Aria
May 2017
“Will you just talk to me? Please? I have to leave for bootcamp next week and I’d really like to have our shit straightened out before then. I’m fucking sorry! Okay?” Benji yells at me, like I’m the problem. Excuse the fuck out of me for not wanting to live a miserable existence and drag my daughter through the shitstorm of toxicity that we are as a couple.
“Benj, stop yelling for shit’s sake. What is there to figure out? You haven’t made any changes as a person. To be honest, I’m not sure that’s even a real possibility. Do people really ever change? How am I supposed to believe all of the sudden you want to be a family guy? A husband and a father? Pfft, you literally live off of your roommate because you can’t hold down a job and then talked him into telling me that you basically vanished into thin air when I called to tell you about the pregnancy. You don’t want this. You don’t want me. Stop acting like you’re all of the sudden a good guy. I never said you couldn’t be in the baby’s life, but we shouldn’t be together. Don’t you see that?” I ask, exhausted from repeating myself over and over again to someone who clearly can’t hear past his own ego.
“So, what? You just want to live off of welfare and work your shit job at the Taco Shack and pretend that it’ll get you somewhere in life? Come on Aria. With me starting a military career, it’ll give you and our baby the best chance at a new life. I can make things so much easier for all of us. We can start fresh. Just give me a chance.Please. I’m trying here.”
Fuck. Leave it to me to feel bad for the asshole after a few hours of groveling. Do I give him a chance or not? He doesn’t deserve it, but maybe I’m selfishly thinking of myself, maybe our baby deserves this chance, probably her best chance at having a real relationship with her daddy. Maybe I owe it to her to give him an opportunity to change. With or without him, I know I’ll be okay. Despite the ugly picture he painted of me being on welfare, I know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to give this baby the whole god damn world.
“Let’s say I give you a shot. What does that look like to you? I’m not saying I’ll marry you, but what if I agree totryto make our relationship work again. I may be angry with you now, but I won’t deny that I thought we could be good together at one point in our short time together.”
“Well, I’m getting a huge signing bonus for joining the Army. I’ve spoken with my family and they’ve agreed to sell me their house. It’s not big, just a two bedroom, two bathroom home. It’s modest, but big enough for us to start a family. I figure, if you agree to marry me, or at least date me again, we can start with letters and phone calls while I’m away at bootcamp and then take it from there. I’ll be gone for at least three months and in that time, you can have some of my bonus to make the house a home for us. I’ll look into getting you a computer as well so that we can email each other when possible. Being in a long distance relationship will be hard, I know that but it’ll give us a chance to be more open with each other and really get to know one another before you make a real decision on whether or not you’ll want to marry me and make our family complete.”
He’s really thought a lot of this through. I hate to admit that he’s charming when he wants to be, it’s what caught me in his web the first time. It’s honestly not even a bad idea. I can always back out if I want to and he won’t even be home with me for the first little while, which as bitchy as it makes me seem, will be nice. It’ll give me time to adjust to the idea of us living together while we try to repair the damage that’s been done.
“I don’t trust you. And to be totally honest, I’m a little bit pissed at myself for even considering this, but you’re not wrong about our baby deserving the best life we can give her and I’d be stupid not to try… for her. Not for you. I’ll agree to this for at least the time it takes you to get through bootcamp. I can’t promise anything after that. We can start withfriendship. I’ll need to see a huge fucking change in you to agree to anything else. Like, you’ll need an exorcism or some shit to convince me you’ve changed.”
“Her? We’re having a girl? You already found out?” He homes in on the baby’s unknown gender instead of everything else I just said, while staring at my stomach. It’s not confidence boosting at all.
“It’s just a feeling. I don’t know anything definitive just yet. They can’t tell me the gender until I’m twenty weeks along and right now I’m only fourteen or so weeks. I’ll make sure to send you a picture of the ultrasound when they confirm I’m right.” I let him know with a shrug of my shoulder. “But seriously, I’ll agree to this tentatively. I just need to see something from you that I don’t even know if you’re capable of. I’d have a lot more confidence if you’d actually acknowledged what I just said to you.” I tell him as he leans in to hug me. Naturally, I feel myself move back away from him. I don’t know how I’m supposed to try out a real relationship with him when I can’t stand to let him touch me.
“Seriously Aria? You won’t even let me hug you? How are we supposed to do this if I can’t even get near you? You said you’d try.” He says borderline yelling as he glares at me.
“Can you just respect my space for a bit? I need to learn how to trust you and that won’t come easy after all the shit you put me through. Stop acting like this is all on me. You played your part in things. I get that I’ll have my own issues to work out, but you can’t force yourself on me and expect me to be cool with it, ya know? We split for a reason. A very important, veryvalidreason. One that wasn’tmyfault.”
“Okay, okay!” He says, raising his hands in an innocent gesture, smiling like the cat who caught the canary. It’s annoying how smug he looks when he thinks he’s gotten his way, to be perfectly honest. He reins it in just enough that I could almost pretend he’s sincere when he speaks, if it weren’t for the smugness holding true in his gaze.
“You aren’t wrong. I owe you an apology. I can’t begin to explain how sorry I am. I don’t deserve you or your trust, but I’m still going to try and win you back.” He pleads.
“Look, we both need to work on ourselves. I don’t want you doing all of this for me. Hell, I don’t even want you to do any of this for our baby. You need to want to work on yourself foryouor nothing will ever change. We are both fuck ups of the highest order and our baby one hundred percent deserves better than the parents they are getting. I know this. I know how badly I need to make changes in my life. It starts with me and you, so if you can agree to actually put in the effort, then so will I. Plus, it’s not like you got ugly over the last few months, so that helps.” I joke, doing my best to not let real sense kick in so I don’t run fast and far away.
He smirks at me and gives me his best panty melting smolder, joking back at me. Seriously? This guy really needs to get over his Casanova complex. “All right. Well, now that that’s settled, let’s go pack your shit. You move in today.”
Six
There’s something to be said for a penned letter
Dear Aria,
This is letter number one. If you decide to write me back, make sure to number each one, so that one day we can maybe show our grandkids how we fell in love once upon a time. I just unpacked all of my things and ate my first military meal. Let’s just say, I’m going to miss eating real food. If you decide to come to Kansas, which I’m now realizing I forgot to even invite you to do, I’ll have to figure out a way for us to spend some time together after I graduate, but before I have to come back home.
We are living in what’s called barracks. Essentially, I’m bunked up with a bunch of sweaty, smelly dudes and it’s pretty fucking gross. It could always be worse though. I miss you and the way you always smell so sweet, the way you taste even sweeter. I can’t wait until I can hold you in my arms again and kiss you like a girl should be kissed by the man who loves her.
Anyway, we start training tomorrow and I’m pretty nervous. I’m not exactly an athlete and the smokers lung I’ve got has me a little worried. This is going to be physically exhausting from the sounds of things. At least I might come back with abs! Ha. I won’t be able to give you much information since it’s all considered sensitive and everything is on a ‘need to know’ basis, but I’ll tell you as much as I can.
How are you? Tell me how you’re feeling. I know morning sickness was still making you crazy when I left and you’ve been so exhausted. I’ve been really worried about it. I really think you should quit working and let me take care of you. There’s no reason for you to work now that I’ve got a career to fall back on.
Have you found the doctor you want yet? I’m so sad that right when you finally let me hold you at night again, I had to leave you. I miss you more than I thought I ever could. Being away from you again is making me realize how stupid I was to ever let you go in the first place. Our baby may be the best thing to ever happen to me, not just because I get to be a dad, but also because they are giving me a second shot with you. I know you aren’t ready to hear about how much I love you, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I adore you. You really do mean so much to me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be with you again.
Love,
Benji
Seven
Maybe people can change after all
