Beauty where there's pain

Chapter 8

"Max if you're not going to help paint, please go do literally anything else in literally any other room." Ellen told her daughter, who was preoccupied with ranting about her friends drama. Ginny had  her birthday party at their house the week prior and the only thing that came from the party was stupid drama that nobody had the energy to listen to. Marcus and his family were currently focused on painting the room that would soon be his daughters an opal green color. Marcus made flowers out of wood that he was going to decorate her bedroom walls with. "Max seriously, you're not helping please leave." Marcus told her. Max huffed and stalked out of the room.

"18 more weeks, how are you feeling? Excited? Nervous?" Ellen asked as she pushed a paint roller upwards on the wall. "A little bit of both I guess." He told his mother. "Well, I think you and Jade would both benefit from a few parenting classes. My coworker has a daughter who teaches classes during the weekend, I bet I can get you two a few sessions. Let Jade know and tell me about your decision." Ellen told him. Marcus just nodded.

If Marcus was being honest, he had to admit that the idea of becoming a parent terrified him more and more each day. He found himself doing research and read some terrifying shit, like how he needed to learn infant CPR. He also read about allergies and asthma, and that also put him on edge. He was mostly scared of screwing up his kid's life.

Jade and Marcus agreed that they both needed parenting classes and Ellen signed them up. They went to the class the next day, and Jade immediately felt nervous. She saw a bunch of women whose ages ranged from about 23 to 35 and they were all staring at her and Marcus. She tried to avoid having to interact with them but they eventually had to introduce themselves. They sat on pillows in a circle and their partners had to sit directly behind them. "My name's Jade, I'm almost 16, and I'm 22 weeks pregnant. This is the baby's father, Marcus. He's also almost 16." Jade told the group, Marcus greeted everyone and the next person went.

After introductions they did their first exercise, which was practicing the breathing technique that they'd use during labor. The next thing they had to do was practice diapering with teddy bears. Jade did it with ease, she grew up with multiple little siblings so she knew a thing or two about changing diapers. Marcus on the other hand struggled, a lot, and Jade found it amusing. The final activity they did was the one thing Marcus feared most, and that was learning how to help a chocking baby. The idea of it happening to his child terrified him and during the entire practice, he focused extremely hard on getting every detail done 100% correctly.

After the hour long class, Marcus and Jade went to nearby baby boutique to pass time while they waited for Ellen to come pick them up. "Aww look at this!" Jade said as she picked up a fluffy purple dress that came with a big matching hair bow. "Aw, I can't wait to have a little purple cloud as a daughter." Marcus told Jade snarkily, she rolled her eyes at him.

"I think we should rethink our custody agreement." Marcus told Jade, "I don't think it'll be healthy for her to see only one parent for an entire week and then be switched off. At least not during her first year of life. She should be able to see both of us daily." He told her. "Ok so, what kind of arrangement were you thinking?" Jade asked him. "How about we switch off every night, like she'll stay with you for a night, we'd be with her as much as possible for the rest of the day until like 6, and then I'll have her for that night and the pattern continues. We only live like 5 minutes away from each other so I don't think it'll be an impossible thing." He told her. "I'm fine with that. And while we're on the subject, I don't think we should put our daughter in any kind of daycare." Jade told Marcus. He chuckled, "Where else would she go?" He asked her. "Um no, I heard you out so now you will here me out." Jade told him, "I was talking about custody, not taking away our child's education. We still have school and work to think about!" He told her. "Since when do you give a flying fuck about education?!" Jade said, "it isn't like she wouldn't be educated, we can homeschool until she starts pre-K. I don't think daycares are safe, that's why she doesn't need to be in one." Jade told him. "This is a bigger conversation that we need to have in the future. Preferably with our parents, who by the way, won't be available to watch her while we have school and work." He told her. She rolled her eyes, "whatever." She said before walking away from him and going to look at the hair bows.

Jade spent the rest of the day being annoyed with Marcus and ignoring him. Her reaction was partially because of her hormones, but she also felt like she wasn't being listened to and that pissed her off. She didn't answer any of his texts or phone calls all day.

Marcus decided to give Jade her space when she wasn't answering him. Instead he decided to focus on his latest art project. As he was painting, a buzz from his phone got his attention, he looked at the notification and threw his phone on his bed in annoyance. He didn't hesitate to put a jacket on and storm out of his bedroom and across the street. He knocked on the door and Ginny answered so he immediately started scolding her. "Ginny, stop sending me shit like that. I've made it clear that I'm not interested in you." Marcus told her, Ginny rolled her eyes. "Yeah keep pushing me away, you'll be running back when you realize how bad of a father you're going to be to that damn mistake. Jade should've aborted it as soon as she found out but no, she just wants to make everyone miserable." Ginny told him. He scoffed, "Stay away from me. Stay away from Jade, and stay away from our daughter." He told her. She laughed, "You think that shit's gonna work? We're neighbors, I can come to your house at literally any moment and get access to you." Ginny stated. Marcus was stunned and had to force his legs to run from her house and back to his.

Marcus fought back the urge to sob as he went to the garage to find something he could make a lock with. If the incident that happened with Ginny taught him anything, it was that he was going to do everything in his power to keep her away from his and his daughters windows. She would go nowhere near either of them, she wouldn't go anywhere near Jade or the rest of his family either. He went into the garage and looked in his dads tool box for anything, but couldn't find anything remotely useful. He made and impulsive decision and jumped onto his motorcycle. He figured that the hardware store would still be open, he'd get stuff from there.

He didn't consider that he couldn't drive the damn thing until he was in the road driving, he second guessed his turn and sped up halfway through it. His motorcycle went sliding off the road and came from underneath him. It crashed further down the street. Marcus went tumbling on the road and down into a ditch. His head hit the road hard multiple times, and it's a good thing Marcus remembered to bring his helmet or it would've been much worse. He got extremely dizzy and tried to stand up to get some kind of help. He ended up waving a passing car down right before he blacked out.