Making Babies #NewAdult

~Thirty Three~

         He needed this. This moment right here, of him letting go, of him leaning on someone, of him not having to be the strong one for a change. He needed someone else to be strong for him and at this moment, with me standing there, more than seven inches shorter than him and at least thirty pounds lighter than him now that I was so pregnant that I couldn't even see my toes when I looked down, I was all he needed.

           So I let it be. I let this moment be. I let myself be the strongest one of us and  took his pain, his tears and his broken heart, in. I stood there while my boyfriend, and the father of my unborn child shook in my arms from the waves currently riding his whole body.

            I ran my hand softly on his back while I soothed him with nonsense words that I was sure meant everything to him at that very instant. So I kept whispering in his ears, things that I knew he needed to hear, that I'm here for him and I always will be. That I feel his pain and truly empathize with him, that no matter what, he will always have me. So I said all those things, but never once have I stopped him from crying, because that I couldn't do.

          Frederick has always been my rock. Stood beside me while I fell completely apart more time than I could count, still he stayed there to pick up the pieces and put them back together. So the least I could do was to catch him when he finally was weak enough to stumble. I wanted him to know that it was ok not to be the strong one all the time, because even heroes needed someone to save them every once in awhile and I was more than ok to be that saving grace for him.

            So we stood there and he silently cried on my shoulder until he had let out the most of his pain and frustration, we stood there until my swollen feet couldn't handle all this weight and I had to ease off of them.

            "Come on, let's go in the living room and sit." I smiled softly, holding his hand while we walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind us as to not wake up Billie who I couldn't beleive had slept through all of this. She must have been really tired. I couldn't blame her, we've had absolutely horrendous months with Mrs. Winslet dying and Billie parting ways with her long time boyfriend.

            "Sit down, I'll get you something to drink. A beer perhaps." I told him, while he sat in the sofa, still holding my hand which he pulled back slightly when I made an effort to start walking towards the kitchen for something to drink.

          "It's okay," he started, seemingly a little shy as he looked at our interlocked hands, averting his eyes. "Just sit with me, please. Just be here, that's all I need right now."

          I simply nodded and sat down next to him and just waited silently while I gave him the time to process everything and regroup himself. I was holding his hand in my lap and every so often would smooth a finger over it to let him know that I was there. When I noticed that he was finally able to look at me, I smiled softly.

         "What happened?"

            He closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the couch. "The delivery was really bad. Something very wrong happened along the way and the baby was losing oxygen because the umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around his neck. We waited too long for the C-section, trying to convince Karlie. It was unfortunately too late. They tried to revive him but it didn't work." He explained, taking a long and deserving breath and letting it out after a few second.

          My heart broke then. Karlie was a raging bitch but no one deserved to go through something this terrible, something this horribly painful, especially not Frederick who was so gentle, so loving and oh so wonderful.

          I thought back to all these months and I realized that this man, just like Billie and I, has been through so much, if not more. And yet, he was strong enough to carry each one of us.