Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
“You don’t even want me there?” I whisper in disbelief.
“I don’t want you missing work over something so minuscule.”
The chance to ever procreate if I stay in this relationship is now minuscule?!
That’s fucking minuscule?
Which one of us needs a fucking English lesson now?!
Xander shifts an unforeseen warm grin onto his face. “It’s close to lunch. And since I’m already here, what do you say we go grab a bite? We could ‘do something different’. Perhaps try that Greek restaurant down on the corner?”
Doing what I do best, I plaster on a phony smile in return, hiding my unhappiness, hunger, and horror all behind a perfect expression. “I wish I could, but I can’t. I have to review Merrick’s proposal because I didn’t get to it this weekend as well as return a few urgent calls in regard to the upcoming charity event.”
“I understand.” He offers me another kind smirk. “I’ll see you for dinner? Perhaps we can try it then?”
“Sounds great.”
Xander gives me a nod and exits my office door.
No kiss goodbye.
No I love you.
No I’ll miss you.
Nothing.
He behaves like this…fuck, we, behave like this so why would I ever think kids might be in cards for us?
Did I ever actually think that?
Have I ever pictured myself with him and them in the same daydream?
Am I really upset that he’s making this huge life decision without me or am I just upset that I can’t seem to make one for myself?
**
Katherine nibbles on her garden salad across from me, horror on her face as I practically swallow the side of breadsticks, she brought me to go with the chicken alfredo I haven’t touched. Flavors of garlic and butter swirl around my pallet, effortlessly lulling all the overworked emotions back to a slumbering state.
I needed this.
I need more of this.
More bread.
Oh!
Maybe I’ll stop at the local bakery and get a cupcake before going home.
“Okay, Mrs. Baird’s,” she puts her fork down, “how about you slow down on the carb fest you’re ingesting and talk to me. What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
I dip the bitten bread into the cheesy sauce I haven’t touched yet. “Xander’s having a vasectomy on Friday.”
“Thank God,” she mumbles. “Any more little robots like him wandering around the earth, and I would be worried we had been transported into an Isaac Asimov novel.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” she swiftly counters.
My expression doesn’t change.
“Why are you so upset by this, darling?” Curiosity slyly slinks around her stare. “Did you…want kids with Xander?”
“No?”
“No?”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe?”
“Possibly? Fuck, I don’t know!” I babble between new chomps of bread. “But I don’t like the choice stolen from me like a pickpocket on the goddamn subway.”
Her eyebrows lift in response to my analogy.
“He didn’t ask me my thoughts or opinions or feelings. He just informed me like he always does. Declared it like the fucking President of the United States of America. Like he’s the fucking king of England, and we commonfolk have no say! No taxation without representation!”
“Why are you yelling History Channel moments at me?”
“Sorry.” I abandon the end of the breadstick carelessly on my desk. “He was watching some special in bed last night while I was trying to go to sleep. It stuck. And gave me weird dreams I so did not need.”
“That was weird.” Katherine lightly laughs. “And more importantly, you’re expressing your anger at the wrong person.”
“Ugh. I know.”
“Did you try to tell him how you felt?”
“I did! I really did! I tried to tell him – without the help of a Poptart or the Saltines in my desk drawer –, and he gave me some really well-played, well-rehearsed speech about respecting women’s choices, therefore I need to respect his. If this were any other case, it would be valid, but it’s not.”
“Because?”
“Because what if I do want children, Katherine? I mean I’m not against adoption, but what if I want to carry a baby? And watch it grow? And be swollen for nine months? And have the cravings? And the pain? And the cramps? And the photoshoots? And the stretchmarks? And then what if wanna nurse? And then what if I…” The end of sentence drifts away prompting me to pick up the end piece I had abandoned. “I honestly don’t know what I want, and that’s the problem.”
“Darling, if you don’t know what you want, you can’t be pissed off at Xander for knowing what he does.”
I sneer at her valid point and shove the bread into my mouth.
“He always has, darling. He may be very by the book, very fucking boring, and very clinically precise, but he is always certain of what he wants and communicates that to you, even if it’s not what you wanna hear.”
Huh.
Something to appreciate about him I suppose.
“The problem here is that for the first time since I’ve known you, you’ve started to question your own desires.”