Page 16 of Worth the Fight

“What’s going on? It’s been a while.”

“It has.” I had meant to give her a few weeks to digest everything after our call, but when Candi’s water broke one night after dinner, we all rushed to the hospital, and it’s been nonstop ever since. “Ivy’s here.”

It takes her a minute for my words to absorb. “Wait, what? Ivy was born? How is she? How did it go?”

“She’s perfect.” I press my lips to the top of her sleepy head, feeling the soft fuzz against my skin. “People aren’t exaggerating when they talk about the exhaustion that comes with a newborn, but they also aren’t lying when they say it’s totally worth it.” The exhaustion is more than I could have imagined. More than I ever felt in the Marines, even when I wasn’t sleeping, and my mental health was at its lowest. It’s a different type of exhaustion, though. One mixed with uncertainty in this new world, a little bit of fear that you’re going to do something wrong, but lots of love is mixed in, too. The sudden, consuming, overwhelming love for this tiny little floppy thing that mostly sleeps and cries.

“I’m happy for you,” she whispers, and the words sound true, but I’m sure it’s hard for her to say them. I wish she was here. I wish she could see Candi and Rick together, to see my relationship with them to understand what it is.

“Would you believe I cried once we got home? I think it was day three when everything settled, and I started to cry. Broke down and blubbered like a baby.”

“You did? I can’t imagine that. What did you cry over?”

I chuckle a little, adjusting the blanket that’s starting to droop down Ivy’s shoulder. “I was looking at her sleeping one night. Staring at her tiny hands and little face, thinking about how innocent babies are. Children in general, really.” I saw a lot of shit when I was deployed. Things happening to women and children that I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to witness. It hurt me at the time, but then I had a child of my own, and that protective instinct became stronger. “I started thinking about what she will be like when she grows up, and I had this sudden realization that there will likely come a day where she dates someone, falls in love, and that person might break her heart, and I won’t be able to do anything to stop it.”

Magnolia is silent on the other end of the line for a minute, and I laugh awkwardly. “Anyways, yeah, crying over her future fictional broken heart had me breaking down.”

“I think that’s sweet, Lukas.”

“I think it’s kind of messed up.”

“Why’s that?”

“There I was, crying that someone might hurt my daughter, this precious, perfect girl, and yet I had you…” I trail off, not knowing if I can finish my thought without cracking. “I had someone who was perfect in my eyes, my dream girl, someone I loved, and look what I did to you.”

“Lukas…”

I use the hand that’s gripping my phone to swipe the tears away with the back of my hand. “If someone ever hurts her the way I hurt you, I feel like I’d hunt them down. That’s kind of a hard pill to swallow.”

“I get that. But I think the important part is to raise her in a way that she knows what love is. To know what to tolerate and what to stand up to. I loved you, Lukas. I would have done anything for you. But at the same time, I was raised to know what love is, and to know when it wasn’t good for me to be around someone anymore. But you know what’s weird?”

“What’s that?”

“Even though you were the one hurting me, the way you loved me when we were younger also taught me what real love was like.” She pauses, sniffling once. “I knew how a relationship should be, how one could be, and that’s how I knew what we had at the end wasn’t healthy anymore. I learned a lot about love from being with you, both good and bad.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, nodding along in the dark room.

“I’m sorry, Mags, for all of it. I know I’ve said it before, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve said it enough.”

“I know you are, Lukas … it’s just…” She sighs heavily. “I don’t know. It’s still a lot.”

“But you answered, and now I feel like I won the lottery.”

There’s a huff of a laugh on her end. “I’ve had time to digest it all, I guess. Still not sure if … not sure what I can give, but … I do want to talk.”

I mentally pump a fist in the air, but I keep my mouth shut, listening to her movements on the other end. She’s clanking around with something, and I can hear the ping of her pressing buttons.

“Warming up your coffee?”

“Yeah, had a few sips then got lost in my stretches, forgot about it.”

I smile at that, knowing that some of my favorite things haven’t changed.

“Are you still living with Raymond and Ronaldo?”

An alarm dings, and she must be pulling her coffee out. I hear a soft puff of air as she blows the steam. “No, I have my own place now.”

“Oh?”