We lie on our sides, our arms and legs intertwined until I'm not sure where either of us begins or ends. You run a hand over my stomach. It's slightly swollen, hanging off me like some strange, new growth, and I try to imagine what lies below. Squeezing and squeezing tiny, unformed fists. Tiny legs kicking dutifully. Closed eyes, bare, new lips closing and opening.
I wonder what they look like, you say to me, and I know we're both still hanging onto the ultrasound scan from last week. I remember sitting there with you for so long, just looking at it, tracing what could be a face and then a leg, and thinking that's ours, in there. Ours and no one else's. It's half me and half you. We created this.
You get up eventually and you make dinner, and I can smell it from where I'm lying. They're obviously hungry, because they kick, a persistent little thump from somewhere inside. I slide out from the sheets, wobbling on my feet. My stomach hangs down from me. I'm not used to this new weight yet.
We eat on the balcony, and you tell me Phil and Alice are already planning what to get us. I laugh, nudging your foot with mine.
They're very cute, I tell you. Do you know think they'll, you know, go the distance?
Yeah, I do, you tell me. The shadows hide most of your face. I think he's really happy with her.
Good, because I like her, I say, and I eat some more pasta. I point to it with my fork. This is really great, I tell you.
You sound surprised, you say, grinning, and I shrug. You pretend to look offended. Look, I figured I should be able to cook before I bring another human into this world. What if I need to cook them dinner when you're out designing the next Sydney Opera House? I can't just heat up some potatoes and a sad wad of lettuce. You'd definitely be the favourite parent.
Oh, don't flatter yourself, I say, laughing. Like you ever had a chance of being the favourite parent.
And so we sit and we talk and I don't think I'll ever get sick of you. People talk about getting sick of each other as years wear on. Romance whittling away to cheap, obligatory Valentine's Day cards and sparse, unchanging sex. I can see us when we're older. Moving somewhere smaller, further from everything else. By the sea. Living out cliches and loving every moment of it. Making things and having a garden and walking every day along the sand until one of us can't walk anymore.
You taught me that it's possible to love someone else more than anything else in the world. And that person was you. But now, with this new, tiny human kicking persistently beneath my hands, I know that we will love it collectively more than anyone has ever loved anything in this large, messy world.
I take your hand, feeling for a kick.