't say any more.
My furious scrubbing had paused. Maybe the restless twitch inside me was more than dreading round two of Toby. I hated to admit it—even to myself—but maybe, secretly, just a little bit of it was guilt. I wanted a few more minutes where I could switch off from feeling like I needed to fret over Noah. A certain time. Not just ad-hoc at someone else's whim.
The truth was—I was tired.
Until you had a baby, you had no idea how you could ache all the way to your bones from constantly being... on.
On watch. On demand. Just... On. All the time.
And since I'd chucked Toby out, everything was on me. All the time.
I could carry around fifty diapers in the bags hanging under my eyes. My morning coffee out on the deck? That precious baby-free shower I used to have before Toby disappeared for work? Poof! Gone.
Toby never did much to help out around the house. How could he when he was never at home? But the little moments of peace I got when I slapped him sleepily across the back to try settling Noah first or when he whisked Noah off for a walk on the weekends he didn't work—god, I missed those moments.
I'd never admit that to Toby, though.
Never.
And—poof!—just like that, another precious moment of peace was up in a puff of smoke when the front doorbell rang.
"Who's that?" Marnie twisted around on the stool. "You expecting someone else today?"
I focussed my attention back on scrubbing the sink. "It's probably just Toby."
Marnie flicked a confused look over her shoulder at the front door. She scrunched up her nose. "He rang the doorbell?"
I sighed. "Yes."
"I thought you didn't bother changing the locks yet?"
"I didn't. Toby insists on ringing the damn bell." When Marnie's eyebrows shot up, I responded with a shrug. "He said if he hasn't earned the right to live here, he needs to be invited in like everyone else."
"Hoo–kay then." Marnie hobbled off the stool. Squared her shoulders. Got ready for battle. "Should I sign for your little treasure package at the door and tell Toby to fuck off? Or can he come in?"
Good question.
Anger twisted my insides. I didn't want to see Toby again. But we had almost seventeen more years of co-parenting ahead of us, and I'd promised myself I'd try to be the bigger person... somehow.
I threw the sponge in the sink. Swallowed my anger. A tiny bit of my pride sank with it. I told Marnie, "I'll handle it." Probably wishful thinking.
When I got to the front door, my hand wouldn't turn the knob. The doorbell rang again. I didn't let the noise rattle me. Gwen was zen, right? I counted—one, two, three—dragging in breaths and buying myself a few seconds more.
Mature. Rational. The bigger person.
I could do this.
My plan was out the window the second I pulled open the door. I was greeted with Toby's huge grin and only a glimpse of Noah conked out in his baby carrier before a bunch of white roses was shoved under my nose.
I folded my arms across my chest. I wasn't touching that damn bouquet. "What are those?"
Toby's grin grew wider. "Dunno. Unicorn feathers?"
Oh great. The jokester was out. He must have been feeling as awkward as I was. "And what do you suppose I do with them?" Jamming them where the sun didn't shine seemed like a great place to start.
"Dunno. Pop them in some water?" He pointed to the sleeping baby strapped to his chest. "It was all Noah's idea. He told me to buy them."
I deadpanned. "Noah told you."
"Mmhmm. When I took him to the park, he wouldn't stop blabbing about how I needed to buy you something nice. There was no time to go on the swing. It was roses this... roses that..." Toby exaggerated an eye roll. "You know how he is sometimes—so pushy."
I stood my ground. Didn't budge. If he thought he could win me over with his schoolboy antics, he was dead wrong. I used to think we were a perfect balance. The grumpy nerd. The loveable dork. We just worked. Now Toby's joking around just annoyed the shit out of me.
He finally caught on to how pissed off I was. He sighed. "Gwen, the flowers are just a nice gesture. Even I'm not dumb enough to think it will make any difference after what I did. They'll look pretty on the kitchen windowsill." He thrust the roses out again for me to take. "Accepting the flowers doesn't mean you've accepted my apology."
"Your apology?" This had to be more of his jokes. He couldn't be serious. "Funny, I don't remember hearing an apology."
Toby's head tilted. He seemed genuinely confused. "The day of the yard sale. In our bedroom. I said I was sorry."
"Oh... That." I rolled my eyes. "Was that an apology? Sounded more like a cheater covering his tracks because he got caught."
"I know you don't think words mean much—"
"Your word means nothing."
Toby sucked in a sharp breath but barrelled on. "I am sorry, Gwen—"
My eyes rolled back to the sky. Blah, blah, blah. "Because. You. Got. Caught."
"No, that's not why. For once, I'm going to be serious, okay?" I wasn't sure if he was telling me or himself. "I've had nothing but time to think these last few days. I thought about the last month... The last year... Honestly, I don't know the exact moment I first fucked up because... Gwen, there are so many moments I fucked up."
No shit. The prosecution rests, Your Honor.
Toby's eyes flicked down when my foot started tapping, but he shook off my impatience to say what he thought he needed to. "I'm ashamed of the way I've treated you. It was my job to protect you, and here I was, the one hurting you the most. I was so wrapped up in all my own shit with the clinic and worrying about how things were changing that I didn't stop for one second to think about you. I didn't listen when you told me how you felt about Kayleigh." His laugh was hollow and bitter. "And we both know you shouldn't have had to tell me to stop in the first place. I never should've been spending any time with her. It was wrong, Gwen... So fucking wrong."
A faint line cracked through my heart of stone, but I quickly patched it over. "Are you done?"
Toby shook his head. "Gwen, I fell head over heels for you when I was sixteen. I never stopped loving you—never—but I stopped showing you. I stopped putting you first a long time ago. I can see that now. I'm going to change that." He looked down at Noah with a smile. "Aren't I, little dude?" Noah slept on, completely oblivious. "Yeah, too right, I'm going to change that."
"How? More of your bullshit text messages day and night?"
Confusion creased between Toby's brows. "You don't like the messages?"
"It's a bit late for hearts and kisses, don't you think?"
"No. We need to keep working hard for the things that are important to us. That's what you've always said."
"Newsflash, I'm not a tick box on your life plan, Toby. I'm not some hurdle you conquer like when you got into dental school or won that stupid triathlon."
"You're right. You're not a tick box. You're the whole plan, Gwen. Start to finish."
I scoffed a laugh. This man talked a lot of shit when he wanted to.
Toby's eyes drifted down, protective, his smile soft as his big palm stroked over Noah's fuzzy head. "Staring at a motel ceiling night after night wakes you up to what's important. My eyes are wide open now, and I see everything I want in the universe right here in front of me. You and Noah. That's it. I won't stop trying to make up for what I've done. Even if it takes years." Toby's sigh was heavy. "Even if it's never."
I took the guesswork out of the equation for him. "It's never."
Toby flinched, but another goofy smile quickly masked how much my words gutted him. "Okay—well—at least I've got a timeframe to work toward now." He looked down at the chubby boy still sleeping in his carrier. "Little dude, I think we need a new game plan. She told me to bugger off again, just like you said she would. We'll probably need to source a lot more flowers if we're working toward never. Oh—what's that?" Toby tilted his head and pretended to listen to the whispers of our sleeping son. His gaze lifted to mine again before a cautious smile broke out across his face. "So... Noah wants to know how you feel about chocolates?"
On the inside, the patches I'd slapped over the broken pieces of my cold, stone heart cracked open again. Warm and fuzzy whispers slithered in. Toby was such a dork. I wanted to cry a thousand tears over the sweet boy I'd lost somewhere along the way.
But on the outside, I was deadpan, unshaken, as pissed as ever.
Toby would never break me again.
Never.
© 2023 Aubrey Whitten. All rights reserved.