Chapter 173: This kind of joy
The villa was more subdued than usual, as though the walls were not even breathing.
I sat on the edge of the bed, one hand on my stomach as if trying to make the news something that my body could understand. Pregnant. The word had echoed in my head all the way home, louder than the rumble of cars, louder than Caspian's silence beside me.
With us home, though, that silence was altered.
He shut the door behind us quietly, as if too much roughness would wake the moment from the spindly dream it seemed to be in. I heard for the sound of the lock, the groan of his footsteps on the floor. Then quiet.
I hadn't even opened my eyes when I could tell the mattress sag down next to me. Caspian had moved down to my level, sitting in front of me, his eyes fixed not on me—but on my belly. His fingers just rested on top of my sweater, as though he didn't believe his own fingers.
"You're really here," he whispered, not to me, but to something within me. "You're really real."
I swallowed over the lump in my throat. "I don't even feel different."
He finally looked at me. And the look he gave me was the kind that made me forget how to breathe.
"You look different," he said gently. "You look like someone whose entire world just fell apart."
A half-laugh, half-sob erupted from my mouth. "Is that a good thing?"
His hand covered mine, fingers intertwined in a grip that seemed unbreakable. "It's everything."
We remained so for a second or two. Hands locked. Legs parallel. His thumb tracing slow, silent circles on the back of my hand, holding me firm. The tempest in me—the one made up of fear and awe and sheer size of what was to come—cleaned up a little.
"Being somebody's mom," Caspian exhaled deeply, his voice so full of awe that he literally sounded like he couldn't believe it even as he spoke.
That was it.
The first tear had slipped away before I could catch it, and another, and another. I actually wept—there was no sorrow, no pain, but something so much more. Joy. Fear. Wonder. All tangled up in one thread I could not unravel.
"I'm scared," I admitted, my voice shuddering with emotion. "I don't know how to be—how to do this."
He crept closer, his hands cupping my face. "You don't need to know it all yet. We'll figure it out. Together."
"But what if I screw it up?" I pouted. "What if I'm not good enough?"
You're already enough," he said, so strongly that I felt it in the very marrow of my bones. "You've lived through things that were supposed to kill you.". You loved me when I didn't even know how to earn it. And now—" He tucked one hand down over my stomach again, his palm on where new life had started. "Now you're going to give birth to someone who gets to experience what love is, because you'll show them.".
A sob escaped me, and he swept me into his arms immediately, wrapping me in a barricade of arms. I buried my face in his chest, and there, I collapsed—safe in his arms, safe in this quiet of this new beginning.
His lips brushed against my temple. "This is the happiest I've ever been."
"Even with you bawling like a wreck?"
He smiled faintly. "Especially with you bawling like a wreck."
I backed away enough to see him. His eyes were tear-stained too. "You're crying," I reported, half-standing.
"I know," he whispered. "I just can't help it."
A smile struggled through the tears. I brought my hand up to wipe his cheek with my fingertips, tracing the path of one tear as it fell. "We're actually doing this."
He nodded. "We are."
We lay on the bed later on, side by side, with still locked hands. I rolled over so that his hand was on my stomach again. The touch was gentle, divine.
We breathed together for what seemed like an exceedingly long time. It was nearly the first time ever when I had actually breathed in weeks.
"Do you think it's a boy or a girl?" I asked quietly, not really wanting to know but feeling like I had to ask it anyway.
He hummed. "I don't know. But I already love them. I already love both of you."
My heart found space in my chest for this sort of love that scared me with its enormity. "We're going to need a crib." I
"And paint the nursery," he said, sounding suddenly carefree. "Soft gray. Sage green."
"You've had this longer than I have."
His smile tipped up and to one side. "Maybe. I never let myself believe it was going to happen. But now that it has—no, I'm not going to waste a single moment."
I rolled over into him, showing him my face. "I've never seen you like this."
"Like what?"
His expression became grave. "I'm still afraid. But not of that. Not of you. For the first time in my life, I'm hungrier than I'm afraid."
I bent my head and kissed him slow and deep, as if to taste a future I had not dared dream about before. He kissed me back with the same respect, as if I were holy. As if this would be seared into his mind for all time.
When we finally separated, I leaned my forehead against his. "We're going to be parents."
He smiled so big that it hurt to see. "We already are."
The words wrapped themselves around me like a blanket, impossible and warm and true.
I had no idea what the days to come would bring. I had no idea how to be a mother, or where the terrors would lie in wait for me come the months. But I did know this: I wasn't doing it alone.
And for the first time in years, the future didn't tower over me as a threat, but a promise.
Caspian rolled over onto his back and brought me with him so I was pressed up against his side. He pulled the blanket up over us, his hand on my belly at all times.
We slept that way—his heartbeat inches from my face, our baby pressed between us, and the rest of the world still for the first time in what had seemed like an unbelievably long time.
This sort of happiness didn't need to scream.
It just needed to be held.