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Chapter Three - Neil

There were balloons everywhere.

Blue.

Pink.

White.

"We're havin' a baby, honey!"

No.

"Keys."

An endearment that I dubbed her long ago now tasted vile and bitter instead of sweet like it usually was.

She looked at me like she was the happiest soon-to-be mother in the world.

"Don't tell me that, goddamnit. Please don't fucking tell me that."

"What's wrong, Neil? Why can't you be happy about this? Happy about anything just for once?" She looked disappointed in me. Like we weren't having enough problems as it was, you know, with her fucking someone else. I wonder if he knew I existed? He had to of known.

Pounding. My heart wasn't in my ears, it was outside of my body, in my hands. I could feel the slow thumping and throbbing of it giving out. I looked down to my open hands to find nothing but my tacky palms and glossy fingertips. I guess I've been sweating. Maybe I imagined this day would come but in a fever dream, not in reality.

"Keys, baby... I can't have kids."

Her smile faltered a little, but she instantly perked back up latching onto one of my arms.

"It'll be alright, we can figure it out. You'll make the best father and we're gonna have so much fun as a family, going on walks and eating dinner together—"

"Adrienne," I pried her steel grip off of my forearm and held both of her hands in mine, shaking them, "I cannot physically have children."

Her face dropped, and when that expression fell over her beautiful features, goddamnit, I knew she understood what was going on. She just outed herself.

"Yeah. Remember the news I kept telling you about? And remember how you kept blowing me off to hang out with your friends? I went to the fertility clinic like you asked me to."

Her face looked so distant now, like she was trying to remember where she was or what she was doing all week. Who she was doing all week.

"I honestly didn't think you would go. You know, 'cause, well, you... You can tell me now baby, I promise. I'm sorry, I just kept getting invited out and since you had been working so much I just went, I'm—"

"What makes you think I wouldn't go? I would do anything for you if it would make you happy. Like working every fucking day for the past decade for you to sit at home and hope to be a fucking mother." I scoffed, "Well now you're gonna be."

"You don't have to be mad about it baby, maybe they can give you a more flexible schedule to help out and especially because we'll be first time parents, they have to understand."

"Did you not just hear what I said? I'm sterile, Keys." Paper white is all I could use to describe her usual flushed skin, her eyes so wide you could see her whole cornea. "You will be the first time parent."

She must have been saying something, but I didn't hear a word. I was staring past her thinking of all the ways I could leave her, but I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with letting the other man— boy— have her. Images of packing my suitcase and rushing out of the house like in the movies flashed in my mind, but that would be too cliché. Or throwing her shit out the window of our upstairs master bedroom like all the women do in the same movies when they find out their partner knocked another woman up. But then the strangest thing happened. I saw her hanging from the indoor balcony.