"So your mom was wrong," Dinah said, interrupting the silence that had filled the car since they left the doctor's office fifteen minutes ago.
"My mom is never wrong," Lauren muttered distractedly.
Her hands resting uselessly on the steering wheel, Lauren stared blankly out of the windshield at the shiny, new-looking cars passing on the street. She frowned. Everything was annoying her today. She thought it was probably the hormones.
"Dinah, remind me why we got a used car instead of a new one?"
"Because you're a freelance writer and I work at a nail salon, and we're saving for the baby," Dinah said promptly. "And also, Clara was wrong."
"Right," Lauren nodded, rolling her eyes. "God, why didn't I go into law? I would be a good lawyer."
"We're having a girl," Dinah said, slapping her thigh for emphasis. "Your mom was wrong, baby, it's not a boy. The little monster is a little princess."
"We're having a girl," Lauren echoed with a sigh, wondering why the phrase didn't make her as happy as it seemed to make Dinah.
"Is something wrong, Lo?" Dinah asked, turning her body to face more towards Lauren. "You look a lil out of it, and you haven't said anything aside from 'thank you' since they told us the sex of the baby."
"I don't know," Lauren said, shifting her shoulders and glancing around, as if the answer might be hiding in the far corner of the dashboard. "I don't...I think I'm in shock, maybe."
"You of all people should know there's nothing wrong with having a girl," Dinah mused, shaking her head.
"It's not that."
"Then what is it?"
Shaking her head, Lauren looked down at her hands where they rested on the bottom of the steering wheel.
There was a sigh from the passenger seat, and the sound of Dinah's hands tapping her own thighs again, the way she often did when she was trying to figure something out.
"Lolo," Dinah said, reaching across the console between them, her hand open, tilting her head down to try to catch Lauren's eye. Swallowing hard, Lauren looked up at her, and Dinah wiggled her fingers, smiling softly.
"She's gonna be perfect, you know," Dinah said. "There's no way she won't be."
Lauren placed her palm against Dinah's, sighing gently at the softness of her skin, curling her fingers around her wife's hand and taking a deep breath.
"A beautiful little princess, ready to grow up into a beautiful queen just like her mama," Dinah continued quietly, squeezing Lauren's hand, and Lauren frowned. "What's wrong, babe?"
There was quiet for a few moments, as Lauren swallowed, trying to collect her thoughts.
A beautiful little princess, Dinah had said, not a little monster. Something twisted in Lauren's stomach, and she shook her head. She'd been a beautiful little princess, once, and it wasn't all it was cut out to be.
"It's just...it's fucking hard to grow up a girl in this world," Lauren said finally, her voice slow, trying to put words to her thoughts in a way that Dinah would understand them. "You can't do anything right, and people find ways to disapprove of you whether you're fifteen or five months old. Nobody notices you unless you're doing the wrong thing. And even if you're old enough to answer for yourself, they don't talk to you. They talk to whoever you're supposed to belong to, whoever owns you, whether it's your parents or your partner."
"People don't own people," Dinah objected, her brow furrowing.
"In a perfect world they wouldn't, but there's more than one kind of slavery, Dinah," Lauren said, shaking her head. "And the kind that applies to women is encouraged, upheld by tradition, and not even close to being illegal."
Dinah nodded, still looking slightly confused, and Lauren sighed.
"Why do you think fathers 'give their daughters away' at the altar?" Lauren said. "Why do you think boys fight over girls in high school, why do you think girls who sleep around are considered used?"
"Sexism," Dinah replied immediately. "I know that, Lo."
"Yeah," Lauren nodded. "But being used makes things less valuable, love. And that's the worst part of all of it. Because if you think a girl can be used, like a scratched CD or a napkin, then to you, women are just things. And you can own things."
"I don't get what this has to do with the little princess, though," Dinah objected, and Lauren pressed her lips together. "We won't raise her like that."
"My mom didn't raise me like that either," Lauren said. "But I was still treated the same way."
Lauren thought back to her childhood, the princess paraphernalia she'd always been surrounded by, the way the boys kept her out of the more aggressive games because she wasn't supposed to be able to handle them.
For some reason, her mind focused on those cheap plastic high heels made for little girls that she'd wanted to wear every day, slipping them on and prancing around the yard like a performer at four years old.
They'd been purple and cute, closed toes and a tapered heel, and wearing them was the closest Lauren could get to being like the girls on TV, or like the princesses that she loved so much.
Walking in them had hurt her feet, and Chris had always taken advantage of her slowness in them, but Lauren had huffed and dealt with it, because surely, it was worth it to be pretty.
Her mother had hated those heels. Lauren remembered the tense smile on her face when her Aunt had given them to her, how she'd always try to store them in places Lauren wouldn't look and then refuse to give them back. If it hadn't been for her skill at manipulating her Papa, Lauren might never have gotten to wear them at all.
Growing up, Lauren had never quite understood why Clara was so opposed to them. All girls wore heels. Even Barbie's feet weren't the right shape to wear flats.
"Dios mio, mija, Clara had exclaimed once, throwing up her hands, when a six year old Lauren had yelled at her that they made her feel like a princess. "They want you to like them, along with the ball gown, and they want you to stay put and wait for your prince to find you! Estan lindas, pero...mija, they make you unsteady on your feet, and if you can't keep control of your own body, then they can move you around in whatever way they want."
Lauren exhaled softly, her eyes widening a little bit. Her free hand dropped from the steering wheel, resting on her belly protectively.
"What are you thinking about now, baby?" Dinah asked softly.
"Fuck," Lauren said. "I think I understand my mother better, now."
"Yeah?"
"She was right," Lauren murmured. "She was just trying to teach me to be independent, to realize I had power and not let people take it away. I wanna teach my daughter the same things."
"You said it yourself, Lo," Dinah shrugged. "Clara's never wrong."
Lauren sighed, running a hand through her hair, as Dinah's thumb brushed comfortingly over her knuckles.
"Lauren, look at me," Dinah said, her voice gentle but firm.
Biting her lip, Lauren looked over at Dinah. The sunlight was coming through a gap in the tree planted in front of their car, slanting through the windows and making Dinah's face almost glow. Her lips were pressed together as she smiled, her eyes warm and excited, and her hair was catching the light so it looked like it was on fire.
She looked hopeful, Lauren realized. Hopeful and lovely, and something in the crinkles at the corners of her eyes made Lauren feel warm all over.
"There you are," Dinah murmured, smiling wider. "You know, everytime you smile, I wanna kiss you."
The spreading feeling in Lauren's chest, the sudden urge to laugh, the tingling in her fingertips as Dinah's thumb stroked her knuckles delicately, all of it, made her want to crawl across the console between them and curl up, content and puppy-like in Dinah's lap.
Lauren hadn't even realized she was smiling. She supposed she'd just forgotten not to, when she got wrapped up in everything Dinah.
"Dinah?"
"Yeah babe?"
"I don't think I want her to be a princess," Lauren said hesitantly.
"But it's cute, though," Dinah protested.
"Princesses don't have any power, Dinah," Lauren said, shaking her head. "Princesses sit and wait for their princes to find them, they lose shoes whenever they try to run, they turn people against them if they're too pretty. I don't wanna put all of that on our daughter, baby. I want her to be able to run, and I want her to make her own damn dreams come true."
"You're only looking at one side of it, though," Dinah countered determinedly. "Princesses also dream big, and work hard for their dreams. They believe in true love and magic. Did you forget that?"
"Working hard? True love? Sounds just like us," Lauren observed, her lips quirking affectionately at the concentrated expression on Dinah's face.
"Mmhm," Dinah hummed, her mouth set in a slight pout. "Things aren't black and white, Lolo. Our little princess doesn't have to get forced to marry an evil old man or fall in love with a beast. She can hit someone over the head with a frying pan or join the army instead."
Lauren couldn't help but laugh at how specific Dinah was being.
"So you're saying she can be Mulan and Rapunzel, but not Jasmine and Belle?"
"Exactly."
"Someone's got a good memory for Disney movies," Lauren snorted.
"Girl, anyone coulda said what I did," Dinah defended. "It ain't weird for me to know that stuff."
"Okay, Dinah."
"Are you mocking me?"
"Maybe."
"Shut up, bish," Dinah huffed, trying to pull her hand out of Lauren's. Lauren interlinked their fingers, holding on, and smiled up at Dinah. "Oh, so you're smiley now?" Dinah demanded, half grinning back at her.
"You're just cute, is all," Lauren murmured.
"Tell me something I don't know," Dinah said, rolling her eyes.
"I love you?" Lauren said hopefully.
"Wow, so original," Dinah sighed.
"Hey, you're supposed to say it back," Lauren pouted.
The corners of her eyes crinkling, Dinah lifted Lauren's hand and kissed the back, nuzzling the soft skin and then flashing a grin at her.
"I love you too, mama," Dinah said, and Lauren felt her cheeks get slightly warm at the pet name.
"You should kiss me," Lauren said, biting her lower lip.
"Thought I just did," Dinah replied, nodding at their joined hands.
Huffing, Lauren glared up at her, and Dinah laughed musically, squeezing Lauren's hand.
"If I kiss you, will you go back to smiling?" Dinah asked.
"I dunno," Lauren said, suppressing a smile. "You won't know until you try?"
Dinah's free hand came up to cup Lauren's jaw, eyes warm and adoring, slender fingers brushing a strand of hair off of her cheek. She leaned down, gently connecting their lips, and Lauren couldn't hold the smile back any longer.
After a few moments, Lauren pressed a final kiss to Dinah's soft lower lip, and pulled back, biting her own lip.
"Hey," Dinah said, smiling.
"Hey," Lauren murmured, her nose scrunching up affectionately as she smiled back.
"I love you," Dinah said, moving her hand from Lauren's cheek down to rest on her belly, next to Lauren's own hand. "And I love her, too. Whether she's a princess or not."
Lauren rested her hand over Dinah's, moving it to the center of the small bump. She looked over at Dinah again, her stomach fluttering at the combination of determination and affection in Dinah's eyes.
"Baby, she can be whatever you want her to be," Lauren said softly, letting herself sink back into the seat of the car, her eyes falling shut. "Just as long as she's still our little monster."
"I guess girls can be monsters too," Dinah said with a laugh, her hand sliding off of Lauren's belly. "And I guess we're not painting her room pink?"
"We're definitely not painting it pink just because we're having a girl," Lauren replied firmly. "I like softer pinks, I wouldn't mind that. But I don't wanna get only pink things for her, just because she's female."
"Well, duh," Dinah said after a moment. "Why would we do that?"
Lauren couldn't help but smile at that. She opened her eyes again to see Dinah looking at her incredulously, and leaned over to kiss Dinah's cheek.
"You know, I don't think I could be traditional if I tried," Lauren remarked with a sigh.
"Good thing I don't want you to try, then," Dinah said, shrugging. "And if she gets married some day, we don't have to give her away, either. She'll be ours, but she's not gonna be a thing, Lolo. We won't let her be that."
"No, we won't," Lauren agreed firmly.
"You should call Clara," Dinah said after a moment.
"To tell her she was right?"
"I meant to tell her she was wrong," Dinah chuckled. "Because, you know, it's a girl."
"Oh, right," Lauren said. "Okay, I'll do both."
"Nice."
For a few more minutes, they sat in silence, hands still connected, Lauren getting lost in thought as Dinah started blankly into space.
"Hey, Dinah," Lauren said, breaking the silence.
"Yeah?"
"We're having a girl," she said, looking over at her wife and smiling.
"Yeah, we are," Dinah replied, her eyes bright. "Are you excited, baby?"
"Yeah," Lauren breathed, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I am."
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A/N:
I'm back.
This is a lil shorter than the other recent updates I know but it feels important somehow....anyway. Thanks as always to my boo Tash for the cover, and to my co captain Sameeha for proofreading.
~Lily~