' i can't believe we - you and i - we're having a baby ! our baby ! our family ! it's gonna be - oh, i love you. '
I DON’T REMEMBER, THIS WAS IN MY DRAFTS & AT LEAST IT IS HAPPY || ( accepting !! )
a family. the very word hung around in his ear and burrowed itself there. putting up roots. refusing to budge out of its cementation. – it had once been a word he’d come to fear… to dread… something that had once lived so dark within his soul that the mere mention would send shivers down his bones. a word– he’d more than banished, for lack of a better term. a word that had once ruled a constant melancholy. threatening with a backhand or worse, a twisted horror of the ability to keep letting it perpetuate. scared to death of a cycle he’d once so closely associated.
time had left its wounds. scarlet, bleeding, hysterical in their encompassment. forcing his mind to close off. to refute any avenues towards happiness that ever followed the tradition. as if, his father were some ghost sitting on his shoulder. whispering curses in his ear. taunts in the mirror as their features played nearly identical as years grew on his face. mocking their resemblances in long ago reminisced idle threats that still came back to haunt. a haunting that overtook the discussion – continually denying that one word… family.
the word held a feared association. that in the name, his horrors may just catch up. that welcoming someone in would risk identical fates. like a psychic chain. that such a name connected to all the worst parts of them. connecting them to his mother, his father… giving a foreboding ideology that it would reel them back in; to use a name could mean welcoming something precious into the jaws of their predecessors.
leaving him cautious. uncertain. forcing himself to believe that they still sat on his shoulders. WATCHING. just waiting to snatch their familial property back up into the cycle. trapping them in a family name that was damned to begin with. a fear he’d allowed to rule his life… for so long. an irrational one that ate him up in the middle of the night and spat him back out trembling in the daylight. one… with such vigor had tried to keep holding as tight as it could. pushing him back. pushing them BOTH back.
until – he finally slammed the door. cautiously swallowing the key, with his hands gripping the handle. trying to keep it all out– so they could live a LIFE… ( without the ghosts of his past. )
NOW– the word left him with salt etching at the corners of his eyes. trying desperately to blink away. cradling something much deeper. an opening up. a happiness he couldn’t quite define… one that utilized every single worry in his body all at the same time; yet came out in a swelling of his heart. so close to bursting, yet– holding itself together, just well enough, to exude every single piece of love he could offer. a love so different– it didn’t even make sense. a dedication, that felt so inherent, so natural, so paternal. it cut right to the core of who he was.
the world felt so different now– like he was falling in love all over again. the phone still shaking in his hands. playing the voicemail over and over in his head. until it was the only word he could think of… FAMILY.
‘ after the extensive work that had to be done in evaluations, we have finally decided that we’d like you to proceed to the next step. we would like you both to come to the office early next week, so we can discuss final arrangements and the remaining paperwork. please callback when you can, so we can settle upon a time and date. thank you. ’
lips pursing together tightly, still begging to hold it all in. as he felt his heartstrings pull at his throat.. it was a feeling he could only describe in one word – OVERWHELMING. it was the call he’d so dreaded to receive, while all at once being the call he’d waited by the phone for months for… the one he was so scared of, yet so ready for. the call he was afraid would break their hearts – came to be the voicemail that left him so engulfed in JOY… in HOPE… that he could no longer hold back the sob cracking out between trembled lips. pulling bobby so close to him – so he was everything he could feel. arms wrapped so tightly about his waist… breaking down in the crook of his neck. overtaken by something so far from a sadness, but a profound joy. the last time he’d ever managed it was watching that same man in his arms walking towards him across that hall – where they’d promised to live their lives together, always.
letting it all overtake him and just flood out. with a smile ghosting behind it and his heart hammering so fast. he was almost scared he’d wake up – and it would’ve all been a dream. that he’d tricked himself into believing he’d deserved any of this… any single moment of this lifetime they were living – TOGETHER.
wiping eyes into bobby’s collar, lips pressing gently as he spoke against his skin. how ironically comforting, to feel so small there in his arms– yet so big. words faltered, they failed, yet in that falling out– they said absolutely everything. in the one phrase that held him together, “ i … i … love you so much, more than you’ll ever know. ”
fingers holding his words together as that overwhelming flush took back his body, just bursting at the seams, spelling out in that simple phrase, “ i just can’t believe it… ”
only smiling through the downpour. until he could finally allow the reality of the moment to sink in. just enough to allow him to express past the sudden inability of words in the overcoming of tearfully overwhelming joy. shaking hands gently cradling bobby’s cheeks as he found their foreheads touching, before getting lost between his lips.
a family. and in that moment… it became the only word he ever wanted to hear.
