F*ck Love(3)

Heat rises to my face. Neil cheated on me? Neil wasn’t the type, not to mention he worshipped the ground I walked on. “He would never,” I say. Kit shrugs. “People are people. Things change.”

“No,” I say. “This is a Pottery Barn life. I don’t want it.”

“Like I said, it’s not that simple. He had his … reasons.”

Before I can ask what those reasons are, the baby starts to cry. Kit glances at her door and then back at me.

“She only wants you. She’s teething. If I go in there and get her, she’ll freak out.”

“I don’t even like babies.”

He grabs my arms and spins me around ‘til I’m facing the nursery door.

“You like this one,” he says, giving me a little shove.

“What’s her name?” I hiss, before opening the door.

He grins. For whatever reason, my stomach does a little flip.

“Brandi.”

I give him a disgusted look. “Like the liquor?” I hiss.

He tries not to smile, but all of a sudden I see where those deep lines on either side of his mouth come from.

“It’s what you were drinking the night you got pregnant.”

“Oh God,” I say, pushing open the door. “I grew up to be a goddamn cliché.”

Brandi is sitting in her crib, screaming. Her arms go up the minute she sees me. I’ve never had a baby reach for me before; they like me less than I like them.

I pick her up, and she immediately stops wailing. She’s little. Petite. And she has so much hair she looks like a little lion. I guess if I liked babies, this one would be considered cute. I carry her out to her … father. “Here,” I say, offering her to him. He shakes his head. “You hold her.”

I do so stiffly as we walk toward what looks like another living room. This one less Pottery Barn adult, and more Pottery Barn kids. God. If this was all real, what happened to me? I didn’t like shit like this. My apartment looked like a garage sale gone wrong.

“Why does everything look like this?” I ask him.

“Look like what?”

“Like I have no personality.”

Kit looks surprised. “I don’t know. This is what you like. I’ve never thought about it before.”

“How long have we been together?”

The corners of his mouth twitch, and before he says anything, I know he’s going to lie.

“Few years.”

“And we love each other?”

He stops rifling through a drawer to look at me.

“Do you know that feeling you have right now? The bewilderment, the fear, the fascination?”

I nod.

“That’s what I feel every day. Because I’ve never loved someone like I love you.”

My stomach does this involuntary flutter thingy. I feel guilty that my best friend’s boyfriend made my stomach flutter. Luckily, Brandi yanks on my hair so it looks more like pain than a reaction to his words.

He goes back to his drawer and pulls out a coloring book. At first I think he’s getting it for the little boy, but then he hands it to me.

“Do you want me to give it to Tim?” I ask, confused.

“Tom,” he says. “And no. That’s what I wanted to show you.”

I flip to the first page and find what I’m not expecting. Beautiful pictures of castles made of candy, fairy houses perched in fruit trees, and princesses fighting dragons. The type of coloring book I would have wanted as a child.

“What’s this?” I ask, not looking up. I want to see more.

“It’s yours,” he says, taking the baby from me.

I laugh. “I can’t draw. I’m not artistic at all.” I slam it shut and hand it back to him. This is such a strange dream. I pinch myself, but I don’t wake up, and it hurts.

“That’s how you bought this house, moved to Washington. You have a line of them, and they’re very popular. There are even posters and notebooks. You can buy them in Target.”

“Target?” I repeat. “I’m in school to be an accountant,” I say. “This is silly. I want to wake up.”

Why am I getting upset? If this is a dream, I should just go with it, right?

Tom comes running in just then and announces that he spilled grape juice on the floor. Kit leaves in a hurry, and I am left alone to tend to the little girl. I sit her on my lap and touch her mane of silky hair. She sighs contentedly, and I figure she likes it. “I like it too,” I tell her. “One time I fell asleep at a funeral because my dad was playing with my hair.” I keep doing it so she doesn’t cry and alert Kit to the fact that I know nothing about babies. When he comes back, we are sitting on the couch, her half-drugged against my chest. I’m still trying to wake myself from this strange dream. He leans against the doorframe, smiling that half-smile he does. “She’s just like you.”