Till The End

Thirty

"What?"

He nods. "I know. I know this is a lot to handle, but—"

"Not only is it a lot to handle, but it's not happening." I interrupt him harshly. "Are you fucking out of your goddamn mind?" I yell. "What makes you think you have the right to come waltzing in here demanding that we become a family?! A family? Really?" shaking my head, I laugh. "We could've been a fucking family, Dylan—a happy one at that! But you left. You left me and your child and didn't fucking look back! You're crazy if you think I'm letting you squeeze your way back into my life, in—into hers!" I point outside, still shaking my head, a tear trickling down my cheek.

He nods, bringing two hands up in surrender as if to calm me down. "I'm not demanding anything, Ximena. I'm pleading you to listen to me, to give me a chance to prove myself." his eyes plead with mine.

"I don't want to. You don't deserve it." my shaky hand comes up to wipe away at my tear.

"Let me take you to dinner." he says after a moment. "We can talk. Just talk, okay? You owe me nothing, I know that. I'm sorry, Ximena. So, so sorry." my tears continue to fall. "Let me take you to dinner." he says again.

"No."

"Just—Please." he begs. "If after this dinner you want nothing to do with me, then fine. Fine, I'll leave you two alone forever if that's truly what you want." his eyes water. "But just let me at least try to talk to you."

I roll my eyes, wiping away at my tears violently. "One dinner. One quick meal at McDonalds, alright? There's one down the street."

"I remember." he nods, a small smile on his lips.

Right. We used to go there all the time. We used to date, he used to be my boyfriend, and I used to love him. How weird it is to think back on those days. My life is so different now. I'm so different now.

"Okay." I say. "Let me go tell my mom. And let me go change into something less..." I motion towards my fancy uniform. "this."

"I'll meet you at my car?"

I shake my head. "I'll meet you there. You're not driving me." I say.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

- - - -

After having a mini breakdown with my mom and changing into a pair of her sweats and borrowing a hoodie of my dads, I'm on my way to stupid McDonalds.

"I ordered for us." Dylan says as I take a seat in front of him at the booth I found him in when I got here. "Ten piece nugget meal for you, right? With a mango pineapple smoothie." the order sits in front of me, his Big Mac in front of him.

Yep. That's still my order. God, I hate that there's history here. That he knows the little things about me. I don't tell him whether or not he's right, just take a sip of the smoothie.

"I'm here, Dylan. Speak." I motion for him to get on with it. "Why? Why are you here now with the bullshit act of wanting to be a father?"

He takes a sip of from what I can recall is a large Sprite. His Big Mac has extra pickles on it. Disgusting. I always hated kissing him after a McDonalds run, but I always did anyway.

"My dad died. About two months ago. Cancer." he says. "I don't know..." he shrugs. "We reminisced a lot about my childhood in those last few weeks. He was a...great father. An amazing father." he nods, clearing his throat. "And uh—I don't know. I want to be that for Bella. My dad was always so disappointed in the fact that I never tried to contact you after the baby was born."