“So listen… I’ve gotta get ready…” I trail off and make a face at her. “Not to kick you out or anything… buuuut...”

“I get it, I get it. You better tell me who this hot date is with.” She throws her purse on her shoulder and walks towards the door. Before I can protest her assumption, she turns and points at me. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s not a date, either, woman. There’s something… different… about you lately, and I can’t pin it, but I think it has something to do with a little relationship bloom. One day, you’ll tell me,” she smiles. “One day. Or I’ll throat punch you.”

I laugh at her insane threat.

“You’ve been practicing your threats I see.”

“I have to, with all the crazy bitches after my fiancé.” She shrugs. “I learned from the best, you know.” She wiggles her eyebrows and I roll my eyes.

“Bye, bitch,” I say, opening the door for her.

“Later, whore,” she says, slapping my ass on her way out.

Glancing at the clock by the door, I have a little over an hour before I meet Benton and Hannah. I have a little over an hour to try not to freak out that he’ll know something’s wrong with me and drop me like a bad habit. I have all this time to get ready and leave… and pray to God… a God I’m not sure likes me… that I don’t fuck things up today.

After showering, shaving, primping and then trying to make it look like I didn’t primp too much for a park playdate, I head outside to make the short walk to the park. It’s the perfect day in the city for this. Sunny, breezy, and cool. Fall in Chicago is beautiful, but winter can be horrible. The walk isn’t too bad, as it’s not too crowded. Making it there about half hour before Benton and Hannah, I sit on the bench and wait.

Waiting has never been something I’m good at. My mind starts to wander, back to that night so many years ago… the night that changed my entire fucking life.

***

“Jesus fucking Christ, Gabby! Slow the fuck down! You’re going to kill us all!” Jordan yells from the back seat. “Mother fucking cunt, and this stupid goddamned child won’t shut up!” I realize the baby won’t stop screaming, and he’s doing nothing to make it better. If anything, yelling like that at me, and cursing at me, is only making it worse.

“Babe, can you please give him his binky back?” I ask, as calmly as I can without flipping out on his ass. I’m fairly certain he’s high, so fighting with him is pointless right now. I’m pissed that he got in the car with me, I’m pissed I can’t get away from him, and I’m pissed that I have to deal with this the rest of my life.

“Fuck that, this kid needs to learn how to cope,” he growls, pissing me off even more. He’s a two-month-old baby, not a ten year old!

“Jordan, please,” I sigh, holding a binky out to the back seat for him.

“Fuck, no! Turn this mother fucking car around and go home, Gabby!” He’s screaming, the baby is still screaming, and, when Jordan hits the binky out of my hand, I lose it.

“Fuck you, Jordan!” I swerve the car to the side of the road to kick him out.

Then, everything goes black.

***

“Gabby!” Benton’s voice comes from behind me, and I take a few calming breaths. Typically, a flashback to that night would set off a reaction of attacks and more flashbacks, but with everything rolling through my system today, I’m so relaxed it’s almost scary. Standing to greet him, I smile my perfected smile and walk towards him.

“Hey,” he kisses me gently, then backs away, and looks down at his little girl in the stroller.

“Gabby, this-” He motions. “Is Hannah.” Smiling, he watches me as I interact with his baby for the first time.

Don’t fuck this up, Gabby.

“Hey, Hannah,” I say, smiling. “You wanna swing?”

Her face lights up at the mention of a swing, and she starts trying to get out of her stroller straps, getting madder and madder by the minute. Benton chuckles and comes behind me, gently unsnapping her and lifting her up. He goes to hand her to me, since she still doesn’t walk, but I guess the scared look on my face has him second guessing.

“Okay,” he laughs. “One step at a time, right?”

I laugh nervously, pissed that I let my fear shine through. I need to seem comfortable with her. I need to not let the fear of hurting her come out. I’ll be okay. We can do this for a few hours then I’ll be able to go home, to the safety of my apartment, where I can’t hurt anyone but myself.

While in the swing, Hannah laughs and giggles, happy to be out of the stroller. We take time and walk around with her, Benton holding her to steady her uneasy feet. It’s adorable, really, watching how he’s bonded with her over the last year. The man that showed up on my doorstep last year wasn’t ready to be a father, but this man… this man is the sexiest, most caring and attentive father I’ve ever seen.

Let’s just amp that sexy up a few more notches, why don’t we?

After two hours of sliding, swinging, laughing and playing, Hannah is ready for a nap and my nerves are ready for a break. After everything I’ve been through, I still can’t get the anxiety-ridden feelings to lie low when in public. Any big crowd does it to me… makes me unable to think straight, see straight, and sometimes walk at all. After Noah was born, I had an episode at Target where I had to call Jordan to come pick me up because I couldn’t move. I literally was so afraid someone was going steal Noah right out of the cart that I froze. It was humiliating. That was the very last time I went out in public with my child.

“So, we’re going to head back home, I guess,” Benton says, shoving his hands in his pockets after securing Hannah in her stroller. Before I can turn his unspoken invitation back to his place down, his phone starts to ring. He curses under his breath, pulling it out to check. “Hey, it’s my dad, can you hang on a sec?”

After smiling and nodding, he answers the call and his face immediately falls. I’ve seen that look before. Oh god, I know that look on him.

“Gab, can you just…” He flicks his eyes from me to Hannah and I nod silently, worry etching his face as he walks to a nearby bench. I watch him sit down, as my hand instinctively goes around the handle of the stroller. Tight. When Hannah starts to fuss, I start slowly moving the stroller back and forth, hoping to calm her down from the movement the same way I used to calm Noah down.

“Shh,” I say to Hannah, while my eyes watch Benton. Elbows on his knees, head hung low, one hand holding the phone, the other on the back of his neck. That’s the looks of despair. The look of worry.

I remember seeing that look so many times over the years that I’ve grown used to it.

It’s a look that haunts my dreams at night.

He hangs up shortly after, and takes a moment to compose himself. Whatever that phone call was about, it wasn’t good. Taking a breath, he rubs his hands down his face before standing up and shoving his hands in his pockets. His walk back to me is slow and deliberate, like he’s putting all his effort into bringing his body to us.

“Hey,” I whisper when he reaches us. One hand still on the stroller, I reach out to touch his cheek and he turns his face into my touch. “What’s up?”

He groans and takes my hand in his, moving it to his mouth to kiss it before locking his deep brown, stormy eyes on mine. The pain in his face tells me it definitely wasn’t a phone call just to say ‘hi’. Something happened. Something bad happened. Everything starts running through my brain, but, with as little as I know about his personal life, I really don’t know what it could be. Sure, I know he’s insanely close to his parents, more so than most thirty year olds that I know, but I don’t know if he has siblings, cousins, a large or small family… I don’t know, and now I suddenly wish I did. I wish I knew this stuff. I want to be here for him, because, even though he doesn’t know it, he’s been there for me more times than I can count.