Hanging On

Chapter Nine

I stopped by the store to start shopping for baby stuff. Even though I was pissed about the whole Ronnie situation, I was excited to finally know what my baby is. I always told myself that I didn't care what it was, as long as it was healthy. But secretly, I had hoped it was a little girl.

I wanted to start planning right away. The room, the crib, the theme. I wanted to start looking at different paints so I could talk my brother into painting her room for me. I felt like I had so much to do and not enough time to do it all.

There simply weren't enough hours in the day and with how tired I was all the time, that went against me as well.

I walked into the store and immediately went to the clothes section to look at them. I loved how colorful everything was, how girly, for a lack if a better term. Pinks and purples, greens and yellows. I wanted to get them all, but decided on some onesies and a frilly pink dress. I walked over to the bedding area and looked at everything they had and fell in love with the butterfly theme, so I threw that in the cart along with all the decorations that matched.

I knew I was going overboard, but I didn't care. It helped to keep my mind off my failure of a marriage and pending divorce. I went and looked at the cribs and knew it when I saw it, that I had to have it. It was white, and round, with a canopy, with white shimmery curtains falling from it. It was abosulty beautiful. I took the ticket laying next to it and talked to the lady there. I paid for everything and made arrangements to come back tomorrow to pick up the crib.

By the time I was done, I was utterly exhausted and decided to head home. As soon as I turned on the car, I heard his voice, singing to me. I quickly shut off the radio and took a deep breath. I couldn't listen to them anymore, which I hated, they were so good. But his voice, it drove me insane.

I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment and wondered how many trips it would take to get everything upstairs and if I could get it all at once. Probably not, I thought as I opened the trunk and looked at all of it. I took a deep breath and started grabbing what I could.

"Do you need some help, princess?" I stopped dead, my heart started beating uncontrollably as I turned slowly around and saw Ronnie standing there, his hands in his pockets, watching me.

"Don't call me that. And no, I got it." I grabbed as much as I could and tried to shut the trunk but was having trouble. He walked over and grabbed what was left and closed it for me.

"I got it. I'll just help you up with all this and if you want me to go, I will." I rolled my eyes but let him follow me up and opened the door. He walked in behind me and set the bags on the kitchen table like I asked him to. I started unpacking them, thinking he would be on his way, but he helped with that too.

By the time I was done, I was hyper aware that he was standing so close to me, close enough that I could smell him. I wanted to touch him, to beg him to love me again, but I wasn't going to make that mistake again. I turned and looked at him. "What are you even doing here, Ronnie?"

"I wanted to see you, see how you and the baby are." I laughed under my breath and walked to the other room.

"Why the sudden interest? You haven't been interested since I told you, so why now?"

He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. "Because I'm an idiot, princess. I thought this baby would take you away from me. I had wanted to take you everywhere with me, then all of a sudden all the plans I was making were for nothing. I didn't realize how much this baby would add to our lives, Riley. You were right, what you told Michael. I was being selfish and only thinking of myself. I never thought how you felt or how you've been dealing with everything without my help and I feel horrible that I pushed you away."