Chris's POV
The next day, the driver drove us about an hour south of Chicago, to the facility I was going to be staying at. We had just pulled up to the building. It was super early, like 6 o'clock in the morning. I was tired and having second thoughts about this. I don't know how ready for this I am. When I feel myself doubting this, I keep reminding myself by putting my hand on Shawnie's stomach. This baby is what I'm doing this for. I have to be around for him or her.
"Baby, I'm nervous." I say looking over at her.
She puts her hand on mine, "Chris, there's nothing for you to be nervous about. Just think in three short months you will be better than you are today. You'll be clean, and probably a lot more calmer. I know you can finish this program, but you just have to believe it yourself."
"I just feel like it's not going to work." I say
"This will work, but you have to try, and then if this doesn't work, we'll find another way. You can't think like that. You have to believe that you're going to finish and come out better. Chris you're gonna finish his program."
I put both of my hands on her stomach, and I calm myself down a little. This is what I'm doing this for. This is why I need her to be close to me while I'm doing this. I need her to come to me when I'm doubting the process. She's my rock right now, I'm leaning on her one hundred percent.
I take a deep breath and let it out, "Okay, I can do this." I say
"Yes you can babe. The only people who know about this my dad, your mom and your aunt. You're not gonna have any distractions, I'm less than an hour away. If you ever need me to just come by and give you a hug, or anything, I will. We're going to get through these three months, and we're gonna be fine." She assures me.
I hug her tightly for what seems like forever. I pull away and look at her.
"You're going to be fine babe." She leans over and kisses me on the lips, then pulls away.
"Kiss me again." I say, pulling her back to me.
I kiss her and a wave of contentment falls over me. We pull away from each other and she smiles. I put my hood over my head, take my phone out of my pocket and hand it to her.
"As soon as you can, I need you to come back." I say
"Baby just get through the first week. You don't even know if you can have visitors yet." She says
"That's true. I'll call you as soon as I can to update you." He says, putting his hand on my stomach one more time. "I still can't believe you're pregnant."
"When you get out of here, I'll be around 24 weeks and showing."
"I can't wait to get out and experience this with you." I say, removing my hand. "Aight babe."
"Good luck!" She says, then smiles
"Thank you for this." I open my door, kiss her one last time, then I get out. "I love you, baby!"
"I love you too!" She smiles as I close the door.
I walk around the car, up the stairs and through the glass double doors. I stop and turn around to get one more look at her and she rolls her window down, and blows me a kiss. I wave back at her, and the driver pulls off.
Let's get this over with.
*******************
Shawnie's POV
After I got back from dropping Chris off at rehab, I came back to the hotel and just sat there. I was so worried. I wondered what he was doing, is he okay, how he was feeling and I really wanted to talk to him. This is our first time being apart like this. Everything is good between us and we can't even be together. I don't know how to feel about this. It's weird.
I thought he would call to let me know he's settled and what happened when he got there, but he never did, not even that night. I never got a call.
For the next few days, I just waited for him to call. I was so worried about him. I was stressing myself out. My cousin, Mercedes, came over to help distract me a few times, but it didn't work, I was worried sick. I know he's okay, and he's being taken care of, but I just wanted to see his face, and hear his voice and I couldn't. It kind of killed me.
I went over to my dads house a lot and of course spent quality time with him. He loved it. We cooked together a lot, which is something that we always used to do before I moved. I know he's really cherishing this time that we have together, on top of me being pregnant during all of this. This is really nice.
******************
I was sitting in the living room, watching tv when someone rang the doorbell. Thinking it was a pap or Chase, the guy Chris told to look out for me. I quietly walked over to the door and looked out of the peephole. It was Aubrey. I just stood there, acting like I'm not here.
"It's me." I hear Aubrey say from the other side of the door. His voice was very calm. He almost didn't sound like himself. "I know you're here. I can see your shadow under the door."
I take a second to get my head right. This is Aubrey we're talking about here, let me get in the mindset. It's always a challenge to deal with him but I do think he's slowly starting to get it. So I'm not gonna have to deal with this for much longer.
I open the door and I see Aubrey standing there. His face was bruised. I'm assuming this is what Chris did to him. I genuinely felt bad, but Chris did what he had to do.
"Hey." He says, then smiles.
"Hey." I say
"I um..." he takes a deep breath, then quickly puts his hand on his ribs, wincing in pain. "I'm sorry. I get it....."
"You're sorry? Okay. You get what?" I ask
"To leave you alone..." He says, now running his hands over his face. Something is wrong, but I don't say anything. I just stand there waiting for him to speak. "I get it but Shawnie...I need something. Tell me that what we had wasn't just in my head."
"It wasn't only in your head. We had a connection but things just didn't work out between us."
"You need to stop saying that." He says
"Aubrey, I was never fully invested in you, and you know that it was always Chris."
"I'm sorry I put you through all it is. I cannot except the loss of my kid, or you." He says
"Maybe you should talk to someone. You know I'm all about therapy now. Maybe you can try it." I say
"Yeah." He says looking sad. "Maybe things would've been different, like if you ended things with him the right way, and I could've moved on with you."
"Maybe.." I say, "I don't wanna get your hopes up or anything, so I'm not gonna say anything else about that. I really do hope that you get over this and move on."
"Yeah. Well I just came by to tell you that I was leaving. I'm flying back to Toronto." He says
"Okay. I hope things work out for you, Aubrey." I say
"Take care." He says, then leaves without waiting for my response.
I don't say anything, I just let him go. I close the door and I stood there for a minute. This was different. I think he's really going to leave us alone now.
****************
The next day, I woke up to my phone buzzing. Thinking is Chris calling, I quickly sit up and grab my phone. Damnit, it's not Chris, it's Aubrey. I spoke too soon, I thought last night was the end of him contacting me, but I guess I was wrong.
"Why the hell is he texting me?" I say, opening the text.
It's a file. No text, just a file. I roll my eyes as I touch it and it opens.
After I listen to the song, I take a long inhale and I slowly exhale. I give up. I will not let this man continue to stress me out about all that bullshit. As of today, I'm going to re-block him on my phone, and on all of my social medias. I don't care what he has so say, I'm not talking to him anymore. If he wants to continue to make a fool of himself, making songs about me, and talking about me, then that's just on him. Chris can beat his ass again. I'm done.
He sent me the file, but he didn't put it on any streaming platforms, or social medias. YouTube always seems to be his go to, but it wasn't on there either. So maybe he didn't upload it to anything. Interesting. He always wants attention when it comes to this, so maybe this is something that's going to be on an album or something. I just find it odd that he didn't make a big deal about it. On second thought, maybe it did get through his head.
I had to tell my cousin about this. I forwarded the file to her and waited for her to call me. She called within 15 minutes.
"Hello?"
"Girl, is this real?" She says
"Yes." I say
"Why is he always putting y'all's business out like this?" She asks sounding super irritated.
"I don't know, I guess because he's hurt."
"Still? That man needs to get over that. He's going to break up you and Chris." She says
"I know, I just feel so bad. He's so hurt and it's because of me." I try to explain, "I want to leave him alone but he always makes me feel guilty."
"Shawnie, leave that man alone. Don't answer his calls, don't answer his texts, don't answer his DM's. You need to even block his area code just so you don't receive no numbers from his area of residence." She says and I laugh.
"Girl, it's not that serious." I say
"Yes it is. That man is going to make you lose Chris. He's coming out of rehab, and he's gonna be seeing everything so much clearer. Once he realize you got too much drama going on, Aubrey or not, he's gonna be out. Don't no peaceful person love you that much to want to deal with your bullshit."
I sigh, "I know."
"You have to do something about that."
"I've been trying. Chris has even fought him a couple of times." I say
"Well....you want me to handle it?"
"No. For some reason I don't think this is going to be as bad. He didn't post it for the world to hear. I think he's getting it."
"Look, I'm going to give him one more time and then I'm going to deal with it." She says and I know she's serious as hell.
"Mercedes, you'll take it too far." I say
"I'm surprised Chris hasn't yet."
"Please, just him deal with it." I plead
"Nah, he doesn't need this nonsense. One more time, and I got him." She says and I definitely believe her.
"Let's just see what Chris says."
"Don't bother him with that. I got it." She says, "You know, I don't know how you're related to us. You can be so dumb sometimes. That has to be your dad's side of the family."
"Don't say that, you know my other side is just as crazy." I say laughing.
"Yeah, but they don't have that much sense." She laughs.
"Shut up! Don't talk about my family." I say jokingly. I know they aren't wrapped too tight, but she does have to actually say it.
"Other than that, I like the song though. It's just that I know who it's about so...I don't care for it too much." She says and I understand.
"I just found it to be entertaining and I thought you would want to hear it. Well I'm gonna go I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Don't call him." She says firmly
"I'm not." I say, then hang up. And go back to my tv show.
What y'all think about this chapter? How do you think these 3 months are going to go?