“I can’t do this, Nik. Why did I think I could?”
He bends down, grabbing one of her hands and holding it between them. “You can and you will. You’re the strongest person I know and I’m not just saying that to make you feel better right now. I’m being serious. You are so capable and tough. And you’re going to be a mommy soon, which means you need to set those bad thoughts aside and remember how awesome you are.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Now, give me a niece. Or a nephew. And let the nurses and doctor do their jobs. They get paid for it and would feel really sad if they didn’t get to help.”
“You’re right,” she rallies, sitting up. “I’ve got this. Now, get out of here because the nurse that just walked in is going to make me spread my legs and even though I love you, there’s no reason for my brother to see my legs spread apart.”
“Agree. Love you, sis.”
“Love you, Niko.”
I follow him out and murmur, “Niko?” and he shakes his head.
“She’s the only one who calls me Niko. Full name is Nikolas and she likes it better than Nik.”
“You were great in there. Still so calm. How do you do it?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. No sense in getting worked up when she already is. It’s just the way I am. It’s no big deal.”
Yeah. It’s just the way he is. Calm in the storm. No biggie. I almost scoff, but I don’t.
“She looked like she was in a lot of pain, Nik.”
“That’s because she is in a lot of pain,” he reminds me, not so helpfully. “It’s kind of what happens when you give birth to a baby.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
He grins, his eyes closed, head leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He’s seriously the calmest person I’ve ever met. From what I understand, he and his sister are really close so I would think he’d be freaking out. Nope. Not one bit. He’s totally chill.
“I won’t be that strong,” I warn him.
“Yes, you will,” he assures me, so certain of his words. He’s wrong, though. He has no idea who I am and what I’m capable of. Or, in this case, what I’m not capable of.
I spent years of my life pretending to be someone else just to please my boyfriends. I didn’t think anything of it. I changed my personality to meet the needs of others and tried to fit in with people I didn’t even like all that much. The fear of being alone was too overpowering, though.
“How do you know?”
He looks at me with one eye open. “You don’t have a choice. You think that baby’s going to extract itself in a simple way?”
“Nik! You’re not making me feel any better.” I chuckle, nudging his arm.
He sits up and turns to me. “Not here just to make you feel better about life, baby. I’m not the one who is going to say shit to make you feel better. We aren’t about that, remember? Sometimes the truth hurts — in this case, quite literally — but that’s better than living a lie, right? You want the truth? Labor, whether by C-section or straight up pushed out, is going to be a lot of work. It’s not easy. But I have a feeling you can handle it. Actually, I have a feeling you can handle a lot more than you think you can. Whoever you’ve been spending time with in your past has led you to believe that you aren’t the kick ass woman you are.”
He’s not wrong. Even my family has always treated me with kid gloves. I was the fragile one, or so they thought. Their miracle baby after the miscarriage needed to be kept safe. “How do you know?”
One shoulder pops up. “I just know.”
“Oh, okay. Like that helps.”
Smiling, he adds, “You found out you were pregnant and didn’t hesitate to take charge. You didn’t curl up and cry or hide.”
“Well, I did cry.” I let him know.
He waves my comment off. “That’s assumed. I mean, you didn’t stay curled up and crying. You also went to your parents and told them right away that you were pregnant and didn’t hesitate in doing that.”
“Dragging it out wouldn’t have done any of us any good.”
“That’s how I know you’re stronger than you think. You did the hard thing by yourself and didn’t think it was hard. You’ll be amazing, Ashley. And where you fall short, I’ll pick up the slack, and vice versa because Lord knows I’ll fall short in areas, too. We aren’t doing this alone, Ashley. This is us together.”
“I gotta say, I picked a good one to have a one-night stand and end up getting pregnant with.”
His eyes flare and turn molten. “Even if you’re just trying to be a smart ass, that’s easily the best compliment I’ve ever been given.”
“Not being a smart ass at all. Simply being honest with you. Remember, that thing I promised I’d always be?”
“I don’t know if you remember this from the night at the bar, but I told you my almost fiancée never told me that she didn’t want to be a wife or mother. That’s why she turned me down. She said she never wanted it, knew that I did, so she said no. But here’s the thing: I’ve been wracking my brain and wracking my brain trying to remember a point where she made it clear that she wasn’t about long-term, committed relationships. Know what I found out?”
I’m almost afraid to ask. “What?”
“Absolutely nothing. She never gave me indication of that. She was, for lack of a better word, faking it.”
Shit. That’s not good. It’s a miracle he has any trust in me at all if he feels like I’m the same as his ex. “Like I was?”
“I guess. Though, my guess is she realized she was doing it whereas, from my understanding, you didn’t. You just morphed into a different person because you wanted so badly to be accepted. It probably goes all the way back to when you were little and were trying to fit in with your big sisters but you never felt good enough. As you grew up, I’d dare say that you did the same with a lot of your friends. Pretended to be someone completely opposite from who you are so they’d stay friends with you. It’s crazy, now that I think about it, how much our childhood can affect our entire lives.” He pauses as if he’s reflecting, shaking his head slightly as a humorless laugh escapes him. I don’t think it’s at my expense, though.
My heart is beating so fast and my palms are starting to itch. My legs, too. They’re restless and I stand up to move around the small space to help alleviate some of the discomfort. Once they’re settled some, I stand in front of Nik, staring down at him. He looks drained. Probably because he just spent thirty-three years inside my brain and figured me out. I’d be tired, too. “Did you take a lot of psychology classes in your downtime? Because that was deep. Not just deep for a hospital waiting room conversation, either. That was like, get into your head and pick it apart for you to put back together deep. I feel like I just sat through a three-hour therapy session.”
“What do you mean?”
“All that back there. The realizing that I was playing pretend in most of my relationships and friendships because I have this longing to be accepted, which is all my sisters’ fault.”