When Jackie's first birthday arrived, I could hardly believe it.

One year.

How had it been a year since I'd given birth?

Her birthday party was at the Burrow. My grandma made her a huge cake. After getting cake all over her face, she then proceeded to pick up large bits of it and chuck them at anyone in sight. She hit Teddy in the eye, which seemed to amuse Colin greatly. But later when she toddled over to Colin and threw up on his foot, I swear there were tears in Teddy's eyes, he was laughing so hard.

She got lots of presents. But after they had all been opened and she was surrounded by books, and dolls, and stuffed animals, and every other kind of toy imaginable, she immediately reached for a bow and stuck it in her mouth. All the shiny, expensive, new toys apparently had nothing on a giant, pink bow.

It was a pretty good day, but everything went downhill once Colin and I returned home.

I was changing Jackie in to her pajamas, which my uncle Ron had gotten for her (they had tiny little broomsticks and snitches on them), when she uttered her first word. Which would have been exciting, except for one little problem…

It was the F-word.

"Colin!" I screamed.

I heard the toilet flush, and a second later Colin came ambling into the room.

"What?" he grunted.

"Jackie just said her first word," I told him, trying to remain calm and not strangle him with my bare hands.

"Really?" he asked, grinning. "That's brilliant. What was it?"

"The F-word."

Colin's smile vanished. "Oh god."

"This is your fault!" I hissed. "Where do you think she heard that word?"

I finished pulling on her pajamas and lay her down in her crib. I turned off the lights and stormed out the room, Colin following close behind.

"Babe," he whined, "it's fine. It's not like anyone has to know. She'll say her second word soon and then we'll be able to tell everyone that her first word was 'dada.'"

"That is not going to be her second word!" I snarled, walking into the living room/kitchen/dining room portion of our flat and sitting down. "And no one else may ever know, but I will. I'll know that my precious, sweet baby girl's first word was a vulgar word for sex! How do you think that makes me feel?"

"You're overreacting, Victoire!" he snapped.

He used my full name. I could tell he was angry.

I turned away from him and turned on the telly, trying to distract myself with whatever ridiculous muggle show was on. I heard Colin stand up. "I'm going to bed," he said. "I'll see you in the morning."

I stood up and turned to look at him. "How about this," I said, crossing my arms. "I go to bed and you sleep on the couch."

His eyebrows shot up in the air. "This is my flat. You cannot tell me where to sleep."

"I live here too!"

"But I pay the rent. Because you don't have a job!"

"I have to take care of our baby, remember?"

"Oh, I remember all right. It's the baby that almost every penny I earn goes to support."

"Well, if you wanted some pocket money then maybe you shouldn't have gotten me pregnant!"

"You know, my mum always says that it takes two to tango. You were just as responsible for the pregnancy as I was. It wasn't like I forced you into anything. If I recall correctly, you were pretty damn eager. We'd only been dating for two months before you let me fuck you."

I was so mad that I could feel myself shaking. "If you don't shut up right now, I will hex you into oblivion."

"You know, the couch is sounding pretty good right now," he said, lying back down. I turned to leave. "Can you hit the light on your way out?" he called after my retreating figure.

"No!" I snarled, slamming the door to the bedroom. I stood there for a minute, breathing heavily, Colin's awful words echoing in my head. He hadn't said such nasty things to me since I had told him I was pregnant. A year and nine months ago.

I threw myself down on the bed. The bed we normally shared. The bed that now felt very big and very empty. I cried myself to sleep.

The next morning, Colin was nowhere to be found. He was supposed to be working, but when I wandered downstairs, I found Connor behind the counter instead.

"Hey, Vic," he said.

"Where's Colin?" I asked, walking over to him.

"Dunno," he replied, reaching out to tickle Jackie's stomach and grinning when she began to giggle. "He just texted me a couple of hours ago and said he needed me to take over his shift. I figured I owed him."

I sighed. "Alright, thanks anyway."

I headed back to my parent's house where I pretty much spent the next week. Grace came over and listened to me rant about awful boys were. I wished that I could see Rox, but she was still at school. I decided that I really did need to get a job. It didn't seem write to solely depend on Colin to provide for my baby when he and I were barely speaking.

After asking around, I finally found an opening at Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley. My mum agreed to watch Jackie when I was working, as long as I agreed to pay for everything she would need and I wouldn't ask her to babysit at any other time.

A week after our fight, I headed back to our flat to tell Colin about my job, hoping that we could work things out and I could move back in. I knew that he had said some pretty awful things and that forgiving him so soon might seem odd to some. Like Grace, for example. "Let him come to you," she'd told me. But after a week of not seeing him, I'd been able to cool off and realized that maybe I had overreacted. It was just a word, after all. A word she didn't even know the meaning of. Besides, we'd both been pretty angry. People say things they don't mean when they're angry.

I pulled out my key and unlocked the door. I stepped inside and found him sitting in front of the television, eyes glued to the screen. I set Jackie down and she wandered away to play with her toy.

"Hey," I said when he looked up.

"Hey."

I sat down beside him. "I got a job."

He was silent for so long that I was sure that he was still angry. Finally though, he took a deep breath. "So did I."

"You already have a job," I replied, confused.

"I got a better one."

His vagueness was annoying me. "Where?"

"In London."

"London?"

He nodded.

London was so far away. Granted, my job was there as well, but I could Apparate to and from in a matter of seconds. Colin couldn't. And besides, Colin had taken this job without knowing I had gotten a job there too.

"I don't understand," I said.

"My entire band is moving there. We're going to have a lot more opportunities there. Ones that we don't have here. We found a cheap flat that we're all going to live in and we all have jobs lined up.

The room suddenly felt extremely hot. I opened my mouth to say something, but found that I couldn't get any words to come out of my mouth.

"You could come to, if you'd like."

I shook my head. "I'm not moving into some crowded flat in London with you and three other guys," I said quietly.

"Yeah, I didn't think you would."

Then why are you doing this?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"I already told you. We'll have better opportunities there."

"But you're leaving me. You're leaving Jackie."

He sighed. "I know it's awful, but I think you two will be better off without me. I'm just a screwed-up kid. Ask anybody. I' m not able to be a dad. I thought I could, but last week when Jackie said that word, I realized I'm not cut out for it."

"Colin, I overreacted, like you said. It's not that big of a deal."

"Vic, you have a job now. You don't need me. This is better for both of us, trust me."

"How is this better?" I nearly shouted. "You're moving to London. And the way you're talking, it sounds like you're trying to cut yourself out of Jackie's life completely. London isn't that far away, we can visit you. You're not moving to Siberia."

"I'm sorry…"

"This is not okay!" I said, definitely shouting now. "Fatherhood is an all-or-nothing deal. When you said that you wanted to be part of Jackie's life, that meant for forever, not for a year."

"I'm sorry," he repeated, "but the two of you deserve better than me. It's not just the fact that she got that word from me. It's everything about me. Look at my friends. Look at Connor. That's not the kind of lifestyle I want her to be exposed to. She deserves better." He paused, looking straight at me. "Go back to Teddy. He's a good guy. Better than me."

I felt the tears running down my cheeks. "I think you're making a huge mistake," I told him.

"I don't think I am."

At that moment, Jackie came tottering over, stopping directly in front of Colin. She smiled widely. "Dada!" she squealed.

Her second word.

Colin was right.

He froze for a moment, completely caught off guard. I wondered if he was second-guessing his decision. He bit his lip as he reached down and picked her up. "Daddy loves you," he told her. "Daddy's sorry he's leaving. But Daddy thinks you'll be better off without him."

Jackie stared up at him, her blue eyes wide, not understanding a thing he was telling her. Colin reached out and brushed a tendril of her jet-black hair out of her eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but then he closed it again and set her back down. She immediately went back to her toy, completely unaware that her entire life was changing right in front of her.

I turned to Colin. "So this is goodbye, then?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

"Goodbye," I whispered.

He leaned in, planting a small kiss on my lips. When his lips met mine, I nearly forgot everything that was happening and reacted out of habit by kissing him back. Then my mind snapped back to reality and I reluctantly pulled away. My hand, which had somehow made its way to his arm, remained there. He stared down at my fingers, which were digging into his bicep. "You need to let go, Vic," he murmured.

As ridiculous as it seems, I almost began laughing right then. Because it sounded so metaphorical. So deep. Like, not only did I need to let go of his arm, I also needed to let go of us. Of our relationship.

I slowly pulled my arm back. "I really hate you," I said, wiping the tears out of my eyes.

He shook his head. "No, you don't."

I let out a sob. "You're right. I don't. And I hate that I don't. Because this is the second time that you've broken my heart into a million pieces. And yet, I can't stop loving you. I hate that I don't hate you."

He stared at me, with those damn green eyes of his. For a second all I could think about was how glad I was that Jackie didn't have his eyes. Because I don't think I would have been able to stand looking at her everyday and seeing Colin's intense gaze staring back.

I stood up, scooped up Jackie and headed for the door. As I opened it, I told myself not to look back. Don't look back. Don't look back. It was like a chant echoing in my head. Don't look back. But as I stepped through the doorway, I couldn't help but turn around. Because I'd never been much good at listening to my head. My heart always seemed to take over.

Colin was sitting on the couch, staring at us. And I may have been imagining things, but I could have sworn that there were tears in his eyes.

I slowly turned back around, closing the door behind me. "Come on, Jackie," I said. "Let's go home."

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