of her eyes, to see the better part of me that is
knocking on the door asking to come in. And I do
it, the moment in which Erin looks for my mouth
to breathe me in, I let it go free to fly and mix with
hers.
“God, Erin…” I’m so near the limit that I could
explode in a moment. “I want to hear you … and I
want to see you when you say it. My name. Only
mine.”
Erin says my name again and again first slowly
and then faster as we reach the climax together and
allow our bodies to quiver inside one another.
I rest my forehead on hers and kiss her slowly,
deeply, hoping that it will transmit what I’m
feeling in this moment because really, I’m not able
to emit sound, much less an entire phrase.
And yet, I’d like to tell her how I feel, what I
feel for her, for them.
For this thing between us that I did not want or
look for but that found me just the same.
Because when love calls, you have to fucking
answer.
20
Erin
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road …
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to
go.
I move in my sleep, cradled by a light melody
that makes me smile instinctively.
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is
right … I hope you had the time of your life.
I open my heavy eyelids weighed down by
tiredness with difficulty. I really did not sleep
much last night. Patrick was … Wow. I can still
feel my skin burning after being his prey almost all
night last night.
Thanks to the light that’s passing through the
curtains I am able to focus on what is happening.
Patrick is sitting on the bed. He’s got a guitar and
he’s strumming so softly that I can barely hear it.
But his voice, God, his voice is a concentration of
tenderness and emotion that brings tears to my
eyes.
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end is
right … I hope you had the time of your life.7
“What…” I start with a voice weighed down
with sleep.
“Good morning.” He smiles with his whole
face, before planting a kiss on my belly and
another on my face.
“Were you singing?”
He shakes his head and averts his glance.
I pull myself up and rest on my elbows and I
realize I’m only wearing his shirt and nothing else.
“You sing?” I ask, looking for a sheet to cover
my body.
“Nah, I have a shitty voice.”
“But I heard you,” I add, sitting up. “You were
singing something.”
“I was just playing around.”
“Were you singing to the baby?”
He gets off the bed and turns his shoulders to
me, revealing his perfect figure in the morning
light.
7 Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life), Green Day, Green Day Bluegrass
“I just wanted to…” He rubs his hand on his
head. “Let him know that I’m here, I guess. That
I’m here waiting too.”
I cover my face immediately with my hands
because the emotion he invokes in me causes
another outburst of tears.
Patrick turns to me and comes in close, kneeling
down on the bed and moving my hands away from
my face.
“What … what is it? Why are you crying? Have
I said something wrong?”
“Excuse me!” I say through my sobs. “It’s just
that … it’s so emotional for me, okay? I am so
emotional anything makes me cry. And you … you
were kneeling by my stomach singing to the
baby…”
“I’m sorry,” he says in a worried tone. “I didn’t
want you to feel badly.”
“I don’t feel badly, Patrick. Don’t you
understand? You’ve filled my heart to the brim.”
He looks at me for a few seconds in the eyes,
and then his face opens in a sweet smile that would
just kill me and he comes closer to me and sucks
on my lips in a tender touch.
“It was just a song, I wanted him to feel safe
and protected. I’d like him to know that I’m here
too.”
I throw my arms about his neck and jump in his
lap, sitting on his legs and wrapping my legs
around him.
“He knows,” I tell him, still weepy. “We both
do.”
He smiles in my hair and kisses me sweetly on
the head. “Are you hungry? I’ll make you
breakfast.”
“I’m always hungry,” I reply, making him
laugh.
“Now that I don’t feel constantly sick, I’d eat
anything at any time.”
“Well, lucky for you you’ve got this guy who
isn’t so bad and, as an added bonus, knows how to
cook. Just don’t spread it around.”
He gets up and stands in front of me.
He’s naked. Completely.
Gulp.
“What can I do for you?” he asks me with a
twinkle in his eye.
“I’d say breakfast could wait fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes?” he says, raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t think you’re giving me enough credit.” He
smiles back before showing me what an hour,
forty-three minutes and ten seconds of ‘not enough
credit’ I had offended him with.
~ ~ ~
I get out of the shower wrapped in a towel. I feel
tired and just plain exhausted for the night passed
and the morning started, but I also feel light and
serene. Happy. For the first time in months, I’m
feeling good, like maybe I will be able to pull this
off.
I leave the bathroom and, attracted by the good
smells coming from the kitchen, I take a few steps
to the kitchen worktop and find Patrick at the
cooker, wearing just a pair of jeans, barefoot and
shirtless.
He’s humming softly, but I can distinguish
every syllable and hear it right in my heart.
I’m feeling better ever since you know me … I
was a lonely soul but that’s the old me.
It’s a splendid vision I shall never forget. His
shoulders designed with letters and embellished
with images, the curve of his perfect back that
ends in his slow rise jeans. The way he moves
slowly with the tempo and the words.
But with you … I feel again … Yeah, with you …
I can feel again. 8
He turns slightly to grab something on the lower
shelf and catches me watching him out of the
corner of his eye.
“Hey, there are pancakes, eggs, bacon and…”
He interrupts himself and wrinkles his face. “Is
everything alright?”
I fill my lungs with all the air in the apartment. I
smile as big as I can and it’s almost a giggle.
“Fucking great.”
8 Feel Again (With Heartbeats–Native) OneRepublic
Patrick
After the night I just had, I�
�m feeling strong, I feel
good, I’d almost say invincible.
A new awareness has taken hold of my mind
and my outlook. I haven’t been living at all, all of
these years. I’ve wasted so much time, gone
around in a fog, thinking that setting my heart
aside I wouldn’t have hurt myself. That I could
live alone with no feelings for anyone.
What an asshole.
Then, she came along.
And I started really breathing and really living.
What I feel now after having her close to me
and after having loved her in every way possible,
it’s something I can’t describe and it’s priceless.
Because what I feel is so huge and scary, now that
I’ve been able to touch it with my hands, I can’t
and don’t want to ever let it go.
I go back home after having made breakfast and
taken Erin to University. She had her last exam
this morning. She was nervous but I’m sure it will
go well.
I open the door of my house, sighing like an
idiot and find everyone at the table having
breakfast.
“Hey,” I greet them and their serious faces.
“Something happened?”
“Nothing’s happened here,” Aaron says coldly.
“I’ll take a quick shower and go to the pub,” I
say, heading towards the stairs.
“Nope. You’re not going to get out of it like
that.” He blocks me. “Where the fuck were you
last night?” he asks me accusingly.
“I don’t think I have an obligation to let you all
know about where I go,” I say, stopping at the foot
of the stairs.
“Were you where I think you were?” He steps
closer, threateningly.
I huff and shake my head, heading straight to
my room, but Aaron grabs my arm.
“What’s your problem?” I ask, raising my voice.
“You were with her, weren’t you?”
I look him in the eyes without answering. My
silence speaks for me.
“I knew it! Christ, Patrick! What is your head
telling you? That little theatre you put on in the
pub yesterday? Going against her father? She’s
pregnant, Patrick!”
“Do you think I don’t know that? I’ve known
since the first day, Aaron. I’ve always known.”
“And you’re going on with this thing?”
“It’s not important to me that she’s pregnant.”
“God, Patrick, you’re a real asshole. I always
knew it, but I didn’t think it was this bad! But what
does your little head tell you, huh?”
“Aaron…” Rain interrupts.
“No, Rain. Don’t try to defend him like you
usually do!”
“Aaron—”
“He doesn’t have any excuses, Rain. And then,
Erin is your friend, shouldn’t you be worried about
her? Do you understand whose hands she’s fallen
into?”
“Aaron!” Rain jumps to her feet and sets her
hands down on the table. “You’re the one who
doesn’t understand! He doesn’t care about her
condition because he’s in love with her!” She
smiles.
Aaron looks first at me and then at her while I
respond to Rain’s smile with affection and
gratitude. Rain’s one in a million.
“What?” Aaron continues to be disbelieving and
shifts his gaze from me back to her.
“I care for her,” I whisper, looking at him
seriously. “About them both.”
“That means that—”
“She’s the one I’ve been waiting my whole life
for.”
The silence that falls upon the room is
embarrassing, especially because the last words
said were mine and let’s just get it out there: it’s
not like me.
“Patrick, do you understand you’re about to
have someone else’s baby? That in a few months
she’s going to be a mother and everything is going
to change? Her life is going to be turned upside
down and yours is going to get dragged along with
it.”
“I’m already in this, Aaron. Completely. I am
fucking hers and I do not intend to go back on my
commitment.”
Rain runs to me and throws her arms around me
so hard that it leaves me winded.
“I knew it, I knew it,” she repeats as I hug her
back.
Liam stands and joins us in the hug and now
there are three of us. Jay literally jumps out of his
seat and throws himself at me and slaps my buzzed
head.
Aaron remains in silence another second before
asking me: “Are you by any chance in love with
her?”
Am I in love with her?
Fuck, yes.
“I am in love with both of them,” I say without
thinking about it.
Saying it out loud makes me feel even surer.
More of a man.
“I imagine this house will soon be fuller than it
currently is,” Aaron says while we all break out
laughing.
He joins us and piles onto the group hug.
And so we remain, in the middle of the living
room hugging and close like we always have been.
Because this is our family. Full of chaos, loud,
made of unlikely combinations, but it’s mine and I
love it. And I’d do anything for her.
And I’d like Erin to be part of it, and her baby
will grow up among these walls with love,
friendship and loyalty.
With his father close by.
21
Erin
I get up from the chair and accept the hand of my
professor who, to my disbelief, has given me top
marks. I didn’t think I had studied enough for this
exam, worried about a million problems, but the
night with Patrick and the morning we shared gave
me something extra that helped me to face this
with more confidence and determination and the
professor must have noticed my new attitude.
I let out a sigh of satisfaction and turn to leave
when I see someone standing at the door waiting
for me. I get closer, already feeling my good mood
evaporate as my father holds his arms out ready to
hug me. I let him do so and I kiss his cheek,
nervous about this surprise visit.
“What are you doing here?” I ask him.
“I came to see your last exam, I hope you don’t
mind.”
“About what happened yesterday night—”
“Let’s not mention it again, okay? I was taken
by surprise, I wasn’t expecting that,” he says,
looking at my by-now visibly swollen belly. “You
must understand it will take me a while to get used
to the idea.”
I nod nervously as I fix my eyes on my gym
shoes. Things have changed since I’ve been
pregnant. I dress in a more sporty and comfortable
way, I don’t wear make-up or things on my hair
and I feel good. Just myself.
“Can I take you out for lunch? I’d like to stay a
&
nbsp; bit with my daughter.”
“Okay,” I concede, worried about how this day
is going to end, a day that started off in the best
possible way.
~ ~ ~
We go to a place near campus that’s full of
professors and researchers and we sit down at a
table for two at the end of the hall.
“So, how are things going?”
“What is it you really want to know?”
“Everything, Honey. I want to know what’s
happened in these months we haven’t seen each
other. How we’ve gotten to this point,” he says,
looking at me very seriously.
I tell him about Nate and the end of our
relationship. I tell him how Patrick has been very
close to me and that we discovered we feel the
same way about each other and that things didn’t
go as expected and I discovered I was pregnant
almost right away. I don’t go into details, in order
to avoid giving away something that would make
Dad understand that the baby isn’t Patrick’s. So I
lie a bit about the time frames and the dynamics so
it’s a bit vague and he isn’t able to add things up
too quickly.
“And with this Patrick—”
“Dad, please.”
“What is it? I’m just asking. I want to know if
he treats you well, if you’re happy.”
“Patrick is wonderful.”
“And he’s going to take care of you and—”
“—The baby, Dad. You can say it out loud.”
“Sorry, this is hard for me. You’re my little
girl.”
“Well, seems like your little girl is grown up,
and in a hurry.”
“So what are you intending to do? How have
you thought to reconcile things? A baby isn’t
something to take lightly, dear.”
“I still haven’t thought of it,” I say, looking at
my now empty plate. “I’m taking things day by
day.”
“And are you and Patrick getting married?”
“God, no, Dad!” I say, confused and shaken up
by his question. We just started getting serious;
even if he said he wants to be there for the baby
and me, I really don’t think Patrick is the marrying
type.
“And how do you both intend to manage the
situation? Will you live together, will you continue
to study?”
There are too many questions that I don’t have
the answers to. I still haven’t thought of any
solutions, I’m just trying to face each difficulty as
and when it crops up.
“You won’t want to give up your studies.”