Wonderful Unknown

Chapter 15

A/N: Happy Birthday, Aiden Riley Aguerro! May all your little heart's desires come true. 🫶

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In hindsight, she should have probably accepted Pablo’s suggestion to hold the party somewhere else. He even insisted on paying for the venue and the new invitations before he left, but she shut him up with a kiss.

Roxy regretted it - rejecting his offer, not the kiss, obviously. She missed him already, and the countless messages he sent her in the past four days suggested that the feeling was mutual.

She plugged her phone to the charger, the battery draining a lot sooner lately, probably the consequence of dropping it several times last weekend.

Her mobile’s screen lit up. The notification panel informed her that she had a couple of unread messages, and then a missed call from Sky the night prior. She should probably wait a few more hours to return her call. It’s only 7 AM, after all.

Her new wallpaper brought a smile to her face. 

For a moment she wondered if Aiden would remember that late afternoon picnic once he was all grown up, if it would become a core memory that would somehow influence him later on in life.

She set her phone down, when she felt a tug on the hem of her shorts.

“Yes, birthday boy. Ano pong kailangan?”

“Daddeee,” Aiden mumbled, showing her the white tablet that they used to watch old clips of Archie.

Truth be told, Roxy had been dreading that day. It may have felt like she already lived several lifetimes worth of sorrow, but in reality, Archie had only been gone for a year.

She might have fast-tracked conquering all five stages of grief - mainly because she had Aiden to take care of, but it didn’t mean that the pain was truly gone. It hadn’t been as magnified as it used to be, but the pain was still there - lingering, firmly lodged deep inside her. 

Some would probably wish all of the heartache away, but not Roxy. She’d firmly hold onto it until her last breath, because that’s what Archie would probably do, too. In a way, that thread of pain was keeping his memory alive, a proof of what they once had. It might not be a healthy way to carry on, but was there really one singular way to cope with loss? 

Yes, she had already come to terms with continuing her life and opening her heart to someone else, but she had also accepted that she would never ever be able to let Archie go. 

Chances were slim anyway. All she had to do is look at Archie’s mini-me, and the memories would come flooding back.

Roxy sat on her haunches to meet her child’s gaze - his father’s eyes. Aiden really did take after him, and it used to leave a frown on her lips. She used to be his entire world - for almost nine months at least. But no, she couldn’t see any signs of her in the tiny human. 

“You wanna talk to Daddy?”

Her son’s face lit up, and he shoved the device to her chest. “Daddeee go pawtee? Yes?”

She ruffled the toddler’s hair. “Daddy can’t make it to your party, baby.” His lower lip quivered, and they couldn’t have that on his birthday - their birthday. “Pero tumawag siya nung tulog ka pa. You wanna see?”

Someday, when her son’s a little bit older, she will confess the truth. But for now, she would let him live in a make-believe world where his father still existed.

A very enthusiastic “Yes!” came out of the toddler’s lips followed by a tug on the hem of her shorts as he led her to the couch. When they were both seated comfortably, Roxy tapped on the screen and pulled up the messaging app that housed all of the texts, audio clips, and videos that she and Archie had exchanged during her pregnancy up until last year.