things you said when you were scared + joe
As he explained his new found situation, Joseph struggled not to shift in his seat, not so much in discomfort but to let off some of the nervous energy that seemed to have sewn itself into his skin since talking with Darcy’s mother. It wasn’t that he went out of his way to avoid vulnerability, more that he was usually competent enough to handle things on his own and thus generally there was never a need to ask other. But this time he knew that despite all his capabilities, he was out of his depth and he couldn’t think of a better person to turn to than Ezra. If anyone knew the right words to say to calm his inner storm of emotions it would be her.
Having explained the situation with a calmness he was surprised he was capable of at that moment, a silence sat heavily between them. Usually a man who knew what to say, however brief, he found himself having to search for words. Grasping at them desperately to string a sentence together that would make sense. Despite the ease he felt around his friend it was perhaps indicative of the situation that for once in his collectedness had abandoned him.
“I don’t know what to do.”
A lie.
He knew exactly what he was going to do. The moment her mother had suggested it he’d known that he was going to take her. Known it was the right thing to do and known that the only decision he’d regret would be turning away from a little girl in need. Everything else could be figured out later. Or so he’d thought at the time. But now was later and he was feeling lost and clueless. Truly daunted for the first time at his life at what kind of future lay ahead of him.
It wasn’t that he didn’t feel old enough to be a parent or even responsible enough. He’d been told he was an old soul enough times in his life to know that his level head and calm demeanour made him more suited than most to the role of fatherhood. But it didn’t stop the fear. Nor change the fact that he was terrified that he wouldn’t be enough. Or that in the years to come Darcy would grow up thinking that he’d made the wrong choice. That he’d made a mistake that would shape her whole life.
It’s nothing he says aloud but he doesn’t doubt that his friend knows him well enough to guess what’s going on inside. He might have tended to keep his own counsel more often than not but he wasn’t a secretive man around those he was close to. So he adjusts his words, feeling as though he owed honesty to himself as much as to her. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Lips press together slightly as he weighs his next words, careful and considered when he didn’t want to put her in a difficult position when he knew she was always the first to offer help. “Will you help me?” He was quick to qualify his answer knowing that it was a decision made on his own and knowing that it was no one else’s responsibility but his own. “Not forever, just to adjust.”
