Chapter Fifty-Five
Blake
W hen Adrian and I get back to my parents’ house after work the next afternoon, Arielle seems to be feeling better after spending most of the night in the room.
“The cabbage really helped. I don’t feel like ripping my own tits off my body anymore,” Arielle jokes. It’s rare that she tries, but she’s actually kind of funny when she does.
According to my mom, the pain of a clogged milk duct is enough to make me reconsider ever having children.
That’s a short-lived thought as soon as Grady hands Stella off to Adrian for the first time.
He stayed the night here, choosing to be with me rather than spending a night alone or taking me away from my family. This is the first time he’s holding her though.
He doesn’t seem uncomfortable—not even a little—so I’m sure it’s more to do with the fact I was pretty stingy with my niece yesterday.
But now? Seeing this?
I wish I had plopped her down in his arms sooner.
It’s a sight I never gave much thought to until right now.
I know it’s one I won’t ever forget going forward. It makes me positive I do want children one day, and I hope with everything inside of me that it’s that man holding our babies.
Arielle chuckles next to me and I glance her way with furrowed brows. Hers flick up in response, and she quietly advises, “Be careful. I don’t know how your parents would handle a second grandchild so soon.”
My face warms as I laugh and shake my head. Hoping to not get the attention of my boyfriend or brother, I sneakily snap a picture and send it in the group chat.
island of misfit toys
Sun, February 8 at 6:38 PM
*photo attachment of Adrian holding Stella and talking to Grady*
Meera
Oh. My. God.
Please tell me YOU are pregnant
Lol no
Margo
But you’re thinking about it arent you?
…maybe a little
Margo
Any straight woman would be too
Looking back up, Adrian’s eyes are on me now. He’s offering me a small, affectionate smile and it really is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
“How about some photo albums?” my mom asks no one in particular, pulling me from my thoughts. She sets down four giant books full of pictures from mine and Grady’s childhood.
Which means we are not the only two people featured in there… four other kids who are in almost every single picture with us, specifically one redheaded little girl who was glued to Grady’s side our entire childhood.
My eye meets my brother’s over Arielle’s head. He doesn’t talk about whatever happened between him and Vivi—outside of the stupid homecoming incidents when he took different girls as dates—but he doesn’t look totally cool with this situation either.
“Mom, how about no ?” I answer, hoping my brattiness may save Grady from explaining to Arielle the history of our family and the Davies.
“Tu guardas silencio.” She doesn’t look up when basically telling me to shut up. I don’t miss the appreciative smile Grady offers me. “There’s no better opportunity than when Adrian and Arielle are here.”
I’m certain my mom isn’t doing this to be malicious toward Arielle, or to cause problems for Grady. She just doesn’t seem to realize why he’d want to hide these from his girlfriend.
“I want to see them,” Arielle says softly, pulling one of the books toward her and flipping it open. It’s one from when Grady and I were really little, before we moved to Amada Beach when I was three.
Quickly, I grab one from when we were a little older and push another toward Grady, leaving our high school album free for the taking. There might be a little bit of Vivi in there, but they’d mostly fallen out by then. It’s more so my friends, or Asher and Hudson, the Davies twins who are closest to Grady’s age.
My mom comes to take Stella from Adrian and leaves the four of us sitting around the dining room table, with a metaphorical bomb only Grady and I know about.
“Cute haircut, Storm Cloud,” Adrian leans back in his chair, tossing his arm around me and a quick wink my way. I roll my eyes, not trying to fight the smile that pulls at my lips.
At some point Adrian and Arielle switched albums, so he’s looking at me as a toddler. The bowl cut made me look like Coconut Head from that Nickelodeon show. It wasn’t a cute haircut.
Arielle has our elementary years now, starting at the summer we moved here.
It started out more fun than I expected, with Arielle laughing and grinning along with the rest of us. That stopped about five minutes ago, right when we hit Grady’s sixth birthday.
We’d met the Davies family the summer before—or really, Grady met Genevieve Davies on the Fourth of July at a block party. It was just a coincidence that they lived right behind us. Most of the photos with Grady and Vivi during those two months included her brothers, her sister, and me.
From what I’ve picked up over the years, that fateful afternoon at Tossin’ Tomatoes pizzeria is what changed it all for them. In one of the pictures, I know it was seconds after Grady told Vivi she was his best friend for the first time. In another, they’re leaning over his Dexter’s Laboratory themed cake with the biggest smiles, neither one of them looking at the camera. They’re both shyly side-eyeing each other in it.
It all seems innocent enough.
If it weren’t for the fact that the same little girl is in almost all of our memories as a family, up until Grady turned fifteen and I turned twelve. Her siblings and mom are in a lot of them too. Almost as many as Vivi.
Arielle notices, because she has two working eyes, and at the very least, one working brain cell.
I’m sure she has more than just one. But that’s all you need to catch the pattern—especially when it’s three brunette kids, two blondes and one bright redheaded girl. She’s hard to miss.
And now it’s awkward.
Grady knows. Arielle knows. I know.
Glancing at Adrian turning another page, I question if he knows it. He’s more perceptive than he comes off, and he’s great at mediating a situation. So my money would be on him knowing exactly how weird this is now and what he’s doing.
We’re getting further into Grady’s high school years, but Arielle isn’t relaxing either. I can’t help feeling a little bad for her. Maybe it’s irrational—on both our parts—but I understand the jealousy associated with feeling like Grady loves someone else more. And it’s different for us, obviously. He’s my brother, though he was my best friend until Vivi. Around this time last year, he wasn’t even Arielle’s boyfriend and now he’s forever the father of her child.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s more than just this one little girl from Grady’s past. Maybe there are mountains of insecurities, and doubts, I’ll never understand because that’s not the relationship she and I have.
Either way, I wish I could tell her that I do understand.
“This has been fun,” Arielle says a bit dryly, “but I’m getting hungry.”
I watch my brother’s face tighten knowing that our mom offered to feed her multiple times.
“How about waffles?” I pipe in, surprising even myself. “Do you like waffles?” This time, I ask Arielle directly.
“Yeah, I do,” she nods, avoiding my brother’s gaze. “Waffles sound good.”
Adrian stands, placing his hand firmly on my neck. “I’ll drive.”