Poison Ivy | Jordan Poole

seventeen

I want it to be real

Baby, believe me

It gets too much without your love, feel me

Hold onto your truth (Truth, truth, truth), hear me

Feel the love that I'm sendin' you

Oh, how come it cuts so deep?

"I'm just saying, more time apart was not in our plan Isla." AJ tried to reason as he gazed at his wife. Her jaw was set, she stared at him from across the counter. Ivy had left an hour ago and gave no indication as to where she was going or how she felt.

For AJ this had become their life, juggling Isla's family while theirs took a back burner. When AJ was working, he could get into character and ignore it but when he came home, he spent more time watching his wife watch her sister than actually bonding with her.

He understood, he just wondered if it would always be like this. Would their marriage always be second on her list of priorities?

"And I'm saying she needs me AJ, what am I going to do abandon her?" Isla's exhaustion was evident, she felt like she was being pulled in two directions. Sighing, she raked her hands through her hair.

"Of course not, but Ivy's an adult and you're pregnant Isla, I don't want to miss any of that with you." He tried to reason, and she groaned. She hadn't meant to tell him yet, but he'd found the test last night in the garbage and they'd argued about it for hours.

She understood him but at the same time, she couldn't leave Ivy like this. The pregnancy had complicated things, they were still exploring each other and now they had a whole tiny human being added to the equation. She wasn't even sure she could be a good mother when she felt like she was failing as a sister and a wife simultaneously.

"AJ I can't fight with you right now, you know I want to physically be with you, I want to share every moment with you but she's my sister and if something happened to her, I couldn't live with that."

He nodded, biting his lip before he exhaled.

"Yeah, I don't want that on your conscience, so I guess that's it then? I miss out because I have to work. I've got two people to provide for now."

She didn't like his tone, but she didn't want to push this off the edge. For the first time in her life, Isla bit her tongue because she was afraid of what it might cost her.

"AJ, please."

"What? I'm giving you what you want. You'll stay here and we'll just do what we did before, you'll send me pictures or facetime and one day we'll be under the same roof right?"

The fact that they'd arrived here was a testament to the fact that she may have been discarding his feelings for the sake of trying to hold her people close. AJ was the most patient soul she knew, for him to explode like this – it slapped reality into her and she hated how bitter it tasted. She had taken advantage of his kindness, his affection for her and she'd never asked him if he'd mind the moves she was making, she just did them.

Now, she was asking him to miss out on moments in their first pregnancy. She understood him but for some reason she couldn't shake her innate sense of devotion to her sister.

"Why do you make it seem like one or the other, I don't want to choose."

AJ laughed wryly before he shook his head.

"Isla please, I never asked you to choose. I know better because you'll always choose her just like you're doing right now."

His words stung her, she felt emotion rising in her chest. She hated this.