“I thought you said she was crying?”
“She was.”
Paige and I step into the living room. “Then why didn’t you tell me so we didn’t have to leave?”
“You’ve been out for two hours already. I thought you would come home sooner, anyway.”
“What? No.” Kai walks closer to the door. “Where are you going?” I ask.
“To Kevin’s.”
My mouth drops. “What?”
“I’ll be back soon.”
“This was my night to go out.” I step closer to him.
“And you went out.”
“What the fuck, Kai? Was this your way of getting me to come home so you could go out?”
“No.” He sighs, and without another word, walks out the door.
A hot flush of humiliation spreads across my cheeks as I realize how my boyfriend just deceived me.
Paige looks at me with a slight frown, as if she has pity for me. I can’t blame her. I pity myself.
“I’m sorry.” I wipe the tears from my eyes.
“Has he always been like this?”
I shake my head and sit cross-legged on the couch.
Paige sits next to me. “That seemed out of character for him.”
“A lot of things have been off with him lately. I don’t knowwhat to do. I walk on eggshells all day long so I don’t say the wrong thing.”
“That’s not okay. You need time for yourself, too.”
“Apparently he doesn’t think so.”
Our relationship has changed so much in the last two months. From the start, I made it clear to him that bringing a baby into this would be difficult, but he brushed it off and believed that everything would work out.
I’m not sure what to think anymore.
“You’re the cutest baby I have ever seen,” I whisper to Amari as I put her pajamas on after giving her a bath in the sink. I remember my mom doing this with Brynlee when she was a baby. She would set Brynlee's baby bath in the kitchen sink and bathe her. I always thought it was weird. When I questioned my mom, she said it was easier for her. Since I thought it was the weirdest thing ever, I bathed Amari in the bathtub. But soon I found out what my mom was talking about with the aches that came from bending over for so long. Not to mention my knees on the hardwood floor.
I kiss Amari on the cheek, inhaling her freshly bathed smell. There is something about the smell of a freshly-bathed baby with the lingering scent of baby lotion. I never knew how much I would enjoy a baby’s scent until now. Maybe that's because she’smybaby.
“Hey,” Kai says as he walks through the door and kicks off his shoes.
“Hi,” I mutter. Kai and I haven’t talked much since the weekend I went out with Paige. It ended up being even more of a punch to the gut because he came home drunk at four in the morning and slept his hangover off the whole day. I parented Amari alone for the entire day even though he was home.
“Hi, my princess.” Kai kneels next to us on the couch andplaces a soft kiss on Amari’s forehead. Her eyes flutter a little, almost as if she’s trying to open them, and then she falls back to sleep. Baths always soothe her to sleep.
I gaze between Kai and Amari, confused about what to say. Should I start a conversation? We haven’t had a normal conversation in a while. It’s tough to begin a conversation and even tougher to figure out what to say.
“Have you eaten dinner?” he asks.
