A/N: So, this was something I wrote a while ago, and am only now brave enough to share. Please...be gentle.
This...And Nothing More
I stare at him, and I smile. Gazing into his warm, tender hazel eyes.
Hazel...the color I had always imagined reflected in the eyes of our child when I look at him. Hazel eyes...with the blonde curls he runs his fingers through. The hue he had always confessed that he loved, pouting adorably each time I had even breathed the thought of artificially changing the color. And his touch beckons a smile to my lips.
A smile that I desperately pray hides and masks the emptiness in my heart. Emptiness reflected in my naked body as his eyes drink my form in, both of us still gazing at each other as we lay on our sides for a moment. And I blush towards his shameless exploration of my body, my own stormy blue-gray eyes breaking away from his gaze as my bite my lower lip along the growing smile, stifling back a small, self-conscious giggle.
"What?" He murmurs in a playfully coy tone, a knowing little smirk lacing his lips as he continues to openly ogle my naked flesh, silently appraising and validating my beauty with his fingertips as they gently glide along the silhouette of my rib-cage before coming to rest on my hip.
"You..." I breath a soft hum, my lashes fluttering against the familiar comfort and safety of his warm touch along my skin. "You make me really happy." I whisper this, my eyes finally meeting his once more to take stalk of how these words affect him as the coy smile along his lips turns warmer, more tender, and less adorably lecherous.
How I loved bringing out that smile.
More than anything...I wanted to him to be happy. To make him happy. Because every single word I had whispered to him had been the truth. There was no one else in the world that made me as happy as he did. No one.
My body ached with the way I wanted him. The way I wanted him to know...exactly how much I loved him. To show him...all over again with my body...though we were both shamefully done and spent from only moments before. Even if he had wanted me to take him again, I wasn't sure if I would be able to, an invisible scowl etching along my pleasantly flushed features at this thought.
I really should work out more...
And this thought led to another, slightly darker one. That he deserved much better than me.
The movement of his naked body along the mattress stirred me from these dower thoughts as my gaze met him once more, drinking in the silhouette of his back as he finally sat up from his place in our marriage bed. Eight years...and I couldn't believe how he still took my breath away and threw my heart into erratic palpitations. After all this time...I was still so wondrously and madly in love with him.
"You want to wash up first?" He asks, bringing another smile to my face at his genuine kindness and consideration in putting me before himself.
"No..." I hum contently, still not exactly willing to move from my place on the bed...all of my muscles having fallen into pleasantly gelatinous putty. "You can shower first, love." And so he goes to do just that, leaving me to these thoughts as they spread their tendrils through my mind once again.
And the emptiness settles along the moment once more, enveloping me as my hand unintentionally gravitates towards my abdomen. Empty. Just like me. And no matter how many times we made love to each other, it would always end in this. Emptiness. No longer worried about sparking his concern for me, I allow the heaviness of this fact to weigh me down into the mattress as I move from my side to my back. Gazing at the ceiling of our room, I watched our fan move in cool, soothing circles as the breeze just barely touches my skin.
Circles.
Dizzying. Nauseous. Circles.
While I was at it, making my silly little list of things to do such as exercising more and eating better, maybe I should really consider drinking a little less. Just one more thing clouding my already muddled thoughts. Thoughts that always came back around full circle in the aftermath of these sweet, passionately intimate and tender moments with my husband. After we had bound ourselves to each other, our bodies intertwine together as one.
But the end was always the same for me.
For us.
Nothing.
And this gaping hole in my heart tore itself wide open where a child should be. Never would be. I would always be this...a childless mother. An empty body. And what made it worse...so much worse...is that I knew it was all my fault.
Of course he met my grief and guilt ridden sorrow with an outpouring of love. We can adopt, he said. A whole entire football team of children...if that was what I had wanted. He never saw me as broken...lacking...or defective. He loved me for who I was and not for what I had wanted to give him and couldn't, he told me. He didn't care that we couldn't make a child...because he loved me. But this did little to quiet the guilt in my soul. Because as much as I believed in his words, I also believed that I had robbed him somehow. That in having tied his life to mine...he had unintentionally tossed aside and forsaken a beautiful future.
One filled with life.
Life he would never be able to make with me.
And it hurt. Still. Because, though I began to doubt my own ability to become a good mother, with each passing year I saw more of him and knew he would have made such an amazing father. And I had somehow taken that away from him. And...it hurt. Because I knew that we would never be anything more than this. I knew...that he deserved more than me. More than this. But this was all we could make together.
This...and nothing more.
