Points Of View

“Hold your breath.”

Silence invaded the vehicle as Garrett cut the engine, fingers resting on the door handle. He watched me expectantly as my brows furrowed and my mouth turned down in a grimace.

“You have got to be kidding,” I drawled, crossing my arms over the swell of my stomach. I slumped in my seat, cringing in discomfort as the seatbelt constricted my throat.

“I’m not getting out until you do,” Garrett said calmly. “You know the fumes-“

“Aren’t good for the baby, I know.” I rolled my eyes. No chocolate, no lifting, nothing went down my throat that wasn’t organic, and now no breathing? He was being beyond ridiculous. “How long am I supposed to hold my breath?” I huffed. “When you open the door the fumes are gonna come in anyway!”

His eyebrows scrunched as he took this into consideration, jaw clenching stubbornly.

“Lack of oxygen is bad for the baby too, you know!”

He shook his head, waving his hand dismissively. “Fine, do whatever.”

The frame of the car shuddered as he slammed the door and I watched as he chose a petrol pump and inserted it into the vehicle. I fidgeted restlessly in my seat, fanning out my maternity dress and grumbling as it rubbed against my clammy skin. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I reached back and unhooked my bra, sighing in relief as my breasts were released and stagnant air filled my lungs.

There was a soft ‘clunk’ as Garrett returned the pump to its cradle and I watched him jog across the road to the station. His lumberjack billowed out behind him as it was caught and tossed by the breeze and his body gave a short shudder before he darted into the building. It was late December and Arizona had cooled to a pleasant sixty-five degrees, but it did little to settle me down as I fevered and burned from the inside out. My face was constantly flushed rhubarb-pink, my hair was stringy and stuck to my scalp, and I looked like a morbidly obese cow. It had been eight months and three weeks, and I was so completely over being pregnant that I was ready to reach in and just yank the kid out.

Cool air rushed into the space as Garrett thrust open the door and ducked inside, twisting around in his seat as he fished his keys from the back pocket of his skinny jeans. A minute past before the car finally rumbled to life and we manoeuvred onto the main road; in the short time we’d been at the station the sun had lowered itself to a soft glow on the horizon and the street lamps shone gently in its casted shadows.

Swiping a hand over my brow, I cracked open the window and welcomed the fresh air down my windpipe. Garrett glanced over at me, twisting his lips into a look of concern. He reached over the console to rest his hand on my thigh, gripping it gently in consolidation.

“What do you want for dinner?” He asked softly, returning his eyes to the road.

I huffed irritably, winding the window a little lower and pressing my hot cheek to the glass. As good has his intentions were, his hand on my leg was just making me hotter and I fought the urge to wriggle from his grasp. All I wanted to do was strip off and have a cold shower; he was driving so slowly and my legs were cramped and my spine ached and his hand was just so burning hot. I needed space.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, pushing a wisp of hair behind my ear. “What were you thinking?”

Garrett chewed his lip and tilted his head to the right, the way he always did when he deliberated the possibilities.

“Pizza?” he suggested, glancing over once again to read my expression.

I shook my head, my face turning sour. “No thanks.”

He sighed, retracting his hand to grip the steering wheel. “I thought you didn’t know what you wanted.”

“I know what I don’t want,” I stated, rubbing my belly as we met a red light. Garrett watched me intently, a small smile tweaking the corners of his mouth.

“Well, what does the baby feel like?”

My eyes were fixed on my hands as they traced small circles over my stomach. I bit my lip, “Sushi.”

Garrett rolled his eyes and shook head, glancing in the rear view mirror as the car behind inched closer. “Kasey, don’t even start.”

“But she wants it,” I whined, folding my arms over my chest. I swivelled around, the leather squeaking as it chafed the fabric of my dress. “I’m so sick of you telling me what to do.”

Garrett sighed, averting his eyes to the road.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Garrett!” I snapped, neck growing warm. His eyes remained glued to the windshield and I smacked my hand off the dashboard in frustration. “You’re such a fucking brat sometimes.”

“I’m a brat?” He laughed dryly. “You’re throwing a tantrum because I’m not letting you eat something that could kill our child, and I’m the brat in this equation?”

I fumed, my eyes narrowing and my forehead creasing with angry lines. “It’s so easy for you to boss me around and act like Mr. Responsible- you don’t have to feel any of this!” I hissed, stabbing a thumb at my swollen body. My lip trembled and my nose prickled as water began to collect in my eyes. “I’m so fucking sick of this!”

“Yeah?” Garrett scoffed. “Well, me too!”

He pulled into the driveway and we waited as the garage door grated open, the air buzzing with angry tension. Before he could cut the engine, I flung open the door and flinched as a loud smack reverberated off the concrete walls. Garrett leapt out of the car, staring in horror at the defaced door and the hole in the wall as I stormed out of the garage and into our unit.

The house smelled like plastic and new carpet and the floor was littered with unpacked boxes that Garrett hadn’t let me empty because he refused to let me carry anything. I clenched my jaw. Seeing our home in such disarray pushed me to new level of furious as I thrust my handbag onto the couch and stomped to the kitchen. I glared crossly around the room. The main wall had a large patch of cobalt-blue slashed across the middle, utensils wrapped in recycled paper were scattered on the countertop and the bare bulbs on the ceiling had yet to be fitted with shades. I yelped as my foot caught on the tool box and I clamped my eyes shut, bracing myself for the bruising ground. Frantic hands clutched my sides and I gasped as he snatched me out of the air and pressed me to his torso.

“Jesus, Kase, will you watch where you’re going?” Garrett grumbled, recomposing himself. I opened my mouth to retort but closed it again as his phone rang in his pocket, buzzing against my backside. He stepped away from me and glanced at the screen before tapping a button and pressing the cell to his ear.

“Hello?” I looked at him questioningly as he mouthed that it was Pat on the line and stepped into the other room. Retracting a jar of orange marmalade from the pantry, I strained my ears against the buzz of the refrigerator to catch fractions of the conversation occurring in the living room.

“New York.”

“When?”

“How long?”

My heart dropped. It was all I needed to hear to know what was going on. Garrett ambled back into the kitchen, eyes fixed on his phone as he pressed at the keys. A hand went up to scratch the back of his neck and his teeth ravaged at the inside of his bottom lip.

“You’re leaving again,” I stated, without looking up from my slice of toast. A deep groan escaped his throat as he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my middle.

“On Saturday.” He stooped over and I felt the weight of his chin on my shoulder. “We’ll be back soon.”

“How long?”

“Just a couple of days to do some interviews and-“

I stopped buttering and placed the knife on the side of my plate.

“How long, Garrett?”

His jaw shifted on my shoulder as he licked his lips.

“Ten days.”

I pursed my mouth, “The baby’s due in fifteen.”

“I’m aware.”

“What if you’re not here?” My heart quickened and I gripped onto the counter, the pads of my fingers draining to a ghostly white. “What if she comes early?”

“She won’t,” he said, tone hard. “I’ll be there, I promise.”

I was never the same when Garrett left. I’d turn into this numb robot-girl, going through the motions without really thinking about what I was doing or why I was doing it. Whether I was happy, angry, or sad I blocked out all emotion just so I wouldn’t have to attend to the worst one, the hard ache of loneliness in my chest. I knew it wasn’t healthy, and that it was a temporary solution to a near-permanent situation, but I wasn’t sure what else to do.

The week The Maine left for New York I was the opposite, and in some ways it was worse; with the baby due in two weeks and my hormones in a craze, I found myself being over-emotional, stressing about the most trivial things. When my mother told me I looked ready to burst I called her an “insensitive cunt” and when McDonalds got my order wrong I burst into tears. Twice my body had been wracked with such immense pain that I thought I was going into early labour and called Tom to pick me up. It wasn’t a surprise that when I called him the third time, it took him a while to believe me.

“Kasey, the baby’s not due for a few days,” he said, voice flat with boredom. “It’s probably just another stress attack.”

“It’s not!”

“Are you sure?”

I cringed as another cramp shook my abdomen, breathing deeply as the pain eased.

“Well,” I gasped, holding my belly. “Unless I just peed myself, I’m pretty sure my water just broke.”

Tom was over in fifteen minutes; a record time that earned him two speeding tickets. He packed me a night bag and half-carried me to his little shit-bucket of a car, pushing the passenger seat all the way back so I had enough leg room. I’d never been so thankful for having him until that day, but the nagging thought that he shouldn’t have been there, that it should have been Garrett, plagued me all the way to the delivery room.

Tom’s smiling, slightly queasy face was the first thing Kadence saw when she opened her kitten-blue eyes. Tom recorded the time of birth and her seven-pound weight on candy wrapper and took pictures of us with his phone. My mum drove down as soon as she heard and the three of us were together for the first time in a while. It was nice, but it wasn’t meant to be like that.

When Garrett finally arrived a day later, all I could think of was how he’d left me alone during a twenty-two hour labour; as he held his daughter for the first time and pressed his lips to her duckling-soft skin, all I could wonder was if he’d ever really be there, and when he signed his name on her birth certificate, all I could think of was how he hadn’t kept his promise.