Right Now, I'm Anyone's

Everybody was there with us. Well, not everybody, but more people than there should’ve been in one delivery room. When Dean had ran to get Dimitri, Georgia was already wide awake, having heard our not so quiet argument about whether or not I had time to clean myself off before going to the hospital. She had been waiting in the front seat of Dimitri’s car in her pyjama bottoms, Eeyore slippers and vest top, her seat belt fastened securely in place.

Everything after getting into Dimitri’s car and before the point where my contractions started to get stronger and much more frequent was a dazed, painful blur. I can hardly remember anything about that night except for the blindingly white lights in the hospital and the pitch blackness of my own sleep as it consumed me at the end. In the time leading up to my transfer into the delivery room, I remembered all of the advice I had been given so far; my mother’s words about the pain being ridiculously bad, but it being worth it in the end. Half-way through what had felt like pushing my intestines out through my arse, I was seriously doubting that this screaming, poo-ing, wee-ing thing which was going to come out covered in my own blood was really worth that kind of pain.

Dean was brilliant for the most part, really. It was just towards the very last ten minutes of the birth that it began to dawn on him; in another couple of minutes he was going to be a dad. Or maybe he wasn’t. The power to know was two weeks after this baby was born, and I would’ve been ecstatic about that had I not been lying flat on my back with a midwife between my legs, telling me calmly to keep breathing and push every now and then. I remember Dean’s hand loosen around my fingers while Georgia clung tight to my right hand. He was going to stand up and leave the room, and there was no chance I was going to let him do that.

I grabbed his hand again, tightening my fingers around his hand as I looked up at him, feeling my hair as it clung to my flushed skin. “Don’t you dare leave me now, Dean,” I growled at him, my breathing heavy and deep, pushing when my midwife told me to.

Though the look on his face told me that he thought I was completely derailed, it seemed to work. He took hold of my hand again and continued to stroke the hair out of my face. Of course, he was a lot less vocal than he had been before the reality came crashing down on top of him. I told myself to just focus all of my attention on the words Georgia and my midwife were saying to me, and concentrate on the feeling of Dean’s hand running through my damp hair, soothing me as much as he could given the current situation.

I was in labour for fourteen hours and twenty minutes – fourteen hours and twenty minutes of pure agony and sweat and tears and screams. Dean almost passed out twice and Georgia was nearly vomiting in the bin by my bed. But at 6:20PM on the 27th August, I gave birth to a little boy with jet black hair that shone just like Dean’s when it dried off and beautiful, pale toffee coloured skin. I held him almost as soon as the blanket had been wrapped around him, and I wasn’t too sure how I was feeling as a whole. I knew I was happy – beyond happy – and I knew that this little bundle of a baby in my arms was something I loved, and something that I was going to love for as long as I lived.

Georgia had rushed out of the delivery room to tell Dimitri and whoever else had gathered there that it was over, and that it was a boy. Dean very nearly passed out again and looked like he was about to collapse onto the tiled floor. A nurse pulled a chair over to him, just in time for him to fall back into it. He just sat there, staring dumbfounded at me and the baby and it looked to me like he was going to bolt at any given second. He took another moment to himself before he stood up again, reaching out a tentative hand to touch the infant’s forehead.

“What shall we call him?” I asked, my voice croaking as I turned my tired smile onto Dean. He slipped his hands carefully into my arms and transferred the baby over to himself, taking his seat back next to my bed. The doctors were then finishing what had to be finished – I was beyond feeling any kind of pain at that point, I just wanted to go to sleep.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Dean whispered, watching as his son drifted to sleep in his arms. “You need to get some sleep.

“If you’re sure you’re okay,” I said meekly, suppressing a yawn as my eyes closed slightly, fighting to keep them open. I heard one of the doctor’s laugh at my question as he took away his equipment and quickly told me I should sleep before leaving the room. “Not too traumatised, are you?”

Dean didn’t answer me. He laughed quietly and stared down at that little boy, curled up asleep in his arms as he touched his fingertips gingerly against his nose and the thin skin of his eyelids, careful not to wake him and start the screaming off again. The small, content smile that remained on dean’s face was enough to tell me that everything was fine, that he was just fine. I had nothing else to worry about anymore.

I had my beautiful little boy, and I had the man I loved. Nothing else mattered after that.

*****

William-Marcus Jonathan Charles Owens. That was the name that Dean and I had decided on for the baby. I know, it’s a really, really long name, but it had been too hard to decide. We couldn’t just use one of our father’s names and leave the other out, and I absolutely insisted that Johnny’s name be a part of my sons. There was absolutely no way that we were getting rid of the William, because we both loved that name and it suited him so much already. I suppose there are people with longer names than our child’s.

Dean’s name was also put on the birth certificate as the father, a week before we got the paternity results back from the DNA test. Georgia had called Levi when the labour was over, telling him that I’d had the baby and that he should come to the hospital to see me. He’d arrived while I was asleep and was in my room when I woke up. I opened my eyes for a moment and saw that the room was in darkness with the curtains drawn. The only light came from a small, energy-saving light bulb in a little lamp standing on the table across the room from my bed. It was just enough light for me to see who was in there.

Levi was leaning over the small cot that William was inside, with Dean standing at his side. They both had their heads down, staring at my little boy. I kept one eye open and listened to the tense silence between them when they had nothing to say to each other.

“Have you gone through the birth certificate stuff yet?” Levi asked, his voice low and slightly choked with emotion. I felt my eyes sting in slight sorrow as I tried to see him through the darkness. It had been so long since the last time I saw him, I could’ve sworn his brown hair was shorter, and sticking up a lot more than it usually did. From what I could see, he was still smartly dressed. But, like I said, it was dark and I couldn’t see properly. I must’ve slept a long time for it to be so dark and for the hospital to be so quiet.

“No, not yet,” Dean answered, leaning back again and picking up his crutch so he could stand upright without hurting his knee. He moved a little bit closer to Levi, as if he were comforting him. “I was going to speak to her about it when she woke up, but I’ll tell you now that I’m willing to leave my name off of it until we’re certain.”

I heard Levi sigh slightly, and saw the silhouette of his hand draw away from the cot for a moment, before he moved it back in – presumably to touch William’s face. His action was followed by the sound of my baby boy gurgling, telling me that he was awake too. From where I was lying, I saw the shape of a small hand reaching out to meet Levi’s hand, touching against it lightly as if he were trying to find out who this strange man was.

“I don’t think it’s going to matter that much anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Dean questioned, his head down on William as he leaned into his crutch more, using his free hand to hold onto the cot’s edge.

“It’s fairly obvious from looking at him.” Levi sounded completely defeated, like he was about to say something he never, ever wanted to admit to anybody else, much less to Dean. “He’s not mine. He doesn’t look anything like me and as far as I know, nobody in my family are blue-eyed, especially not like he is.”

A little piece of me was slightly shocked when no words of consolation or comfort came from Dean’s mouth, but then again, it wasn’t like Dean was Levi’s friend that wanted the baby to be his, rather than some other blokes. The silence that met my waiting ears wasn’t really that surprising though. I heard feet shuffle across the floor and clamped my eyes shut, seconds later feeling a light breeze as somebody brushed my hair out of my eyes. Next, I felt a pair of lips – lips that were nearly strangers to me – brush against my forehead in a goodbye.

Again, I waited for Dean to say something to Levi; at least to object to him kissing me, or even to apologise about what had happened behind his back. But neither of those came out of Dean’s mouth, and even the tone of his voice was soft, rather than the aggressive edge I was preparing myself to hear. “Do you still love her?”

I cracked my eye open again, seeing the outline of Dean’s torso and the weird contortion of his neck as he looked at Levi over his shoulder. Levi was at the door almost as soon as he had finished his silent goodbye to me while he thought I was sleeping. The next time I heard his voice, it was quiet and did nothing but break my heart into thousands of pieces all over again. “There’s no hope in me loving her; you know as well as me that no matter how much I want her to, she’s never going to leave you when she loves you so much. I wish I could stop loving her right now, but I just can’t.”

It was two weeks after William’s birth, and Dean and I had been allowed to take him back home with us. The paternity tests had come back, confirming that Dean was the father – I jumped around and acted excited when Georgia read it out to me, but really, I hadn’t needed any confirmation. William was far too like Dean for him not to be the father. Speaking of Dean, he saved me some more heartache and called Levi for me to let him know the results. Plus, neither Dean or I thought he’d be able to take the news well if it were my voice that was telling him.

By the time my birthday had come around again – a little under two months after William was born – Dean and I were stressed to the point where I could barely stand the sight of him and he would snap at me whenever he heard my strained voice. I’m not going to lie and say that being with Dean and having William were the easiest things I’ve ever done, because they weren’t. Looking after William was difficult enough, but Dean and I also had to look after each other, and by the time Dean had turned twenty-three – a month before me – our relationship was so frayed and jagged that neither of us were sure that we were going to make it.

Anyway, back to my original point before I got all doom and gloom. Because it was my birthday – and we had done the same for Dean’s birthday – Dean and my dad had organised that we travel to London with William and stay for a couple of days. Dean and I just snapped at one another throughout the entire drive to London, while William dozed in his car seat and Jake and Georgia whispered to each other about how annoying we were. Max, Craig and Daniel had caught a train back to London after Dean was released from hospital, and made a point to check in once every couple of days to find out how we were.

By the time we had reached the outskirts of London, I felt like strangling something just for fun. After my parting jab of ‘stop being so arrogant’ to Dean, I promptly clamped my mouth shut and stared moodily out of the window to my left until Dean stopped te car to let Jake, Georgia and Edie out once we had reached Jake’s home.

Once we had travelled through central London towards the suburbs just outside of it, Dean drove to Jake’s house to drop him, Georgia and Edie off for the night. I hadn’t noticed that Dean was going in almost exactly the opposite direction to our parents homes, and I glanced at him questioningly when I did realise. He was leaning back in his seat, his shoulders relaxed and his face calm as he watched the road ahead of him.

“Dean, you realise you’ve gone the wrong way,” I pointed out after five more minutes, looking around to see if I could recognise anything – I couldn’t. We were on a black tar road, lined on either side with houses and planted trees and I’d never been there before in my life. The houses were all detached, and about medium in size, but each of them were different from the last. It was about half past four in the afternoon, so it wasn’t that dark at the time, and I could see beyond the headlights of the van. He slowed down, stopping outside one of these houses – the only one that had all of the lights switched off inside – and put the handbrake on, before glancing out of the window at the admittedly beautiful house.

“What are we doing here?” I asked again, looking at Dean properly after checking to see if William was still asleep. He was. “Where are we?”

Dean’s mood seemed to improve in a matter of minutes, between dropping Jake and Georgia home and getting to outside this strange house. He wasn’t angry or irrational anymore; he was smiling broadly, but trying to disguise it while he avoided my eyes. He didn’t say a word to me as he climbed out of the van, transferring most of his weight onto his good leg – his knee still bothered him, but the pain was fading every day. He walked around the front of the van – with a slight limp – until he reached my door, which he pulled open. He held his hand out to me to help me down, that broad smile still tugging at his lips as he finally looked me in the eyes.

“Bring Will,” he reminded me as I began to climb out of the van. I felt my face flush from the embarrassment - how could I forget that leaving my almost two month old alone in a van was not a very credible thing to do as a mother? “I’ve got you – well, all of us – something for your birthday.”

With my hand curled around the handle of William’s car seat, I lifted him carefully out of the car so I didn’t wake him and balanced the handle on my arm, bent at my elbow. I felt more confused than I’d ever felt; why would Dean bring us to this house rather than going to see my dad and his parents? Why would he want to delay that anymore when all I wanted to do was see my dad and all he wanted to do was see his parents and assure them that he was fine after the accident? I ignored my own questions because I knew he probably wouldn’t answer them until he’d shown me what he had to show me. I just said, “Dean, what about going home? We’re supposed to be there by now; everybody’s going to worry about us.”

“Don’t worry about it babe, nobody’s going to worry,” Dean told me, lightly putting his arm around my shoulders in order to half-drag me towards the wrought-iron gate at the end of the path leading to that beautiful little house. Did that mean my dad knew what he’d been planning? Did Stephanie know? And if she did, how the hell did she keep it from me? I kept fretting and telling Dean we had to leave, but he ignored me and continued to tow me along the stone path to a huge, dark mahogany door. I heard the light jingling of keys and the door swung open before us. The house was in darkness and totally empty, from what I could see.

Dean flipped a switch near the front door and plunged the room into white light, which I thought was going to wake William up. But he slept on, and Dean tugged at me again to step further inside, shutting the door behind us and dropping his arm from my shoulders. “So, what do you think?”

My stomach bubbled with multiple different feelings; mainly fear, excitement and curiosity. I placed William in his car seat very lightly onto the hard wood flooring at my feet and tried to take another step forward, but feeling my feet frozen to the ground. I half-knew what Dean had done, but because I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure – and maybe I just wanted to hear him say it out loud – I said, “What do I think of what, Dean?”

“This,” he said, not missing a beat as he used his arms to motion around him. “The house I bought for us.”

The full realisation was enough to stun me and turn my legs into almost-set jelly. I couldn’t really breathe all too well and I felt quite light-headed for a while. I stared around the room, the corners lightly coated with dust and the walls painted a pale cream colour. Those walls felt like they were getting a little bit closer to me every passing minute of silence. I had a vague idea that Dean wanted my attention; I could just about feel the warmth of his hand pressing against my clammier one, squeezing it to break me out of the little trance I was in.

I took a few deep breaths and stared at my feet, trying to absorb the sheer ecstasy I could feel building up in my chest. I tried to convince myself that he was joking, and that I was totally jumping the gun. “You didn’t get a house for my birthday, did you?”

“Well,” Dean smiled, like he knew I was happy, but he understood that I needed to get it through my head first. “That’s what it looks like, doesn’t it? Anyway, it’s only partially your birthday present, since three of us benefit out of it. There are still two more parts after this.”

I could feel the shock on my face, to put it bluntly. I could feel my mouth hanging wide open at his statement and my eyes staring at him. I could feel the way the saliva in my mouth was building up like I was going to vomit and swallowed it back, bringing the words up instead. “Dean, you know I don’t like making a big deal out of my birthday, please don’t tell me you’ve spent a large sum of money on me.”

Dean chuckled awkwardly at the horrified tone evident in my voice, his face reddening slightly. “I won’t lie and say I didn’t spend money on you, but I won’t say you aren’t worth it.”

William snuffled and sneezed in his sleep, making both Dean and I snap our heads around to look at him, still fast asleep in the car seat. I think Dean was the first to look away from his son, because he took hold of my shoulders and turned me around to face him, taking both of my hands into his while he stared me deep in the eyes. I could see that he was feeling vulnerable – it was something he only ever let a couple of people see, and now I was one of those people. I heard him gulp as he closed his eyes for a moment, before he looked back at me.

“You know that I love you, don’t you?”-I nodded my head, feeling the frown tugging at the corners of my mouth-“I love you more than anything else in the whole world, more than anything else I’ve ever loved. I would give up anything you asked me to if it meant that I could have you and Will everyday for the rest of my life.”

I was about to speak. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to give anything up for me because I’d never leave him for the world, but he shook his head and put his finger lightly against my lip, before letting go of my other hand. He stooped down onto his good knee, shifting his other foot gingerly and leaning to one side to keep from agitating the injury.

When his hand slid towards the pocket of his loose, slim-fitting blue jeans, I felt my blood freeze and my jaw go slack for the hundredth time that night. When the small, royal blue box emerged out of his pocket, my heart practically stopped beating. He looked at the box for a moment, fiddling with it with both of his hands, before raising it up in his right hand and opening it with his left, revealing one of the most breathtakingly beautiful rings I’d ever seen in my lifetime.

“This is me with my feelings on full display, Leila,” he said, his voice clear and loud, but sounding like it was miles and miles away from my ears. “It’s my way of showing that you’re all I want now, and all I’m going to want until forever. I want to be able to call you mine for the rest of my life. So, will you marry me?”

I stayed frozen, my feet glued to the floor and my eyes stuck on him as he kneeled before me. My hand was clamped over my gaping mouth and I could feel that bubbling in my stomach that either meant I was really fucking happy or that I was going to vomit everywhere from the shock. After kneeling in silence for a good twenty minutes, Dean started looking like he wished he hadn’t asked me, and the look on his face alone made my heart feel about a hundred times heavier. It felt like I was letting him down.

He opened his mouth – to take back his request, I assume – but didn’t have the time to say anything, as I had launched myself at him, knocking him onto his back on the hardwood floor. I remember vaguely hoping that I didn’t hurt his knee or his ribs or something, but I was far too preoccupied with pushing my lips tightly against his in the first remotely passionate moment we had shared in what felt like months rather than weeks.

The box landed with a question click somewhere next to our bodies and Dean’s hands came up to cup either side of my face between them, while my own played around in his sleek black hair. I was totally unable to keep the smile off of my face as I felt those old sparks returning. They were the sparks I felt every single time I kissed Dean, but amplified to the point where it felt like it was seven years ago and we were sixteen and in love and foolish again. Like we didn’t have any responsibility and all that mattered were those sparks that coursed through our veins in different quantities every time we touched one another. It was like we had fallen in love all over again and the sparks were brand new again.

He used his hands to pry my face away from his gently – reluctantly – so that he could look at me and smile lightly, his blue eyes twinkling in the lights shining over our heads. “Should I take that as a ‘yes, Dean, I want to be your wife’?”

I returned his smile with an even wider one of my own, placing my forehead against his while my hand stroked lightly against his left cheekbone and played with the tips of his hair, framing his face. “You’d be a complete idiot not to take it that way.”

“I want to hear you say it,” Dean said, stopping me when I went to kiss him again and closing his eyes. I smiled down at him and rolled my eyes as my head shook fondly. I let my hands trail through his hair and over his skin, before I leaned closer with my lips against his ear.

“Yes, Dean,” I whispered, my forefinger slowly stroking the straight line of his nose. “I want to be your wife.”

And he kissed me again, his hands catching my face between them and keeping it there for the next ten minutes.

I have to admit, telling everybody about the engagement was a hell of a lot easier than explaining that the baby in fact belonged to Dean. When we let ourselves into my dad’s house at around quarter to six, I went and put William straight into bed, as he’d managed to sleep throughout the afternoon and went back downstairs to see that Dean had waited for me.

“I want us to tell them together,” he asked, smiling as he reached for my hand before we walked together towards the door leading into the living room. I wasn’t that surprised to see that Dean’s parents and his younger brother were in the living room with my dad and Stephanie – they were his family, of course they would know what he was planning. However, I was surprised when I saw my mother and Jerry – her husband – sitting together on the edge of the loveseat across from the window.

I could tell that my mother was trying as hard as she could to keep her emotions in check and not cry while she hugged me and wished me a happy birthday. Before I really had a chance to respond to her or find out why she was crying, Johnny came over and asked if it would be okay that he spoke to me for a moment in the foyer while everybody went into the kitchen to have a drink. My mother told him he could take me and swiftly turned to follow Dorothy and Charles.

“So,” Johnny began once everybody had left the room for the time being. “He did ask you, didn’t he?”

I smiled slightly to myself and that was all the confirmation Johnny needed. He laughed and smiled at me happily, wrapping both of his arms around my narrow shoulders in a way that only he could. The way Johnny hugged me made me feel as safe as the way Dean did, and it was definitely the main thing I loved about both of them. Johnny squeezed me a bit before holding me out at arm’s length, half-smiling. “Glad you two finally got it sorted. Now, where’s my nephew?”

“Shut up, Johnny,” I laughed, shaking my head at him. “He’s upstairs in the cot asleep, but you can go and sit with him if you want to.”

He flipped the blonde hair away from his eyes, leaning in to kiss me lightly on the cheek before he smiled again and turned to walk up the stairs to my bedroom. I laughed quietly again, feeling my heart swell as I realised that my life couldn’t really get much better than this. Yeah, I had a child at twenty-two and I was engaged to somebody I hadn’t even been officially with for longer than a few months, but none of it mattered. My son is practically my life and I wouldn’t give him up for the world, and as far as I’m concerned, I’ll always want to be with Dean, and I’ve been his for the last seven years.

I glanced at the clock on the wall, seeing that it was just past quarter past six before I went into the kitchen with everybody else. Well, almost everybody else. My dad and Stephanie were leaning against one of the counters speaking to Jerry, while Dorothy and Charles sipped at glasses of wine and laughed together. Dorothy smiled at me when she saw me and beckoned me over to speak to her. I smiled politely and held my hand up to signal that I’d be right back so that I could go in search of Dean and my mother. I heard her loose American accent as soon as I stepped back out into the foyer, drifting in from the living room. I edged close to the door and listened to the half of the conversation I came into.

“You’re the one she’s finally fallen in love with, I guess?” she asked, her voice soft and quiet, like nothing I’d ever heard before. “You’re both so young. This whole situation just reminds me of when she was born; when Mark and I were too young to deal with it properly.”

“I know,” Dean said, keeping his voice calm and soothing so she wouldn’t try to kill him or something – I honestly wouldn’t put it past her, she’s vicious when she gets distressed. “She’s told me everything about that and I understand why you’re having doubts about us”-he paused for a moment, letting the edge of defiance lining his voice sink into my mother’s perception-“But I do know what I want, Ms. James. Leila and William are my entire world now, nothing else could ever matter more to me.”

“You’re parents tell me you’re in a band,” she said, her voice snapping, oozing and dripping sarcasm, her tone patronizing. “You’re certain that won’t alter what you think you want when you have to choose?”

“No.” He answered almost instantly, his voice hard and serious but void of the defiance he had in it before. “When it comes down to the chop, Leila and my son are the first priority. I’d happily leave the band if it jeopardised anything between her and me, or if it meant I wasn’t doing my job as a dad.”

The silence that followed his answer – the answer that made my insides feel all warm and happy, but at the same time made me feel terrified of the level of his commitment – could’ve cut a man made of stone in half in a matter of seconds. I stood there awkwardly, biting down on my lip as I wondered whether or not I should make my presence known in case an argument ensued and my mother ended up hating the man I was marrying. I was waiting for her to just come out with the biggest earful of rubbish she could think of, but she didn’t do it. I stayed where I was, despite the fact that they were talking about me made me feel really, really sick.

“You’re a good boy,” she said, her voice void of emotion, before she corrected herself. “A good man, I think I should say. You remind me very much of her dad when he was your age – so willing to put everybody you love before yourself. My relationship with my own daughter would’ve been a lot better if I hadn’t been so selfish and irresponsible. If I had done what her father did.”

“Thank you, Ms. James,” Dean said kindly, sounding like he was trying to reassure her. “But I don’t think I can agree with that. Leila loves you and Mr. Cole the same, you know. She may not show you it but that’s just her. She only showed me sooner because I wouldn’t let her avoid it.”

“I know, she’s a stubborn girl,” my mother sighed, laughing a little bit under her breath though she still sounded like she was ready to burst into tears at any given moment. “She’s my daughter and I love her more than anything, I really should tell her more often. I should’ve told her everyday of her life but I didn’t”-she sniffed loudly, before chuckling to herself again-“And my name is Caroline, Dean. Not Ms. James.”

I heard Dean laugh in response and the atmosphere seemed nowhere near as delicate as it had been moments before. I decided to stop eavesdropping and make myself known by carefully opening the door and walking into the room, glancing over to the couch where my fiancé and my mother were sat together, halfway through a quick hug of comfort.

Both sets of eyes turned on me when they heard the door click shut behind me, and the silence between the three of us steadily became more awkward, until my mother stood from her seat and straightened out her black polar neck jumper before excusing herself. I caught her arm as she made to walk through the door and pulled her towards my chest, wrapping my arms tight around her. I didn’t do anything else until I felt her arms at my waist.

“I love you too,” I whispered in her ear, feeling her breath hitch slightly in her throat as I caught her off-guard. She didn’t speak again, but I suppose it was okay. I didn’t need her to tell me that she loved me; I already knew she did. Dean was up and wrapping his arms around my body as soon as my mother had disappeared through the doorway and her footsteps had died away, pressing his lips gently against the tip of my nose.

“So, how’re you doing?” he asked me, his voice only very slightly above a whisper while his fingers stroked my lower back lightly.

“Perfect,” I responded, my eyes closing as his breath washed over my skin, my voice dropping as low as his was. “I’ve never felt so good.”

*****

Maybe you could call this the end, but maybe it isn’t. It’s been a long, long time, and a lot of things have happened that I never thought would happen. Things that should’ve made me want to cry my eyes out and hide until they went away. But I didn’t cry or hide. The situation with Dean had change entirely over our six year separation, and we’d grown more as people. I still believe to this day that our relationship is based mostly on our maturity and my unnecessarily large dependency on him.

He seemed to depend on me too, though, so everything was in balance.

At the moment, it’s completely blissful and everything I could ever ask for. Now, I’m almost entirely a different person and he’s grown up and realised that if you love somebody, you can’t play stupid games – especially if they’re somebody you want to keep in your life for a long time. Words can’t change actions or earn forgiveness; at the end of it all, words are meaningless. It comes down to showing the meaning of your words in order to earn the forgiveness you want.

Dean and I have our beautiful little boy, William – who turns out more and more like Dean every day that I wonder how I ever doubted the paternity – and our wedding date set for next year. The past is in the past now, and it’s not going to affect the way we raise our child or start our life together.

Little pieces of my heart still ache for what I did to Levi, and there were times – late in the night when I couldn’t sleep peacefully – that I would call his mobile number and just listen to his voice on the answering machine. I haven’t spoken to him since I told him what had happened, which I understood completely. Me and Dean even agreed that we should send Levi an invitation to the wedding – not to rub it in his face like a couple of five year olds, but because I genuinely wanted him to be there and Dean saw that it would mean me being just a little bit unhappy. I wanted to salvage the last of mine and Levi’s friendship, but it turns out he just doesn’t want that.

Dean told me that he understood the phone calls, but, at first, I could tell that he really wasn’t happy with it. He realised that I loved him and only him, and that if I wanted Levi back I wouldn’t be marrying him. On the other hand, Zara wasn’t nearly as easy to reason with as Levi’s answering machine. Dean had gone to speak with her when Jake refused to be the middle man a week or two after William turned five months old and she had kicked him out of the house with a split lip and a cut eyebrow. It caused arguments between Dean and Jake – whose friendship was only just getting back to normal anyway – so Dean never tried to speak to her again after that, and she kind of just faded into the background and disappeared.

Georgia packed in her job at Flux and moved in with Jake and Edie back at his parents house, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her happier in the years that I’ve known her. They’re in their honeymoon stage and I was the one getting married! When they first moved in together, Dean and I were babysitting Edie every other night so that they could...well, you know what I’m talking about. It is not my right to divulge what my best friend gets up to between the sheets with her boyfriend, nor has it ever been my right.

But yeah, at it like total animals.

A lot of people have called my decisions horrible and drastic. They think that a twenty-three year old woman should be enjoying the prime years of her life rather than looking after a child and getting married. I suppose my decisions were pretty dreadful, just not for me. I don’t regret a single decision I’ve made since last year and I don’t think I ever will. Waking up to see my little boy reaching out of the cot for his mum or dad makes me happier than if I were able to go out every night and enjoy myself. And as far as I’m concerned, I’ve found the man I want to spend my life with. I love him with my entire heart and nothing can change it.

So, like I said, you could say that Dean and I getting married and living together with our baby William was an ending – maybe even a perfect ending. But I see it as more of a beginning. It’s a beginning to new experiences and problems that we’re going to have to face. It’s a beginning to a very long, tricky road and a new chapter in my life. It’s the beginning of something far more fantastic than I’ve ever experienced before. Something more spectacular than my life so far and I can’t wait for it.