By the end of the week, we’d made an appointment with a lawyer to set paternity rights. He said it wouldn’t be difficult since we both wanted it. We wouldn’t need a court order, only a DNA test. Once the results came back, he’d file it with the office of vital statistics and we could change her name. We were given an estimate of one to two months before that would be done. I didn’t want to wait that long, but I understood there were steps to take.

Ayla already called herself McKayla Taylor.

I loved it.

But she yelled at me every time I’d say it, telling me she wasn’t in trouble so I couldn’t use her full name. I tried telling her that it was a beautiful name and she should use it all the time, only calling her McKayla when she’s in trouble. She didn’t agree with me. I didn’t care.

Bree finally told her parents about me. She was in tears by the time she left their house, calling me as soon as she got in the car. I wanted to drive over there and give her father a piece of my mind, but she told me not to. She said he needed time to calm down and wrap his mind around it. But from what I gathered, he was more upset with Bree for lying about the extent of her relationship with me. I had to trust that she knew him better and he’d eventually calm down.

The following week, Bree had invited me over to her house, and I got to meet her other sister, Clarissa, and her husband. Both sisters were really nice, and invited me in with open arms. Bree probably had to threaten them beforehand, but whatever the reason for their kindness, I believed it to be genuine.

Our whole relationship before had been spent in hiding. There were no “meet the family” moments, or sharing the holidays with our loved ones. It was full of sneaking around, hidden meetings in the trees, stolen glances in class, and little love notes hidden beneath papers on my desk. Our words had to be carefully plotted when texting, and our phone calls had to wait until the sun went down. So to have these moments where we were all together, out in the open, was amazing and scary all at the same time. And I knew that if it scared me even the slightest bit, Bree must’ve felt it worse. I promised to take my time with her, letting us ease into the comfort of being together, but I made it known that I would never again hide our love from the world.

Things became easier with each passing day, but Aubrey still seemed to harbor some apprehension about us. She’d made several comments about how she worried we were rushing into things, or that we were together for the wrong reasons. She told me she loved me every day, and we spent a lot of time together, occupying most nights in the same bed, so I wasn’t too worried about her hesitation. I knew she loved me and that her uneasiness about us would alleviate with time.

Bree still hadn’t found a job, and I could tell it only added to her anxiety. She refused to let me help out financially, but there were other things I helped her with on the sly. One of those things was her furniture business that she longed to start. I’d picked up so many odd pieces for her over the last few weeks that it kept her busy and, hopefully, kept her mind off the hard times. It didn’t take me long to realize that Bree was happiest when she was doing what she loved. She worked tirelessly to transform her newest acquisitions and already had four pieces of furniture built and ready for painting.

“What are you looking at?” I asked, finding her in the back of the thrift shop.

She quickly backed away from the old dollhouse and shook her head.

“You want this?” I asked, looking at it, wondering what she saw. It was made of wood, yet it seemed as though it hadn’t been taken care of in quite some time. The front was open and missing a door, the paint was peeling, and I couldn’t help but wonder why someone thought they’d even be able to sell it. It looked like it should’ve been thrown straight into the dumpster.

“I was only looking at it. Come on, let’s go.”

“No. Wait a minute, Bree. You were looking at this, studying it the way you do when you get a creative idea. Talk to me. I want to know what you see when you look at this thing.” I didn’t move from my spot in front of the worn-down house, refusing to let her walk away.

She spun around, appearing tired. Her shoulders lifted to her chin as she said, “It’s nothing, Axel. Forget it.”

“No,” I said, holding onto her arms and forcing her to look at me. “I’m not going to forget it. I want to know what you were thinking.”

“It’s pointless what I thought or what I want to do with it. I can’t get it right now, and by the time I can, it won’t be here. So there’s no use wasting the time telling you what I think of it.”

“Why can’t you get it? It’s only fifteen dollars.”

She released a long sigh and dropped her head between us. “I still have projects at home to finish, and I still need to buy paint in order to finish what I have. I can’t afford to start more projects. I have to finish what I can, sell them to buy more paint, and then finish the rest. I can’t afford to pull any money out of my savings, because I have bills to pay. I can’t just go out and buy everything at once, the furniture I have has to pay for the other projects. It’s a process and kind of pointless to keep adding more when I can’t even finish what I have.”

I’d learned that Bree was a lot of things, a prideful person being near the top of that list. Arguing with her over money and what she could or couldn’t afford was useless. I would never win that argument. So, I relented and we left the store.

Later that afternoon, I gave Bree the excuse that I had to go home. What I didn’t tell her was that I also had to make a few stops along the way. One thing I couldn’t stand was for Bree to have to deal with disappointment. She’d dealt with that enough in her life, and I knew she’d face more along the way. But I could fix what was fixable. Bearing witness to her not spending fifteen dollars because she needed paint nearly broke my heart.

I went back to the thrift store and purchased the rickety old dollhouse, not having a clue as to what she’d turn it into—but that was part of the excitement. She had so much talent it amazed me. I’d look at a ladder and see exactly what it was, something to use to reach high places. But Bree could look at it and see something to display knickknacks. The simple wonder of what she’d do to this broken house was enough to make me go back for it. The other stop I had to make was to pick up paint. I’d gone to the enclosed backroom of her house where she worked on her projects, and taken pictures of the supplies she had left, and then used that to fill my cart full of all the same brands of paints and brushes she’d need. It was apparent that one brush was her favorite, due to the dozen paint colors that riddled the handle. I showed the picture to the store clerk and he showed me what type of brush it was. She wasn’t kidding, paint wasn’t cheap and the brush that was her favorite was ridiculously expensive. But that didn’t stop me. It didn’t make me cringe when I slid my credit card across the counter or looked at the receipt. Instead, it filled me with excitement, eager to give it to her. I felt like a kid on Christmas morning.

The tricky part was giving it to her. I knew it would cause a fight, I knew she’d be pissed that I’d spent my money on her. But I didn’t care. She needed me just as much as I needed her, and I’d do anything to help her. It was just something she’d have to get over.

What I hadn’t expected, though, were her tears. When I pulled back into her driveway later that evening, my truck full of supplies, she broke down and cried—full-on sobbed.

“What’s wrong, Bree? Why are you upset?” I had expected her to be angry, not shed so many tears. I couldn’t stand it when she cried.