Chapter 11 #3
“Oh my god, this pizza is life.” I pull a bite of stringy goodness off the end of my slice and stuff it in my mouth.
Both Willa and Jasper chuckle in amusement. We sit outside the pizza place they had me follow them to. Apparently, it’s a local place they discovered when they first moved here and now it’s their favorite.
I can see why.
The barbeque chicken pizza is the best I’ve ever had, and as a self-proclaimed pizza snob, that says a lot. I’m glad I ordered a large at their suggestion, because it means leftovers for me to dig into later.
“How’s my favorite niece?” Willa picks a mushroom off the pizza she’s sharing with Jasper. He immediately picks up the discarded mushroom and sticks it in his mouth.
They exchange a cute smile, one that says more than words can. For the longest time Willa hid away because of her disease, believing she wasn’t worthy of love, but Jasper changed all that for her. I couldn’t have picked a better match for my sister.
“Her typical sassy self.” Wiping my hands on a napkin, I get rid of the sticky residue left from the pizza before I reach for my lemon water. “I have no idea how she’s my child.” I wink.
Sadness has the corners of Willa’s mouth drooping. “I miss her. We need to make another trip back home for a weekend.” She looks at Jasper for confirmation and he nods. “Maybe if I’m not swamped with homework we can come the next weekend you have her?”
“Sounds like a plan. Just let me know.”
“How are your classes going?” she asks me, her eyes inquiring.
“Not as hard as yours, I’m sure.”
She lets out a sigh. “Don’t do that. Just because you’re studying something different from me, doesn’t mean it’s not difficult or any less important.”
I stifle a snort and tear off a chunk of crust to nibble on. “You’re going to be a transplant surgeon, and I want to take photos and design shit. I think yours is vastly more important.”
Willa tilts her head to the side, eyes sad. “I hate it when you undermine yourself. You’re brilliant, Low.”
Resting my head on my fist, I smile at my sister. “Jae says the same thing.”
She gives me a seriously, sisterly look. “Then start listening.”
I laugh, dropping my half-eaten crust. “This is nice. I missed you. Even you.” I stick my tongue out at Jasper.
He chuckles and drops his arm over the back of Willa’s chair. “I’ve missed you too, Harlow.”
“Just to clarify, I am going to be the maid of honor, correct? If you choose Meredith over me then that means war.”
Willa shakes her head, her lips twitching with the threat of laughter. “Yes, I was going to ask you to be my maid of honor once we set a day.”
I arch a brow. “Any ideas on when the big day will be?”
They look at each other and both shrug. “We’ve talked about this summer,” Jasper replies first.
Willa finishes for him, “But it depends on some things and how it goes. Luckily, we want a simple wedding so if we decide a few months prior that this summer is a go, it shouldn’t be a big deal.”
“Just remember, if you pick teal for your bridesmaid’s dresses and ‘I Honestly Love You’ for your wedding song, chances are the marriage will never last.”
Jasper’s brows furrow at my comment, but sister gets it right away and bursts into laughter. “How many times did we watch The Wedding Planner that one summer?”
“Too many.”
“What are you two talking about?” Jasper looks between us, bewildered. The poor guy can barely keep up when we’re together.
She pats his thigh, smiling at him. “It’s a movie. We’ll rent it tonight.”
When I’ve eaten all I can, I get a box to pack up the rest of the leftover pizza. Saying my goodbyes to Willa and Jasper is bittersweet, but I know I have to make the drive home and pick up Monroe from my parents.
“Ugh, I wish you could stay longer.” Willa squeezes me. “I miss you so much.”
I grip her tight, not wanting to let go. “We’ll see each other again soon. Maybe in a month, remember?”
She releases me and wipes at her eyes. “Look at me, I’m a mess.” She laughs as Jasper wraps an arm around her. “But yeah, we’ll try to come home to see everyone.”
I sling my bag over my shoulder. “I’ll start editing the photos tonight and send you some peeks.”
Willa’s giddy smile has a matching one spawning on my mouth. For so long my sister was a shell of herself. I’m so happy that she’s finally healing. “I can’t wait.”
With one last hug for each of them, I’m climbing in my car and driving away.
Getting in bed, my laptop ready, I pull my camera case closer. Grabbing it, I pop the SD card out and into my laptop, loading up the photos I took today. Monroe is already fast asleep, Mr. Kitty clasped in her arms as she slips into dream world when I peeked in on her.
Going through the photos I mark my favorites and then go through them again to narrow it down to the best ones out of those so there aren’t too many that are similar.
I get to work editing, watching the clock so I don’t stay up too late.
Willa: OMG! I love it!
I smile at Willa’s text in response to a screenshot I sent her of one of the photos. In it, Jasper’s spinning her around, her smile eating up her face.
I edit a few more photos before deciding I better stop for the night. I tend to get carried away and let too much time pass. Packing things back into the case, I pause, noticing something sticking out at the bottom.
It takes me a few tries to get whatever it is out from under the flap of the case.
I have no idea how something got lodged there, or how long it’s been there.
I wiggle it out enough to be able to get my thumb and index finger on it.
A triumphant smile overtakes me when I finally get it free.
I look at the SD card with a mystified expression.
Chances are it’s an unused one that got stuck some time ago, but something tells me to put it into my computer, so I do.
As the photos load, my mouth slowly drops open.
I thought I’d lost these photos. I remember being devastated when they vanished off my computer when Monroe was a baby. Losing these photos felt like losing a part of me, especially since taking them was helping to dig me out of such a dark place.
But there they are.
Hundreds and hundreds of them.
I touch the screen reverently as images of my sweet baby fill the screen.
Her drooly face, and that soft blond downy hair that dusted her skull like little feathers.
Flicking through the photos I’m overcome with so many emotions.
I smile to myself at one I snapped of her sleeping on Spencer’s chest while he was passed out on the couch at my parent’s house.
I zoom in on Roe’s tiny toes and feel my heart clench.
More and more photos come up and I can’t stop myself from going through them all. Picking up my phone I shoot Spencer a text.
Me: You’ll never believe what I found.
I don’t expect to hear back from him. I figure he’s out doing important celebrity things, but it comes within seconds.
Spencer: What?
I snap a photo of the image I had stopped on previously with Roe sleeping on his chest and send it.
Again, his response is almost immediate but instead of texting, my phone jingles with the ringtone that says someone is Facetiming.
I accept his call and I’m surprised to find he’s in what I assume is his bedroom. He’s wearing a plain white tee, his hair dark and damp from a shower.
“Hey,” he says, voice deeper than normal like he’s tired, but he’s smiling. “Where did you find that photo?”
I flip the screen so he can view my laptop and flick through more photos quickly before turning the camera back around to face me.
“Remember the photos that disappeared when my computer crashed? Then I couldn’t find the SD card?
Well, I found the SD card. It was stuck in the bottom of my camera bag and I never noticed.
I think it was hidden by the flap and my other lenses. ”
“There’s more?” His smile widens and he sits up in bed, shuffling something to the side.
“A lot more. So many. It’s like finding a hidden treasure.” I can’t keep the emotion out of my voice. Pictures of your baby are invaluable and to think I’d lost so many.
“Show me.” His voice is heavy with emotion, eyes pleading.
Flipping the screen so he can view my laptop, I scroll through the photos lingering on certain ones longer than others.
“I remember that day,” he says, his voice full of longing and maybe a little sadness. “It was her six-month shots, and we got ice cream after because we both cried when she cried.”
I laugh, staring at what he sees. A photo of me sitting in a chair outside an ice cream parlor here in town.
Monroe is resting in my arms in just a onesie with purple Band-Aid’s on her chunky thighs.
I’m licking a cookies n’ cream ice cream cone and in the reflection of the window you can see Spencer taking the photo in one hand and holding his cone in the other.
“Show me more,” he practically begs.
And I do, flicking through memories captured on that tiny SD card that we thought were gone.
“God, look at us,” I comment, pointing at the photo I’ve stopped on so my finger appears in his view. “We look so young.”
He laughs and my view of him on the phone shows him leaning forward to better see the image of us.
It was taken at the beach. Sand peppers our shoulders and my nose is red from too much sun.
My lips are pressed to his cheek and he’s grinning at the camera.
Willa took this picture, demanding we have one together during a day at the beach.
Monroe would’ve been nearing a year old at the time this was taken.
By the time she turned two, Spencer and I were no more.
Looking at this photo we look so in love, and we were, but I was struggling—still dealing with my postpartum depression and only seventeen.
I had gotten my GED a few months prior to this photo being taken, and Spencer and I moved into our own apartment, a tiny hole in the wall of a place, but we both did our best to make it home.
“Are you saying we got old?” His joke interrupts my thoughts.
“Only you.”
He chuckles, smiling at my response. “We were happy then … weren’t we?” There’s something in his voice, a hesitation like he’s uncertain. It makes me wonder if that’s something that bothers him. If perhaps he worries I was never happy with him.
“I was happy as I could be,” I say, and it’s the truth. That wasn’t an easy time in my life and it’s not his fault.
Flipping the screen around so he can see me, he says, “What happened to us?”
“Spencer,” I sigh, feeling my shoulders grow heavy.
There are so many different reasons I could name off, some of them juvenile, some of them not, but at the end of the day the blame lies solely on me and I’ll own that.
“We were so young.” My voice is soft, hesitant.
I don’t like talking about our demise, even if I’m the one who walked away from us.
I loved Spencer. I loved him more than most people my age are capable of, and I know he loved me, but maybe it was age, immaturity, or who knows what else, but I panicked.
I didn’t want to live a life trapped to the first guy I fell in love with just because I got pregnant.
I wanted to see what else was out there.
“That was the big problem, wasn’t it?” He rubs a hand over his smooth jaw, freshly shaved no doubt after he finished his shower.
“We were too damn young for it to possibly last, right?” There’s a bite of anger to his question but he doesn’t give me a chance to reply. “Do you regret it? Getting pregnant?”
I’m silent for a moment.
When Spencer and I sat in my bedroom, waiting for those pregnancy test results, I’ve never been more scared in my entire life.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think losing my virginity on my seventeenth birthday to my boyfriend of nearly a year would lead to me getting pregnant.
We’d used a condom, but I guess it broke or something.
But even with my fear, I don’t regret Monroe for one single second.
“No,” I answer him. “Monroe is the gift I didn’t know I needed. She’s … she’s everything. Do you regret it?” I turn it around on him. I know his answer before he even says it.
“Never.” Clearing his throat, he sits up in his bed. “If there’s anything I know. It’s that I was meant to be her dad.”
We exchange a small smile. Despite us, despite our past and circumstances, that little girl sleeping across the hall will always tie us together.