Guest: Thank you! I'm glad that it is flowing naturally to you and that you are enjoying it!
March 2021
"Hey, Rilla can I ask you something?" Aiden asks are we are in the morning lull of customers.
"Sure?" I say as I wipe down the counter.
"What's it like dating with a kid?"
"Oh, well it's harder than regular dating. A bit scary sometimes when you tell them you have a kid. Why?"
"A girl at school that I like has a kid and I just don't know if I should approach her or not."
"Have you talked to her at all?" I ask him.
"Occasionally, she usually pretty receptive? I just want to know the other side of things? Before I decide on it?"
"Well, I guess that's good," I tell him before pausing. "I only know my own experience, but it's complicated. You have to be all right with being second in her life.
If the father is in the picture, you have to accept that and try not to get jealous. If they aren't together, there is generally a good and valid reason, but he does have a place in her life as the father of her child. You have to trust her. You have to know that she isn't keeping the kid from you intentionally, it's just complicated. Parents have to think about the kid's emotions and feelings, introducing special people, too soon, having people bond with their child and it turning sour isn't great. The kid could feel like it was their fault when it wasn't. At the same time, we are so afraid of driving you away with our rules"
"Makes sense," Aiden says, nodding.
"There is more to it, it's a bit of a mind twist or it was or is sometimes to me. Your life is defined by being a mother, but you are still a person and it can very-very frightening to bring those two people together. It's easy to be a fun date when you don't have a kid on your hip, but a good part of your life is temper tantrums and chicken nuggets. You worry about them changing their mind, or seeing you as a mother might ruin that image you gave them in the beginning. I never had a good chance to be one person when dating, I was always college student Rilla, or a mommy. I could never be both and when I tried or gave it never worked in my favour."
"So don't?" Aiden says unsure.
"I'm just saying if you do, tread carefully and think wisely about what you want?" I tell him sighing.
"Why aren't you with your kid's father?" Aiden asks me next.
"That is a long story I'd rather not get into," I tell him simply. "Gotta keep my own secrets after all." I smile at him as the door jingles as another customer finally comes in.
I head over to the ballet studio when I finish work, waving to Tessa, who was working on payroll before I change into my leotard and tights.
I send Ken a message that I would be over in an hour or two to pick up Owen before I turn on my music and get into the mind of ballet.
I breathe heavily as I turn diagonally across the floor of the studio. Arms in and then out with each turn, spotting as one does with quick turns. I had traded my evening shift for a morning one at the cafe, which doubles as a local coffee shop in the mornings. 6:30 to 12:30pm. I quickly dropped Owen off, barely awake, at Ken's place before going in.
But while I was in town, I made use of an hour or two for dance. Ken had only one class in the morning which Owen could go to, and then I would meet them back at his place.
I feel the sweat drip down my back under my leotard.
Dance was one of the few things that kept my mind clear these days or the only time I could keep my mind clear. Two weeks. For two weeks, I waited, watched and tried to find a moment that seemed like a perfect approach, but there never was one.
I avoid mom as much as I can, which is easy enough to do when you work two jobs and go to school. Though Ken and I have kept up with the weekly family day. Sometimes we even fit in an impromptu mid-week lunch occasionally, since I picked Owen up from his office more often than not these days, or Friday afternoons when he was free from work, we would find some sort of child-friendly activity to do with Owen.
With all of this came encouragement to look into jobs outside of the Island.
Suddenly my phone is ringing through my headphones,
"Hello?" I say, tapping on the ear pod and breathing heavily.
"Rilla are you alright?" Owen asks.
"Yeah, sorry just was in the middle of dancing," I tell him. "What's up?"
"Well I think technically the sky, but I am in my office so the ceiling?" Owen says, jesting.
"How can I help you today?" I rephrase with a smile.
"I was just reaching out since our last conversation," he says, and my mind goes back to Carter.
"Oh, okay then," I say I wasn't sure if I was prepared for this.
"There have been some things uncovered, and some other things that have been uncovered about him are not necessarily pretty. I just wanted to make sure that you didn't leave anything intentionally out of your story out of embarrassment?" He asks ever so carefully.
"Honestly it was all rather predictable?" I say, blushing.
"Good, good," Owen says, clearly embarrassed by having asked. "I just wanted to make sure after the things that have been uncovered. It will most likely be released to the public
"Well, thank you for warning me," I tell him.
"I hope you are well otherwise," Owen says into the phone.
"I am, busy with school and work and dance," I tell him. "Actually if you call Ken's phone he has Owen you might be able to sneak in some FaceTime with her? Not that I am trying to get rid of you of course!"
I hear him chuckle. "It is a lovely idea, I will let you get back to dance. If you have any other concerns or questions, don't hesitate to call."
"Of course, thank you," I tell him.
We say goodbye before I turn my music back on and roll back en pointe as I look at myself in the mirror. I've been dancing more lately, and I can already feel and see the change in my body over the course of a few weeks and my shoes, which die way too quickly.
I gained a few pounds, settling in at 112 pounds once more.
Muscle, I remind myself. Muscle weighs more than fat, but it's still a struggle to see which I admitted to Beth. I can only tell myself so many half-truths before I feel like I'm utterly lying to myself. It didn't matter that my waist was a half-inch smaller if the number on the scale fucked with my head. Though, one could say throw out the scale, which Beth has tried to get me to do. But I wasn't ready for that yet in this journey of mine. I wasn't ready to give up that sort of control when it came to my body.
I shower before leaving the studio, and before driving back to Ken's place. I ring up to him, and he buzzes me in.
"Mommy look!" Owen says, greeting me as she holds up the large piece of paper covered in paint, but also, upon further inspection, so was she!
There was an entire tarp on the floor where her art easel was, and it was covered in paint, and there was paint all over Ken as well. Jack was hiding in a corner on his bed, looking at the scene as if they were both crazy.
"You really take painting to the next level," I tease him. "You're going to need a bath before I can even take you home," I say to Owen tutting teasingly as well.
"Daddy has bubbly bath!" She exclaims, and I shake my head, looking towards Ken.
"What? Sometimes I throw on some swim trunks and play with the bubbles with her," Ken says shrugging, but smiles nonetheless.
"I'll clean her up before she can get paint on anything else?"
"Sounds good," Ken says nodding. "Persis sent it over and yeah I didn't quite think things through though."
I smile and laugh lightly. "Arts and crafts generally end up with those thoughts." I remind him.
"Fair enough," Ken chuckles and shakes his head, and I turn my attention back to Owen.
"Okay, strip," I tell Owen. She pulls off her shirt and pants, leaving her in her Disney princess panties. I leave the paint-covered clothing on the plastic for Ken to deal with, "bathroom and don't touch anything."
I get her to wash her hands before I turn around to fill the tub up with a bit of warm water. It's washable paint thank goodness, I tell myself as I wash it out of her hair and from her body.
"Can you get her some new clothes?" I call out to Ken from his own room, he must be getting changed himself.
"Sure one second," he calls back out, and I hear him pass the bathroom to her room. Two minutes later, he pokes his head in with a small pile and places them on the sink. "Are you hungry?"
"I'm good, I had a coffee and a protein smoothie," I tell him shaking my head.
"Well, if you do, just raid the fridge," he says, not pressing into my choice of lunch.
Once I had Owen dressed and her hair towel dried with some leave-in conditioner as she yawns. I tuck her in knowing it wouldn't be a long nap, but it was a nap nonetheless. I walk back out to the kitchen area and find the mess cleaned up and her artwork taped to the wall.
I look at my phone seeing the messages from my mother. I sigh and just tell her that I was out with Owen and left it that. It was easier to essentially lie to her than to tell her I was at Ken's after our last fight. I lean against his counter island that looks into his kitchen from the other side. I feel Jack come sit near my feet.
"Hey boy," I say, bending to pet him and scratch his ear. "Decided it was all right to stop the fake sleep?" I ask him.
"Oh yes he is good at that for sure," Ken chuckles and opens the cupboard and shakes a bag of dog treats, and Jack perks up and trots around the counter to receive his treat, before coming back to eat it at my feet.
"Still like me better do you?" I say quietly smirking, and I glance at Ken slyly, who shakes his head, knowing it is true.
"Are you staying for dinner?" Ken asks opening the fridge up.
"If you're offering sure," I respond as another text from my mother shows up. I toss it aside, and he raises an eyebrow.
"Just my mother being my mother," I tell him, explaining as I rest my head on my palms. "Add to the fact she doesn't know where I have been applying for jobs or internships…I'm sure it will be fun if I get interviews."
"Where have you applied to?"
"Well, Charlottetown of course, Halifax, Fredericton, Quebec City since I am decently good with French still. I stuck within the Maritimes mostly, felt too weird applying anywhere else, especially places like Toronto."
"My father could have helped you though?"
"I know but, that just feels like cheating and if I apply or use your father I can just hear my parents say that I'm using him and not earning the experience for myself." I remind him. "Plus they would rather me live with them until I am like thirty I am sure."
"I am sure that they don't wish that," Ken says leaning against the counter towards me.
I look at him for a moment, wanting to ask him what I've been wanting to ask him for a while now. Instead, I hear the patter of little feet, and Owen comes up to me with her dollies, and somehow she has managed to pull on a princess costume over her pyjama I had put on her before her cat nap.
"Tea party?" She asks me and I look at Ken.
"Do you think Daddy has any tea biscuits for us?" I ask her, trying to be brighter for her.
"Daddy biscuits?" She runs around to the kitchen, and Ken laughs and reaches for the arrowroot cookies that she could eat safely.
She sets up her tea set with care as Ken and I are subjected to little chairs and empty cups as she makes up the conversation.
Dinner is in the oven cooking as we laugh and drink pretend tea until the timer of the oven went off.
"Do I have permission to plate up dinner, my lady?" Ken asks permission.
"Okay, kind knight" Owen says nodding her head, Ken smiles and manages to gracefully get up from the small chair and attend to dinner.
I make use of the time and get up and beckon Owen to wash her hands with before she climbs into her usual chair, and Ken pans out the small pan of lasagna, and I grab the bowl of salad and garlic bread. The chatter continues on, and it's a rather nice chatter as we talk back and forth.
A family, it's like we are an actual family lately. I chew on my lip as we do dishes and clean up, as Owen watches a short movie before story time brings up to bedtime.
Ken grabs himself a beer from the fridge once she's asleep and offers me some wine. I take it and pour myself a small glass before sitting back down on his couch.
I take a small sip, following him. Allowing it to let me be braver.
"Do you ever feel like two people?" I ask Ken.
'What do you mean?" Ken says looking back at me.
"When you are dating other people? Sometimes, I wonder if who I was around him was someone I wanted to be or had to be? With my friends, I can be everything including a mom, but when I was with him, I felt like I had to hide that because he would get so edgy after a while? It's not that I didn't want him to know Owen one day either, I just thought it was too soon?"
"Did he say something about it to you?" Ken asks, his brow furrowing and I shake my head.
"No, he said a bunch of other things, but I don't know? I guess just being with friends more lately, it has made me feel more normal? I liked him, one might say even loved him, but I didn't feel like myself? I guess I worked so hard to get to a point where I like myself for who I am, to feel like that? Maybe I'll just be forever single?"
"Victoria was pretty good with Owen, it was a little sad to watch her say goodbye to her, but I know what you're saying. I felt that way when I was dating Mona, even with Victoria at times she reminded me that it was fine to still be a dad without Owen around though." Ken explains.
"You miss her, Victoria I mean?" I ask him, knowing she moved to somewhere out west for a job.
"A bit in the beginning I guess. It was mutual I wasn't going to move away and she knew that. No point in dragging things out?" Ken says simply shrugging his one shoulder and looking out to the balcony.
I take another small sip of my wine.
"Ken?" I ask him, and he turns to look at me. Twenty-five he was now, and his eyes filled with something I couldn't place.
"Am I still too young? Because these past months, weeks I've reflected a lot and wondering well it only led me back to you?" I ask him quietly. "Is it stupid to think about it now? To even consider it?" We stare at eachother, a heavy feeling around us as we are unable to look away.
"Daddy?!" A cry rings out, breaking our trance. That was a new one for both of us. Usually, the other person had Owen for the day or night.
"I should go to her," he tells me. I frown because he still hasn't answered me, and maybe he wasn't going to answer me.
The more I sit and think about it, the more agitated I get. I force myself to fight back the tears that threaten to fall. I get up and gather my purse, taking deep breaths trying to calm myself. Two drinks of wine….maybe this will just feel like a really bad dream on my walk home?
I'm ready to disappear, ready to run when I hear my name. I'm at the door trying to pull on my boots.
"Rilla?" I turn back to look at him trying not to cry.
"I'm sorry I've shouldn't have, I should have just stuck to the rules," I say gulping. "I'll be by in the morning," I say hurriedly.
"Rilla, stop," Ken says reaching for me, and I stop.
I'm not entirely sure how exactly it happened, his lips on mine, ever so gently like I would disappear from him. They were soft though, and sent an old familiar butterfly down my stomach. His lips leave me tentatively as his arms wrap around my waist not letting me go.
We stay like that for a moment, my head on his chest.
"I promised myself I wouldn't be anything other than respectful and nothing more than just being supportive," Ken says quietly. "This frightens me, what if I mess this up? I don't want to do that Owen, I don't want to confuse her."
"She's seen us like this from the day she was born, she doesn't know any better," I look up to remind him brushing a lock of dark hair from his face. "We've been straddling this line of friends and something more for so long that it's just become a running joke. You are anything but a friend, you are way more than that, always. God, you watched me push a baby out of my body."
"We start off slow?" Ken asked as he grasps my hand and wipes away a stray tear. Something in my chest feels like it's going to explode.
"We've been doing slow for years," I remind him.
"I just want to do this right," he reminds me.
"How slow is slow?" I asked him
"Well, I would say high-school slow, but apparently our ideas of high school are vastly different?" He says quietly but with a cheeky smile. "I just don't want to jump into things, we can just relax, take things slow and work up toward all the big stuff?"
"So grade nine slow?" I say back, and Ken chuckles shaking his head.
"We have to do this right," Ken reiterates to me. "We can't take this back if it goes wrong Rilla, there is so much at stake."
"I know, and it scares me too, but we deserve a chance don't we? Do we want her to come to us one day twenty years down the road and ask us why we never tried?"
"Compared to what happened between us?" Ken asks me sighing.
"There is never going to be a right answer for us, but if we don't try, if we don't jump and take this chance and let the pieces fall as they do what else is there?" I say to him. "Even if we fuck things up then we deal with that as it comes, but we deserve a chance don't we?"
Ken nods his head and leads me over to the couch again.
"What is the contingency plan?" He asks quietly. "If we do this, we need a plan."
"We treat it like every other relationship, we keep it away from Owen for the first little while?" I say to him. "We only tell her when we are ready to tell our parents. When we know it's going somewhere." I tell him.
"You've thought about this for a while?" Ken says looking at me.
"Only on and off for the past three years give or take?" I grin impishly, and he chuckles.
"So we keep it a secret, not something I would like to do," Ken agrees. "but at the same time, I don't think the minion would be able to keep it a secret anyway."
"I know it will be harder? Trying to figure out how to be together without having Owen around all the time. It won't be easy."
"It never is, but we have some good excuses for hanging out thankfully," Ken agrees. "Just can't be affectionate around her when she is awake."
"Indeed," I say nodding. "If things don't work out, then we part ways and remain as we are now? We did it before, we can do it again." I tell him.
"I have one question," Ken speaks up, and I sit up straighter waiting for him to continue. "What exactly qualifies as grade nine slow?" His voice was low and sent a chill down my back
"A lot of making out, some hands explorations if you are lucky. Unless you wish for the first half of grade ten, which was about the same with some added second base if you're lucky." I say cheekily. "Why what was grade nine for you? Weren't you Mr. Popular?"
"Oh, I was far from popular, being on tv doesn't make you popular, not to mention I went to a brand new high school. I had a couple of dates, a few girlfriends here and there, but it never really past second base? Then I moved again back to Toronto in grade twelve, starting all over again. "Really it was college for me." He admits to me which surprises me a bit more than I would have thought.
"God, no wonder you were shocked to find me in your tent," I say, shaking my head.
"Oh, I almost lost it when I realized it was you, almost died when I remembered just how old you were," Ken says shaking his head.
"So we're doing this?" I ask him, my head still reeling, my heart pounding.
Ken smiles, his arms wrapping around my waist once more.
His lips find mine, and it's like heaven all over again.
Well, so it begins...I hope everyone is excited about this part of the story! If you are please tell me how much it is always lovely to hear from you all. It should be a fun adventure from here on out. Thank you to my dear friend for helping me edit this chapter.
Tina