Hey guys, sorry this is turning up a bit late but I made it pretty long just to try and make up for it!
Chapter 55: Lay Down Your Arms
Sunday, February 5th, 2012
BROOKE
I've been in such a fog these past couple of days with everything that has been exploding all around me that I honestly barely even remember that lengthy time period between actually watching Sam begin her latest dialysis session and watching the nurse remove the needles that had been siphoning blood out and back into her arm for the past four hours… It was almost as if I had positively just blacked out or something, as if sitting down in the same place dazing into space was an automatic gateway to granting me permission to drift off into a daydreaming tangent.
I still felt kind of bad about it though; a tad bit guilty that in my lack of ability to pay attention to the real world for more than five minutes at a time, Sam had remained relatively silent, and as a result relatively bored as she sat in her chair and watched a movie with half-assed attention on my laptop in order to try to avoid thinking about the fact that she was having one of the most vital components of her body drained out of her.
But never-the-less despite our lacking in the communication department throughout the majority of today, it still felt impossibly good when it was all said and done and I had been granted permission to take Sam home after the poor kid had been confined to the hospital for the past couple of days in order to help her adjust better to the challenging demands of her dialysis treatments… In fact, it was starting to get harder and harder for me to properly identify who was more excited about the prospect of her discharge; her or me.
I mean, of course, the thrill would be short lived just like it usually was these days, because by Wednesday, Sam would be right back to where she started, sitting in the hospital in order to receive her latest round of chemotherapy where she would remain at least until Friday so that they would be able to continuously monitor exactly how her body would react to the new combination of dialysis and chemotherapy… of course, I had learned a long time ago that it was best to dawdle on the present and not linger for too long on the future, so I decided to focus on the here and now for at least today anyway before I started worrying about that.
We drove home silent. In fact, I had to actually force myself to turn on the radio about half way into our drive just because the heavy space between our unspoken words was physically beginning to hurt my head, and the fact that the only noise I could hear besides that of my own breathing was the windshield wipers as they swished back and forth rapidly across the pounding rain against my windshield simply wasn't settling with me very well.
I couldn't help but sneak an occasional glance over towards her, desperately trying to see if I could properly identify exactly what it was that was going through her mind right now using that x-ray vision that I'd so effectively managed to acquire over the past few months in regards to Sam and what it was that she was thinking about when something was clearly bothering her…
But this time, I just couldn't seem to do it, I couldn't see through her as she sat determinedly forwards in her seat the entire time, meshing her fingers together just so that she had something to do, rocking back and forth slightly against her seatbelt so that she roughly resembled a little ADHD-ridden child who was suddenly finding herself trapped in a car seat for the duration of a five hour drive.
"You're awfully jittery today." I finally spoke, breaking the silence only when the quiet truly started getting to my head.
"I'm just excited to be going home finally… that's all." She responded airily with a semi, but not totally believable tone in her voice; a flatness that told me that that wasn't the only thing that she had on her mind, not by a long shot.
"Are you sure that that's all?" I pressured her into continuing to tell me the remainder as she unbuckled herself, turned to me quickly with a blank look in her eyes that told me what I already knew in that that was absolutely not all, and emitted a totally different tune from her mouth than her face was telling me.
"I'm sure… I've just had a lot of things on my mind lately, that's all." She shrugged as if she didn't think that I would actually push her even further after admitting something like that to me, as if her vague admittance wouldn't have a profound effect on my… And for a vague second, I thought that maybe she didn't actually know me as well as I thought she did, but then I realized that it was the exact opposite… that maybe she really did want to talk to me about this, that maybe this was simply a cleverly designed ruse to get her to talk to me without me realizing that she had truly wanted to do it.
"A lot of things like what?" I played into this theory, just in case because I knew that I would have been a terrible mother to do anything less than that.
"Just about this whole baby business that's all…" I had been right, after all if I hadn't been it wouldn't have been that easy to get Sam to open up to me; it wouldn't have been that easy at all.
"It's stupid," She sighed, responding to her own comment after a second or two of reconsideration, trying to avoid having to listen to my response by finally opening the car door and stepping outside into the rain.
I followed her, determined not to leave her silent on this hard note so that I followed her quickly, ducking out of the car myself with my bag raised over my head in a pretty useless effort to protect myself from all of this rain as I darted towards the cover of my porch, using this brief period of travel to think up exactly what I was going to say to Sam once we got inside… But the thing was, when I finally stopped feeling the rain pounding down like bullets against my skull thanks to the overhang of my front porch, and when I finally dug my keys out of my soaking wet purse to unlock my front door, and when I finally turned to let Sam in before me because her standing out in the rain for even a second terrified me into thinking she was going to catch something from it, I realized that Sam hadn't been following me as closely as I previously believed her to be.
"Sam?" I peered over my shoulder knowing full well that Sam had the reputation of a curious small child when it came to disappearing into thin air… I'm just saying, this isn't the first time I've considered buying the kid one of those leash things… but it became instantly obvious to me that she hadn't run off; instead, in just the opposite fashion, she was standing in nearly the exact same place that she had been when she'd first stepped out of the car; her shoulders hunched, her hands buried deep inside of her pockets, and her body soaking up more and more rain water with each passing second.
"Sam listen to me," I called to her with a tone of understanding, trying to convince her to trust me when I told her that whatever was on her mind, I would listen to it as long as she did it from within the confines of my warm, dry house, "Whatever is on your mind… it's not stupid okay? So come on, let's get you inside and you can dry yourself up and then we can talk okay?" I knew that she was upset, that much had been clear to me since she'd woken up this morning, and I didn't mean to sound uncaring or harsh, but to be completely honest with you, at the moment I was more concerned that she was going to stand out here in the freezing rain and catch pneumonia… again.
But still, she refused to move; instead, she just sat there, trying desperately to avoid my eyes as she shuffled back and forth from where she stood as if she hadn't even heard a word of what I just said.
"Sam…" I lowered my tone, recognizing my first effort as a failure even though I wasn't so pleased by that fact… So I decided to play hardball, taking a step out of my cover and back into the rain towards her, trying to prove to her that I wanted to hear what she had to say to me as long as we could compromise and do it inside, "Come on talk to me here… what's going through that head of yours, huh? Because clearly something important otherwise you sure as hell wouldn't be sitting here in the rain scaring me half to death that your gonna catch your death out here."
She scuffed her feet slowly against the ground, digging her toes into the mud as she pointed her eyes determinedly in any direction other than towards me trying desperately to gain the gusto she knew she needed in order to speak her mind.
"I guess I've just been… I don't know… scared lately about you having this baby… you know, that once you have it I'm gonna… I don't know, lose you or something."
"Oh my God, Sam…" I responded kind of inappropriately, speaking less out of the shock of her words and more out of the disappointment that I was currently feeling towards myself for ever putting Sam in a position where she would even come close to thinking a thought like that.
I stepped out further into the rain, not even noticing it anymore as it soaked through my clothing and drenched my skin down to the very bone.
"Sam, I…"
"I get it Brooke, really I do…" She cut me off abruptly, despite the fact that mere moments ago she'd been too afraid to speak up enough to so much as formulate a sentence, knowing full well that now she had started, she would be unable to stop the words from expressing her true feelings, "I know that you've always wanted a kid that's yours, and I knew that having a brand new baby is a hell of a lot better than having a sick teenager but I just wanted to let you know that… well… I can't do this without you Brooke… any of it I mean… so I guess that what I'm trying to say here is that I really, really don't want to lose you."
"Sam… you're not gonna lose me…" My voice was suddenly softer, much gentler than it had been before… In fact, I would almost go so far as to describe it as vulnerable as I struggled to come up with something to say in response to my daughter's expression of her deepest of fears involving my abandonment of her the first chance that I got…
I knew that we'd been down this road before, more times than once now mind you, and to be completely honest, I wasn't sure how many times I had to tell her that there was nothing that could ever happen in our lives that would make me want to simply ditch her at a moment's notice, but I was certainly determined to put a rest to that notion right here, right now…
I wasn't sure of the things that had occurred in Sam's life that ever made her this untrustworthy to anybody who had taken up the responsibility of caring for her… she didn't like to talk about her past and I didn't want to push her on a topic that was so sensitive… but whatever it was, I wanted more than anything to erase it, to start something new, better even because if there was one person who deserved that more than anyone else in the entire world, well it was Sam.
I'd always admired that girl, from the moment I met her… even if she was stealing from me at the time, there had been something about her that had stuck out at me from day one, and I was just glad that I got the opportunity to find out exactly what that something was… It was her resilience, her courage, her ability to bounce back and rebound from any mountain that dropped itself down right in front of her… You see, Sam is the type of person that has always been able to dream the most elaborate of dreams even when she was wide awake… images full of extensive wonders that I couldn't even come close to thinking of even in my most wildest of imagination… She was the type of person that has been known to fill entire oceans, soar clear across the world by means of flying on air… I'd even swear to it that I've seen her ignite the sun in the morning, extinguish it at night… Yeah, Sam is a lot of things, that's for damn sure, but one thing she is beyond anything else, she's the type of person that me jealous in my wonderment as to why I will never be able to do the things that she can.
"Do you promise Brooke? Can you swear to it that I'm never gonna lose you… Because Brooke, I was able to stand losing a lot of people before in my life but… well you're definitely not one of them."
I took the miniscule amount of steps separating Sam and I until I was directly in front of her so that I could reach out and place my hands firmly down against each one of her bony shoulders, crouching ever-so-slightly at the knees so that I could match her slightly shorter frame and make direct eye contact with her so that she knew exactly how much I meant everything that I was about to say.
"Sam, there is absolutely nothing that can ever come between the two of us that would ever make you lose me okay? And even though I'm not sure what the hell other shenanigans the two of us can possibly get ourselves into, no matter what I'm not leaving… not ever. The way I see it Sam, anything that has ever come between us just makes me love even more if that's even possible… Trust me Sam, there's no way in hell you're ever gonna be able to get of me that easily, okay?"
I smirked up at her, pressing my hands even harder into her shoulders as I stared her down hard amidst the ran pounding harder and harder against our heads and the thunder clapping down in a circle around us while strikes of lightning seemed to come so close that we were nearly burned… But suddenly, my desire to turn back, to escape this sudden wrath of Mother Nature herself was diminished… suddenly, I was instead embraced by this idea that I had somehow, amidst all of this chaos, actually had managed to find a hint of safety that I was certain could never be broken.
I watched as Sam soaked up my words through closed eyes and a couple deep, patterned breaths and I couldn't help but watch her with wonderment as slowly, her face broke out into a soft smile, and tears of relief that I'd even managed to distinguish through all of this rain slid slowly down her cheeks so that all at once, I was suddenly struck with the realization that it had never felt so good to just let go and love more in my entire life.
For a split second, she simply stood her ground, watching me carefully as she slowly allowed my words to drift inside of her and wrap themselves around her brain before in one fluid movement, she ripped herself out from underneath the hands I still had pressed firmly against her shoulder and compensated within seconds by throwing her surprisingly strong body against my mid section, her long, lanky arms flinging around me so that she could pull me closer and allow me to return the movement, contorting her body so that it could fit perfectly against my own in a manner that truly made me believe that I could stay here forever if that truly was an option…
Time flew past us so quickly that I probably couldn't even tell you how long we sat there or how much longer we could have actually stood to wait, but that didn't really seem to be a concern on either one of our minds at the moment because to be completely honest with you, time had become somewhat of a relative aspect of our lives lately because these days, it wasn't something we particularly liked to think about considering the fact that our lack of knowledge towards how much time of it we had left of it was a concept that had become a prominent feature of our lives lately…
But that didn't change the fact that I allowed myself to carry this feeling of completion that I'd achieved from having such a good conversation with Sam with me so that by the time I had finally showered and made my way back towards the kitchen, leaning over the counter top with a towel over my head, my robe wrapped tightly around my body, and a cup of tea between my hands, my head was so wrapped up within the clouds that I didn't even hear the front door open and close or somebody walk through my house in search of me until that person was right in front of my face… and even then, I hadn't even noticed her presence until she actually said something to me.
"You look like you're thinking about something important Brooke."
I jumped slightly, a bit of the tea that I had been cradling between my hands spilling out of the side of the mug so that it burned my hands slightly in a dull pain that I hardly noticed after looking up only to see my best friend in front of me; the one person that I wanted to see right now more than anybody else in this entire world…
"Peyton!" I leapt up in my excitement, ripping myself away from the countertop and practically sprinting across the kitchen where I wrapped her up into a firm hug in a reaction that made it seem as if I hadn't seen her in years let alone merely for a couple of days, "How was your trip?"
"Um… it was good." Peyton replied with almost a nervous kind of laugh behind her voice directed towards the fact that I had an extra, unusual sense of giddiness behind my actions today… something that may have been very characteristic of the old Brooke, sure, but definitely not of this new Brooke that I had been embracing these past couple of months, "Yeah, Karen and Andy are doing great, and you should see Lily, she's getting so big… And hey, before I forget, I hope you don't mind but I told Karen what's been going on with you and, you know Sam lately… she wanted me to let you know that she's thinking of you and that if you need anything, they have that weird satellite phone thing on the boat so just call."
"Thanks P. Sawyer…" I nodded appreciatively, my voice and my actions relaxing in their post-excited phase as I relaxed against the comfort of the acknowledgment that I had yet another voice of support behind me… however distant it might be.
"I miss them…" The thought made me sigh our this admittance without particularly meaning to, because even when her presence wasn't even here in the physical, the idea of having Karen's thoughts and prayers still flushed me with this sense of comfort stemming from that naturally calming way she had about her.
"I know," Peyton nodded her understanding because I was sure she felt the same way, if not more so, "But they all say hi and that they miss everyone here and that hopefully they'll be able to sneak a visit over the summer for a few weeks… But hey, listen, the reason I came over here was that I just talked to Haley and she told me that you had some pretty awesome news for me… But of course she wouldn't tell me what it was so aside from wanting to see my best friend, who I missed dearly by the way; I came over here because I was curious… what's the news?"
I couldn't help the smile that splayed across my face at the sudden reminder of exactly what that news was as I grinned slyly towards Peyton and tried to contain my sense of excited pride that always came with my revelation of my pregnancy to people… especially when said people was my best friend.
"I'm pregnant!"
I watched her closely in an attempt to read her initial reaction as her jaw dropped, her eyes bugged out from her skull, and her face started contorting strangely in an attempt to find the proper expression that would show all of the feelings she was currently experiencing all at once so that it looked as if it had been made out of Play Dough or something.
"Oh my God Brooke, that's amazing; congratulation!" Her voice emitted as a yell, easily a solid octave higher than it would normally be in her excitement as she flung her body towards me with arms outstretched and wrapped herself around me in a motion that practically knocked the wind right out of my body… Of course, that hardly seemed to matter, after all it was probably one of the best feelings I had ever felt in my entire life; this tone approval, this sharing of my excitement with one of the people who mattered the most to me.
"Thanks Peyton," I leaned into her touch, embracing the comfort that naturally resonated off of the body of my best friend as I held onto for probably what would be considered a little bit longer than was actually necessary, "You have no idea how long I've been waiting to tell you… I swear I was half ready to walk to South Carolina if you didn't get back soon."
"Jesus Brooke, I've only been gone a few days," She laughed at my impatience, pulling away from me first so that she could look directly at me when she asked her next question, "When did you find out?"
"On Friday," I told her, my face glowing brightly as I spoke, a feature that Peyton apparently not only noticed, but also considered to be a nice change of pace for me, "I went to the doctors with Haley the other day, she told me that I was only about six weeks along so I've got a while to go but…" I trailed off in my sentence, allowing Peyton to piece the rest of it together for herself.
"Brooke… I know how badly you've wanted this for so long now… I'm happy for you, really I am." She continued to project her pleasure towards my announcement that I was about to make her Aunt Peyton once again, speaking with a gradually progressive higher and faster tone in her excitement, unable to contain that elated sense of enthusiasm anymore so that I couldn't help but feed off of her excitement, following her lead as she began literally bouncing up and down in front of me, unable to produce physical words anymore now that she said everything she had to, merely expressing her thrill in a series of high pitched shrieks that I matched perfectly so that the two of us were quickly finding ourselves speaking in the form of wordlessly, incomprehensible noises that could never be properly translated back into the English language.
"Hey… what's going on?"
I craned my neck so quickly it cracked, Peyton and I turning our heads simultaneously sideways towards the sound of the voice where we found Julian standing in the space between the hall and the kitchen, looking thoroughly confused for a brief moment before his expression slowly faded into one of cordial understanding as my and Peyton's bright features filtered across the every surface of his brain.
"You told her?" He answered his own question before either one of us so much as had the opportunity to explain ourselves, his expression softening with a notion of pride similar to the one I was currently feeling myself in regards to the spreading of the news of our inevitable parenthood.
"Oh she told me alright… I guess that now's about the time that I'm supposed to be telling you that you had your chance with me Julian but really, congratulations… dad."
Peyton emitted her congratulatory speech, stepping up closer towards him so that she could wrap him up into a friendly, genuine hug.
I watched the interaction with semi-surprise, a feeling that Julian apparently reciprocated as he tensed briefly, looked over towards me with a quick raise of the eyebrows and a shrug of the shoulders that I returned before placing a soft expression on my face that I hoped he would be able to translate in that I was thinking that maybe this was a physical representation of a peace offering, or something like that… one which I knew for a fact that Julian would be more than willing to take.
I watched the two interact, feeling as my heart swelled with pride, joy, and shear gratitude towards the fact that I had somehow gotten lucky enough to receive such an amazing family, an amazing group of friends, and an absolutely, indescribably amazing life.
Sure I'd heard about it before, but the thing was, I've never really understood that feeling, that sense of cyclic completion of everything coming full circle around me before this moment… But here it was; this idea sparked from the conversation I'd just had with Sam, the assurance I'd made towards her that she would be a part of my family for the rest of my life and beyond, and the evidence of my best friend's approval showing itself off right in front of me, and the idea that I could practically feel my very own child growing larger and larger inside of me with each passing day, and finally, with Julian's mere presence, which can always make me feel better, no matter what the situation… well there it was… an enormous relief provided by the family I used to always fear I would never be able to achieve piecing itself together right before my very eyes.
It got me thinking… I mean, I know that I've tried that whole living in darkness thing once before, more than once mind you… and I'm not going to lie, for a little while there, that life had actually worked out for me just fine, but ultimately, it got pretty old and pretty miserable, and eventually, it managed to turn me into the kind of person that I absolutely did not want to become… a person that I knew that I just… I don't know, wasn't.
But then one day I woke up, and I finally realized; no matter how bad it ever got, no matter how far I ever fell through, I would always have somebody around me to make sure that I would never lose the light in its entirety… In fact, the closest that I've ever actually come throughout all of this to achieving a state of total darkness was at night, right before I fell asleep when that darkness filtered around me so heavily that it forced me to actually be consciously aware of the fact that there has been a light constantly surrounding me from them no matter how black the day, no matter how much, on some days I didn't quite believe it to be that way after all.
JULIAN
Coming home to the sound of a celebration that was so loud, and seemingly so elaborate that for a second there, I literally thought that Brooke had been throwing a full-blown party inside of her house wasn't exactly what I had been expecting when I'd walked through that front door, but in a pattern that seemed so usual of my life these days, what I'd expected the very least actually ended up being exactly what I'd gotten, because really… it sounded like there was a freaking frat party or something currently being thrown in the kitchen…
In fact, I'd been so convinced of this aforementioned scenario that when I followed the noise to its source towards the back of the kitchen and saw that the entirety of the commotion was being caused by no more than two people, I couldn't help but find myself completely and utterly shocked.
"What's going on?"
Looking back now, I guess I had been stupid to ask; after all, knowing Brooke and knowing Peyton, there could only be one source and one source only towards all of this excitement… this is why the acknowledgment of exactly what was going on here seeped into my head before either Brooke or Peyton actually had the opportunity to answer my question.
"You told her?" I provided the answer to my own question before either of them could do it for me as I felt a soft smile flood across my face with the acknowledgment of the fact that the proudest announcement of my entire life was currently being passed around… but honestly, I think that I could tell the entire world that I was about to become a father and I still wouldn't think that would be enough…
"Oh she told me alright… I guess that now's about the time that I'm supposed to be telling you that you had your chance with me Julian but really, congratulations… dad." Her word stunned me stupid… mainly because I was so used to her yelling at me for being an ass, but I wasn't left to linger on the shock of her words for too long, because not five seconds later, she did something even crazier; she took a step towards me followed by another one, and then another, and she wrapped her arms around my mid-chest and pulled me into a firm congratulatory embrace.
Now, and don't take this the wrong way when you hear it, I couldn't help but retreat ever-so slightly at first because even though Peyton and I have, at least in the superficial, moved on from all of those lingering bad times between us, I still wasn't exactly sure where she stood in this whole, "hey I used to date you but now I'm in love with your best friend" scenario that we had going on over here.
I stiffened naturally, my eyes lingering over Peyton's shoulder towards Brooke with an expression on my face that I would have paid top dollar to actually see as I shrugged towards her figuring that this could only be taken as something good, and leaned into her instantly shedding the persistent history we had with each other in a solid second.
"Thanks Peyton, really," I responded to her approval genuinely, taking a step or two back after a couple of seconds before this whole thing started to get too weird or Brooke started to get the wrong idea or something… okay so I was only kidding about that last one… kind of.
"So Julian, where have you been hiding all day I've barely seen you?" Brooke asked as the three of us gradually faded out of the mood briefly enticed by our initial excitement and into a period of normal conversation.
"Actually I've kind of just been floating around on my own all day… I've just been thinking about something… something big…" Well actually, I think that to say that I was thinking about something big was an understatement… a better adjective for my plans would probably actually be something huge, something monumental, something positively, without a doubt, life altering… of course, I wasn't quite ready to spill the beans on what exactly that something was just yet so I figured I'd leave Brooke squirming for at least a little while longer.
And just as expected, I watched as she put a glimpse of sly curiosity across her face in response to my announcement so that she looked just so freaking adorable, I couldn't suppress the sudden urge I had to take her into my arms and kiss her into my mouth positively fell off… so forgive me when I tell you that that is exactly what I actually did.
I matched her expression to the exact, pouncing towards her with a gentle aggressiveness as I grabbed her around the waist and lifted her into the air until her feet were just too high to touch the ground, even with her toes extended… Performing a not-so-grateful little pirouette in mid-air as if I was suddenly trying to channel my inner ballerina or something, I set her back down on top of the counter, leaned over her, and kissed her so deeply, so passionately that for a little while there, the rest of the world positively disappeared.
"Okay…" Ultimately, it was Peyton's voice that pulled us back into the real world, forcing me to pull myself off of Brooke abruptly with the embarrassment of the reminder of the presence of another person in the room who apparently, I had simply forgotten all about up until now, "I think that that's my cue to leave."
Peyton took a step forward towards Brooke and me, currently identical in the fact that our cheeks were bright red with humiliation, moving slowly as she took each one of us up in our arms one last time before taking a backwards step towards the front door.
"Congratulations again the both of you, really… Brooke make sure that you call me if you need anything okay?"
"I will Peyton!" Brooke shouted after her, her voice echoing through the house as Peyton disappeared back into the hallway, her footsteps echoing further and further away until the distant sound of the front door opening and closing acted as our indicator that we were alone.
"So," Brooke wasted no time in pushing her investigation of me, making an abrupt about face away from the hall Peyton had just left down and back towards me, the excitement prominent in her features as she attempted to be sly in her desire for me to be quick about elaborating on the vague announcement I'd made mere moments ago, "What is this something big that you have to tell me all about?"
"Well…" I killed her stalling and I knew it; in a sense, that's kind of why I kept going at the rate that I was, "It kind of has to do with Sam too so… where is she anyway?"
"She's in the shower," She pouted a little bit, responding to my lack of a sufficient answer but kept talking despite herself because, well let's face it, that's what she did best; and I loved every second of it, "The two of us, well we kind of got caught outside in the rain."
I raised my eyebrow up slightly towards her, admittedly just a little bit confused about the context of her revelation and whether or not she was being literal or if this was some kind of strange metaphor that I just couldn't make heads or tails out of.
"We talked," She shrugged alongside a clarification, noticing the obvious perplexity currently written all over my face, and I felt my expression slide into one of better understanding at the realization that Sam must have actually taken me up on the advice I had given her yesterday after she'd spilled her guts out to me in the middle of her dialysis session yesterday.
"About you having this baby?"
"You knew about that?" She asked, arching her eyebrows upwards in her surprise towards my revelation as I shrugged back to her with half-assed movements, offering her the briefest of nods simply to indicate that I did indeed know all about that.
"Yesterday, you know, while you were out at the store with Haley and Sam was having her dialysis, she just looked kind of… I don't know, a little bit off… I kind of had to force her into it, but you know, she basically just told me that she was scared about everything going on and I told her to talk to you about it… I'm just kind of glad that she actually did, I'm not gonna lie I didn't really think that she would."
"I know what you mean," Brooke nodded back to me briefly, "I kind of had to force her into it too…" Her face fell slightly in time with her words as her eyes began glazing over with a dazed look that told me that she was thinking about something, and she was thinking about something pretty hard, and I didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that that something was the lingering memory of the mystery conversation that her and Sam had seemingly just had prior to my walking back into this house.
"Hey what's wrong?" I asked noticing just how suddenly and how visibly Brooke's expression had just changed, deciding not to wait until she answered to offer my comfort in the form of turning towards her and wrapping my arms around her waist in an awkward middle school dance kind of position just to attempt to transfer some physical comfort deep inside of her body.
"I just feel bad that's all… Actually I'm kind of pissed off at myself for making Sam feel like I don't want her… for making her think that I don't love her unconditionally…"
"Hey, she know that you do," I told her sharply, trying desperately to force the idea into her head simply by using the tone of my voice, "Listen with all of the crap that Sam has been through with all the families she's been pushed through her whole life it was just natural for her to have that fear in the back of her head, it has nothing to do with you… But I mean… I talked to her about it and you talked to her about it and I'm pretty sure that we pretty effectively pounded it into her brain that neither of us are going anywhere on her any time soon."
She offered me a sheepish sort of grin upwards, glancing up slowly as she began to process my words and slowly managed to start convincing herself that they were actually true.
"Thank you Julian,"
"You don't have to thank me, it's the truth." I assured her, reaching around so that I could clasp my fingers into the indents of her hip bones and pull her closer into me so that she could comfortably wrap her arms around me at mid-chest level and I could comfortably lean down and plant a soft, comforting kiss directly on the top of her head, allowing it to linger for just a moment before I pulled away again, suddenly feeling as if I might literally explode if I kept the secret I was currently hiding to myself any longer.
"Hey listen…" I pulled away from her so that I could look directly into those gorgeous eyes that positively made me melt inside every time I saw them when I spoke, "I mean, I guess this is kind of what I wanted to talk to you about but… well everything that happened between me and Sam yesterday, it just kind of got me to really start thinking you know, and I got this idea… I don't know, it's this crazy idea that I just can't get out of my head… Brooke, after you told me that I was going to be a father… I want to feel like this… you know, like I'm walking on pure air all the time, forever… and I started to realize how much I want a family and how much I need you and Sam in my life because Brooke, when the two of you aren't around me I'm miserable. I feel absolutely empty and when that happens… well Brooke, you're the only one who can ever actually fix that… I've never felt like this before Brooke, not about anything, not about anyone… and, well… what I guess I'm trying to say here is this…"
I took a deep, shaky breath as my every body part began trembling with sheer nerves so that I was currently cursing my overactive adrenal glands for pumping so much of its adrenaline through my body right now, silently warning them that if they screwed the single most important moment of my entire life up for me right now, I would personally rip them out and stomp them straight into the ground myself.
My body felt so heavy all of a sudden that it practically sunk itself down onto its right knee which I couldn't' complain about too much considering that those had been my intentions anyway… after all, if I was gonna do this, I was gonna do it the right way even if it was just the two of us currently sitting by ourselves in a kitchen.
I felt my knee collide with the cold tile ground at the precise same moment that Brooke released an audible gasp as the realization of my current intentions hit her like a slap across the face.
"Oh my God… Julian…" Brooke muttered her response but I barely heard it; I was too busy focusing all of my energy, all of my thought processes on the exact details of this moment; the one I had been planning with a tedious precision all day long now.
"Brooke," My voice came out as an embarrassingly high shriek, strangely reminiscent of the way it sounded when I was fourteen years old and hit puberty… But I tried to shake it off, turning to dig inside of my jacket pocket briefly, my fingers clasping around the small velvet box, allowing me to present it to Brooke, opening it with a precision that I definitely practiced a little more than a few times by myself in the bathroom this morning… "Will you marry me?"
I glanced up tentatively towards Brooke who, for a moment or two there stood stunned still and silent, her jaw so low, it was practically rested down on the floor right next to my knee and her eyes glistening with a thin sheathe of tears… and let me tell you, that five or so seconds of absolute silence might as well have been an eternity because it did absolutely nothing for my confidence with took a free fall for a little while there as my heart clenched with fear that ran throughout my entire body.
A couple of those previously threatening tears spilled from underneath the barrier of her eyelids as slowly but surely, a smile so wide, before today I didn't even know a human mouth could actually move that far up your face appeared prominently across her features and she began nodding her head in sporadic up and down movements so vigorous I thought her head would pop off; but of course, it was the only expression of her answer that she could currently manage considering the fact that her mouth seemed currently unable to produce words in her haze leaving her babbling incoherently as if she were speaking an entirely different language all together.
"Oh my God Julian… yes, yes of course I'll marry you…" She finally managed to form at least a semi-coherent sentence only after several previously failed attempts, her words hitting me like a breath of fresh air as she reached down and grabbed me under the arms, impressively pulling me up to my feet all on her own, where she allowed me to push her up against the counter top, her body contorting into a practical 90° angle until her back was fully pressed up against the granite and I was left hovering above her, lowering my body slowly on top of hers where it fit with just a twinge of an extra sense of perfection simply given the circumstances.
"Wait… hang on a minute…" It took me a lot of motivation and several extra minutes after I'd actually said something to actually force my lips away from Brooke's long enough to pull the both of us back up into a fully standing position so that I could actually continue this whole process of my proposition.
"Before I do something stupid like drop this or lose it or something…" I spoke from experience because I knew that I was the single biggest klutz on the face of this planet meaning that I definitely did not trust myself holding onto this ring I don't even want to talk about how much money I just spent on any longer.
Well let me tell you, Brooke didn't need any sort of persuasion from me; instead, she presented her hand towards me with a tone of excited obedience, allowing me to hold gently hold her by the delicate bones of her hand and slide the ring lightly across her finger where it nestled itself comfortably in a near-perfect fit.
"Julian it's beautiful." She muttered in her awe, barely able to rip her eyes off of this surprise newest addition to her body so that I couldn't help but to feel a sudden surge of a sense of self-accomplishment towards the acknowledgment that I had actually done something good for a change.
"The guy at the store said that if you needed to go in and get it fitted or anything like that he would do it whenever so…"
"It's perfect," She stopped me before I could really start rambling about the technicalities, distracting me easily by grabbing me by the collar of my shirt, pulling me back into her so that I knew there was no way in hell I would ever be able to deny an invitation like that one.
"Wait… there's one more thing." I muttered between the motion of our lips against each other's, reluctantly raising my head from up against hers once again so that I was suddenly very aware of the fact that our constant detachments were starting to become physically painful… Clearly I hadn't been thinking when I had come up with the elaborate plan to tell Brooke all of these ideas I had in store for our futures all at once, I hadn't thought about the sense of passion that would have arisen as a result of me choosing to propose to her… stupid, I know.
"I figured that… well, if we're going to do this, if the two of us are going to be a family officially, and if we have this baby to be a part of that… then I've been thinking that I want Sam to be a piece of that too… Brooke, I love that kid more than I could even possibly explain to you. I want my family to be her family, I want her to be our child's big sister, I want to be able to call her my daughter… Brooke, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to adopt Sam too… I just wanted to… I don't know; see how you felt about it."
I didn't think that it was possible for Brooke to actually look even happier than she already had looked before I'd said this, but she'd proved me wrong, because by the time I'd delivered to her my second proposition in about a ten minute time period, I swear to God, she had literally begun physically glowing.
"Julian I think that Sam would absolutely love that… and I know that you know that I would too. Hell, you're already like a father to Sam… that's how she sees you anyway; and I see the way that you two are together… You're a good dad Julian Baker; our kids won't even know what hit them."
My face grew hot as it flushed red in response to Brooke's compliment, and I couldn't help but to break the eye contact that I'd previously had with Brooke and point my gaze down to the floor where I stared determinedly at my feet as I scuffed them along the tile so that Brooke wouldn't be able to see how much of an emotional response her words had actually enacted upon me.
"Okay… is that it, because Julian I think I might drop dead of heart failure or something if you lay one more of your huge announcements on me right now…"
"Yeah," I smirked at her joke as I allowed myself to raise my eyes back up once more to meet her own, "That's it."
"Good," She nodded, barely wasting so much as another second of time before she grabbed me by the shoulders with such force that I staggered backwards a few paces so that my back collided firmly with the refrigerator door behind me, halting me in my tracks while meanwhile, Brooke just continued pushing me forcefully up against the stainless steel until my body was literally squished between her body and the solid platform behind me, leaving me having a very difficult time deciding whether this constriction that I was currently feeling in my chest that was starting to make it very, very difficult for my lungs to actually take in a substantial amount of oxygen was due to the fact that I was currently being compressed into a pancake or because Brooke and I were currently finding it very difficult to pull our mouths away from each other long enough to actually suck in a descent sized breath.
My mind shut off, I completely lost any concept of time that I had actually had beforehand, and my muscles moved completely on their own accord as my hands began to roam and my brain blocked out any notion that wasn't about either me or Brooke.
"Oh Jesus… gross,"
And just like that, it was gone… The sudden reminder that Brooke and I hadn't been the only ones inside of this house at the moment hitting me, and apparently Brooke as well full force across the head as Brooke jumped up with shock so abruptly, she actually bit me in the midst of her retreat so hard that I could taste that metallic clang of blood fill inside of m y mouth.
Brooke swiveled around towards the opening towards the hallway and I glanced directly over shoulder, each of us wearing matching expressions quite similar to those seen by deer who had just found themselves caught directly in the headlights.
I felt like I was in high school again, being caught by my parents doing something that I definitely knew that I should not have been doing as Sam stared us down with a stern expression on her face and her hands resting firmly on her hips just so that she was sure she was currently letting us know just how permanently scarred she had become from walking in on what she'd just walked in on… but still, I just couldn't help but stop and silently thank God that she had come in when she had at a time when sure, Brooke and I had been frantic with passion, but still at least fully clothed and remaining relatively PG-13… a few seconds later and well, who knows how emotionally damaged she would have become… hell, we'd probably be taking her to therapy until the day we died.
"Um… hi," I spoke with a chipper undertone, guilt prominent in the back of my voice as I struggled to come up with exactly what the hell I should say to her, ultimately deciding on what was quite possibly the lamest thing I could have ever possibly said.
"Dude… that's like… my mom… Jesus I already have cancer, do you want me to go freaking blind now too?" In typical Sam fashion, she'd managed to dish out the single handedly most smart ass comment she could possibly muster, which, if anything, just left Brooke and I more embarrassed than we already were… if that was at all possible.
"SAMANTHA!" Brooke tried her luck at scolding Sam's less than liberal sense of humor, pushing her luck in her hopes that pinning the guilt onto Sam would offer us a significant enough distraction to instigate a subject change… of course we both knew that we could never get so lucky… especially not with Sam who was notorious for her ability to break balls.
"Whatever," Sam laughed at our apparent awkwardness, turning away from the two of us and moving towards the direction of her bedroom, "I'll stay in my room tonight… with my headphones on… as loud as they go… And hey, if you guys manage to catch a free minute or two, make sure to just slip some food and water underneath my door every once in a while, okay?"
To my left, I could see Brooke through m y peripherals as she buried her face into her hands with mortification while meanwhile, straight in front of me, Sam sat still in her door frame for just a fraction of a second, offering the tiniest of innocent little waves and a mocking sort of smile before she closed the door behind her, leaving Brooke and I absolutely stunned stupid.
The two of us just kind of stood there for a minute or two in order to attempt to process exactly what the hell it was that just happened before all at once, a hearty laugh originated from deep down inside of my very gut and escaped through the back of my throat so that I knew now that I started, there was no way in hell I'd ever be able to stop again…
"Oh my God Julian, this is so not funny what the hell am I supposed to tell Sam?" She responded to my apparent humor with a completely opposite approach towards the situation with a scolding and a small punch to the arm, but behind the humiliation still prominent in her eyes, I could see the gleam of a smirk that told me that I wasn't in too much trouble with her at the moment.
"Well, first you can sit her down and tell her that when a man and a woman love each other very, very much…"
"Ugh, stop!" She cut me off mid-sentence, pressing her index fingers firmly into each ear so that she didn't have to hear any more of it, turning away from me sharply and walking towards Sam's closed bedroom door, her intentions towards attempting to rectify this little mess she had just found herself in obvious at once.
"Hey Sam?" She knocked gently at the door, not even waiting for Sam to respond before opening it a crack and poking her head inside, "How about I take you out for dinner or something?"
"Is this your way of buttering me up?" I heard Sam respond to Brooke's plea-bargain from within the depts. Of her bedroom, her words and her tone making it very clear to me that she wasn't about to allow Brooke to forget this one any time soon.
"Absolutely," Brooke nodded her head firmly towards Sam's question, not even bothering to cover up that those were actually her exact intentions.
"Then I'm in… Just let me get dressed real quick okay?"
"Deal," Brooke nodded herself out of Sam's room, swinging the door shut behind her to ensure the girl's privacy… something that I wish that Brooke and I had actually thought of a few minutes ago, before she turned back towards me with a slight shake of her head and the smallest of grins on her face, walking past me without so much as a word, disappearing inside of her own bedroom and closing the door gently behind her leaving me completely alone inside of the kitchen feeling a little bit like a fool but all-in-all way too washed away with the notion that I had quite possibly just made the best decision that I could ever possibly make in my decision to keep the two most amazing girls on the face of this planet in my life for the rest of eternity.
A couple of years ago, if you ever came up to me and told me that I would be celebrating my engagement with my pregnant fiancé and my cancer-stricken, soon-to-be-adoptive daughter at a twenty four hour diner in the middle of the heart of North Carolina, I probably would have laughed at you, hit you square in the mouth, and then told you that you were absolutely crazy… in that order.
But had I done that, well I would be owing you a pretty serious apology right about now, because here I was; finding myself in the exact same scenario that I would have, at a time, believed to be impossible… But you know, I honest to God wouldn't have preferred my life to be any different because I don't think it was possible for me to be any happier than I was right now.
"Hey listen, Sam, besides trying to bribe you into erasing your memory of everything that you may or may not have seen before, there's another reason that Julian and I took you out tonight… well we kind of wanted to talk to you about something." It was Brooke who had actually ended up initiating the conversation, her words catching Sam off guard because well, when your mom told you that we needed to talk, it usually wasn't a good thing… The poor kid stumbled over Brooke's words, nearly choking on the dinner that she was actually feeling well enough to eat for a change… how ironic would that have been huh?
"Is this gonna be one of those awkward sex talks because of what happened between you and Julian before? Because trust me Brooke, I've already had it… I was in this foster home once, and the lady there was like the sex-ed teacher at the town's high school, and on my 12th birthday while we were all eating cake, she busted out all of these creepy mannequin-like things and these poster boards with some nasty ass pictures all over them, and… oh, this one's my favorite; she actually had this one thing and it was all like…"
"No!" Brooke cut off Sam rather abruptly before she could finish her sentence with a look on her face that told me that she'd rather decide to stick a damn fork into each one of her eyeballs before she'd decide to have "the talk" with Sam… ever.
"Actually it's about us… me and Julian… and you too." She cleverly transitioned herself towards the direction of the actual thing that she was trying to tell Sam, purposefully shifting in her seat so that she could unveil obviously, the left hand that she had been carefully keeping out of Sam's view just so we would be able to tell her what we had to tell her at exactly the right moment.
"Oh my God," Sam gaped, mouth open and wide-eyed staring down at the shimmering ring that was sticking directly into her line of vision with a look of utter surprise prominent across her face, "Oh my God he proposed? Wait… you proposed?"
She darted her head back and forth between the two of us quickly, begging for a rapid response to the confirmation that what she had seemingly been waiting her entire life to happen had finally actually managed to happen… The two of us nodded her heads towards her with simultaneous movements, both eager to confirm to her that this wasn't just some kind of sick joke that we were playing on her or something and that I had truly popped the question to Brooke after months of already knowing that she was, and forever would be the girl of my absolute dreams.
"That's so awesome!" Sam practically squealed in her delight, finding herself unable to contain her excitement as she began bouncing up and down in her seat, attracting even more attention towards us than what we already had; a factor that she honestly hardly noticed thanks to the fact that she was quite used to having all of the attention on her these days.
"And Sam… well, there's a little bit more to it than that." Brooke decided to interfere; making sure that Sam wouldn't get so excited that she positively blasted off into space from the position in her chair before she heard the whole story, because really, if you thought she was giddy now… she didn't even know the half of it.
"What is it?" She asked impatiently, practically busting at the seams waiting for one of us to speak while meanwhile, I couldn't help the smile that appeared across my face at the knowledge of just exactly what it was…
"Well… Julian and I were talking about it, and well, he came to me first but really, the decision is totally up to you okay…" She dragged out her sentence airily, darting glances over towards me periodically as to indicate that I should probably be the one to finish what she had started.
"Sam," I spoke carefully, not really sure exactly how it was that I was supposed to propose adoption to somebody… I mean, proposing to your girlfriend was easy, everybody knew how to do that, but this… well I've gotta say, this was probably something that didn't exactly happen every day… "Here's the thing Sam; with Brooke and I getting married and all, I sort of got to thinking all about how we're going to be a real family soon… but then I thought that I'd really like it to be even more than that; I want it to be official, you know… legally I mean… So… and like Brooke said, this decision is totally up to you, so I don't want you to feel pressured or anything, but… well… I want to adopt you Sam… what do you think about that?"
"Are you serious?" Her eyes widened and bugged out of her head as if all of this news that she was currently receiving was positively building up inside of her head, filling it with hot air so that her features were seemingly popping straight out with all of the pressure.
"Well… yeah," I told her, unsure as to whether or not I should be taking this initial response as a good sign or a bad one.
"Julian… I don't even know what to say…"
"So is that a yes?" I asked hesitantly, not really sure what I would do if she actually rejected me right here and now.
"Hell yes!" She screamed it, so loud that every single head in the restaurant turned towards us, eyeing us with suspicion towards what the hell it was exactly that we were doing over here that was causing so much commotion…
Her ears glowed red with embarrassment as she slowly sank her body further down into her chair as to avoid prying eyes until people slowly started losing interest, turning back to their own affairs and leaving ours to us…
"But I have a question, I mean, how many times do you think they're gonna allow me to change my name, because really, I just became a Davis a few months ago and I have the slightest feeling that I'm gonna start really confusing people if I show up with a new last name every like… week or so."
"Eh, we'll figure it out," I smirked at her statement, unable to control the feeling that was currently filling up my heart in response to Sam letting me know that she was more than willing to not only proceed with my adoption of her, but to take my last name in response to boot, "Besides, people don't mess with Bakers… we usually have our way."
I reached out with the arm closest to her, ruffling the hat on top her head slightly so that it skewed sideways off of its previously perfectly centered position leaving her to roll her eyes with mock annoyance towards my movements although the entirety of her features expressed nothing but gratefulness towards my gestures… all of them…
And all at once, the sense of pride filtering through my body was getting to a point that it was almost overwhelming, and I found myself completely, and totally unable to stop myself that thinking that for once in my life, everything actually seemed to finally be going my way… and I'll tell you what… I don't think I'd ever felt better about anything before… ever.
Let's face it, all of us had been so used to our entire lives being nothing short of a total disaster that when the entirety of our dinner went nothing short of completely flawless, I almost went as far to believe that I had somehow accidentally transferred myself over into some parallel universe or something without even noticing…
By the time I had managed to pull Brooke's car back up into the driveway in a symbolically indicative ending of what I had considered to be probably the most perfect day that I had ever lived through, well I had to admit it, I was actually feeling what seemed to be an actual pang of disappointment flooding through my body towards this fact…
"Hey Sam, can you do me a favor and meet us inside… we'll be right in okay?" Brooke turned to address Sam with her request the second that I had thrown the car in park, and I couldn't help but turn to look at her, confused for a second there about what she was planning on achieving alone between us in the car, but then when I thought about it that way, and combined it with that familiar sly gleam that has suddenly glistened across Brooke's eyes, well I knew exactly what she planned on achieving, and you know what… I approved… particularly because Brooke and I were more than a few hours overdue thanks to that whole kitchen debacle we'd found ourselves running into from before…
"Yeah, alright I'll be in my…" She stopped abruptly, and through the rear-view mirror, I watched as she froze, her eyes widening with the exact same realization that had just flooded over me, and she slowly began shaking her head back and forth towards us in her acknowledgment towards the fact that her parents were seemingly more irresponsible than her sixteen year old rebellious self was, "Just don't get yourselves freaking arrested out here okay?"
She moved quickly, swinging herself out of the back seat of the car, shutting the door firmly behind her.
"We need to learn how to start being more inconspicuous about this kind of thing." I laughed while meanwhile Brooke hung her head in embarrassment towards her exposure of her promiscuity towards Sam for what seemed to be just about the millionth time in that night alone.
"Yeah we do…" She nodded her head in distinct agreement, the expression on her face telling me that I had probably never said a truer statement before in my entire life, "But how about we call today a freebie, okay… we can start cracking down hardcore on ourselves tomorrow which means we might as well take advantage while we can right?"
She laid out the conditions of what I was considering to be Brooke and my slightly delayed New Year's resolution to not have sex in places where we were most likely to be caught, which, given our track record, would no doubt be difficult… but I guess that was the reason we were starting it tomorrow and not right now…
"Definitely," I agreed with her terms, before, with not so much as a single other word, I reached out to her and, in one fluid movement, wrapped my arms up and around her shoulders, hooking the joint of my elbows around the underside of her arms, tugging firmly yet gently as I dragged the two of us between the narrow space in between the driver's and passenger's seats, over the back bench of chairs, and down into the trunk of the SUV, which, we both already knew had plenty of breathing room thanks to previous experience, where we landed down with a firm, satisfying plop.
She let out a shrill shriek of surprise in response to my movements, the car visibly shaking already from our less than graceful shift from the front all the way into the trunk so that I couldn't help but notice that we were already failing pretty terribly in our goal to be much less obvious about things like this.
We positioned ourselves quickly into the most comfortable position that we could possibly manage sitting in the trunk of a car, and for a second there, Brooke simply sunk herself down against my body, still and silent, completely embracing the way we contorted into a perfect, single unit against one another; that missing piece to the personal puzzle of my life that I felt as if I had been searching forever for.
In fact, I'd gotten so wrapped up in the perfection enacted simply by the feeling of her body up against my own, that I didn't even notice the exact moment that our clothes actually started coming off until we were completely entangled in our bareness, and I couldn't help but find myself silently thanking God that Brooke had decided to pay that extra couple of hundred dollars for tinted windows when she'd bought this car.
But before I was actually able to get myself too wrapped up in my concern about Brooke and my indecent exposure, I watched as Brooke craned her neck from her position with her slick back pressed firmly against my exposed chest so that we were able to link our lips perfectly, contributing towards our motions to simply turn ourselves into one distinct individual as my body sunk down against the carpeted interior and all at once, a sudden thought entered my mind that Sam really did have a point when she'd spent her days before knowing Brooke sleeping in the trunks of cars because really, these things were damn comfortable.
With great effort, I managed to actually pull my lips from her own, moving quickly as I flipped her to face me due to the fact that I knew that I couldn't possibly physically allow myself to stay detached from her for too long as I began nipping softly at that one space behind her ears that I knew drove her absolutely insane…
But in my kindness, I chose not to torture her for too long as I began to make a direct path with my mouth straight down the length of her jugular vein and into that small crevice of her neck that I knew so well, drifting quickly over her collar bones before her hips practically called my name out to them, forcing my hands to move onto them on their own accord so that I was able to lift her from her resting position between my outstretched legs expertly without even having to remove my mouth from the nape of her neck as I lowered her directly on top of me, at just about the same time that our skin, previously smooth like pure silk, suddenly became slick with sweat in a natural response to prevent the overwhelming friction between our bodies from positively burning us in our movements.
My hands scrolled over every crevice of the body that I had grown to know so well that it might as well have been my own… my fingertips had suddenly seemed to acquire the sense of being able to see all of the things that my eyes just couldn't open wide enough to catch themselves,
I dug my face deep down into that space directly between her neck and my shoulder that held me so well, breathing in softly, every detail of her scent, careful not to miss a second of it as I slowed my body against her own, suddenly much more aware of how badly I wanted to hold onto this moment, how badly I wanted to positively embed it into my memory permanently, because I knew just as well as she did that it would never last as long as either of us would have liked…
And without a word on the matter, or any noticeable sense of correlation between us, we silently came together in a single moment, and we remembered to positively stop time, for at least a little while anyway, and we made sure to make the absolute best of what an indescribably incredibly turn our lives had somehow managed to take in order to successfully find that previously missing second half.
