The Wish List

A Blank Page

"Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one."

~Brad Paisley

Ty and I never did anything that night.

The second I had tried to pull my shirt over my head, he had caught my wrist and forced me to look right at him.

"You're not ready." He whispered.

"Ty, I-"

"You want to know how I know?" He said, his eyes fluttering slightly, "I know because you said you were positive you wanted to do it." I frowned, feeling my racing heart start to slow back to normal.

"So?" I whispered.

"So, I may not have known you for the longest time, but I could still see it in your eyes. When you were talking to me earlier, I knew you were going to try and convince yourself you wanted to do it. But nobody, not even Maggie, who had sex for a living, was ever "positive" she wanted to have sex." I dropped my head, feeling heat starting to spread through my cheeks.

"We have our whole lives ahead of us, Ally. We don't have to do this now." He brought his hand to my cheek and smiled, "You can finish college at NYU once we're done with a list and maybe then, maybe then we can think about having a baby, all right?" I laid on the bed beside him, burying my face against his chest as I nodded.

"Thank you." I breathed out, "Thank you for not taking advantage of me and my confusion, thank you for helping me complete this list." He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my cheek before rolling around to face the otherside of the room.

"And yet." I heard him whisper, "It's still not enough to pay you back for what you've done for me."

*

I offered to take Tessie to the mall the next day while Ty was at his AA meeting. He was skeptical at first, saying that he would rather go with us, but finally convinced himself to go to his meeting.

"Mommy, look!" Tessie grabbed a pink dress from the girls section behind me, waving it in the air.

"That's pretty, sweetie." I said, turning away from the black blouse in my hand and at Tessie.

"I wanna be a Princess for Christmas." She said with a giggle, spinning around with the dress in the air. I picked her up as a few of the store clerks headed in our direction, checking the size on the dress.

"You don't need a dress to be a princess," I replied, poking her chest, "What makes you a princess is on the inside." She giggled, poking my nose.

"No, you have pretty dresses when you're a princess." She said.

"You're wrong, Tessie." I set the dress in the cart when she wasn't looking, "You're already a beautiful princess, you don't need a dress for everyone to see that."

*

Tessie was helping me set up envelopes for the thirteenth thing on the list when Ty walked through the front door.

"Daddy!" Tessie set down her envelope and ran across the room, hugging Ty as he crouched down with a hiss of pain. I frowned, lifting my head up completely.

"Are you okay? What happened?" He waved me off, kissing the top of Tessie's head.

"It's nothing. I just fell." He muttered. I stood up and walked over to them, my arms crossing over my chest on the way. Once I had reached him, I could see what I couldn't from afar.