When It Isn't Like It Should Be

We talked to the lady at the front desk to find out where we needed to go and I was getting more and more nervous with every step that I took. I didn’t know if was going to be able to handle this either.

With each step I took towards the room where we would finally get the results and finally know the truth, I felt more and more sick to my stomach. I kept going back and forth between the possibilities of it being Kennedy or John. I kept thinking about what would happen depending on what the truth was, depending on who the father was. I was thinking about how different my life could be if Noah wasn’t Kennedy’s and I didn’t like it at all.

After a couple minutes we found the right room and I walked in just before Kennedy, who was still holding a sleeping Noah in his car seat. My heart was beating so hard and so fast that it felt like it could jump right out of my chest.

“H-hi… I’m Skylar Tipton, and um… I’m here to find out the results for the um… DNA test for m-my son Noah,” I stuttered. I was so nervous. I was surprised that I could even form words at all with the way that I was feeling at that moment.

“Tipton? Ok, let me just get your file out.” She rummaged through some envelopes in her file cabinet and after what seemed like hours she finally stopped on the one that was apparently mine. “Here you go.” She handed me the most intimidating looking manila envelope I had ever seen in my life. “You can open it in here or take it home with you if you want some more privacy,” she informed us before going back to typing something into her computer.

I looked over at Kennedy and I could tell by the look on his face alone that he didn’t want to wait, that he probably couldn’t wait. And I really didn’t want to wait either, even if we were in a public place in a room with someone else. The suspense was killing me already and I couldn’t imagine having the results within my reach the whole ride home without actually knowing the truth.

“Open it now. Please open it now,” he said softly and pleadingly.

I ripped the top of the envelope as fast as I could and snatched the papers out of it. I scanned it as quickly as I possibly could, looking for the words that I hoped to see, that I had prayed for so long to see.

And there they were, right in front of me, finally. Kennedy’s test paper was on the top, and it was telling me that he was a 99.999% match for Noah.

I started crying tears of joy and relief before I could even stop myself and I heard Kennedy’s sharp intake of breath. I looked up at him and his face was hidden in his free hand. He must have gotten the wrong message from the sounds of me crying so I immediately ran towards him and threw my arms around him.

“He’s yours Kenny! He’s all yours!” I wrapped my arms around him even tighter and I couldn’t stop smiling and crying at the same time. I was just so happy. Everything was finally turning out right, like it should be. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry for everything that happened, and I swear nothing like this will ever happen again baby. I hope you really truly forgive me because I love you so fucking much and I’m so glad that Noah’s yours and I just want to be with you forever so we can be a happy family.” I was rambling but I didn’t even care. I was beyond happy.

He hugged me back with just as much force after setting Noah’s car seat on the floor. “Thank god,” he whispered and kissed the top of my head. I was so relieved and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how relieved Kennedy felt. “I love you too baby. I forgive you. I do. I’m just glad that he’s mine because I love him so fucking much Skylar. It’s crazy how much I love him.”

He kissed me on the lips and I kissed him back eagerly. Then I remembered that we were in public and I pulled away with a red tint on my cheeks. This would have to wait until later.

I didn’t even know what else to say. I don’t think there were any more words that could express how truly happy I was that Noah was Kennedy’s and that we could finally be a happy family.

I watched with a huge smile on my face as Kennedy bent down to Noah’s car seat and kissed our sleeping son softly on the cheek.

“Daddy loves you so much,” he whispered, with his eyes still glistening with tears, and it made my heart swell with love and pride that we had made such a beautiful freaking kid.

Finally we got as regrouped as we were possibly going to and we left the hospital with smiles on our faces. Once we were all in the car Kennedy gripped my hand and kissed me on the cheek before putting the car in gear. He didn’t let go of my hand for our whole ride.

As I sat in the passenger seat I kept looking over at Kennedy and smiling like an idiot, and then I would look back at Noah and smile even wider. I was finally stress free and nothing could bring me down.

I got so lost in thought looking at Noah and thinking about how lucky I was to have a healthy, beautiful baby boy with my amazing fiancé that I didn’t even notice we had stopped until Kennedy said something.

And then I realized that we were at John’s apartment.

“What are we doing here Kenny?” I asked him, quite confused.

“I think John needs to know. Don’t you?”

“Y-yeah, of course,” I agreed. He did need to know but I was planning on calling him later. I just wanted to be happy with Kennedy and Noah for a little while before going back to the real world. I was honestly surprised that Kennedy was the one to want to tell him after all the shit that had happened between them.

But Kennedy got out of the car before I could say anything else. He walked to the back door and started getting Noah out and I finally was able to function and get myself out of the car. We walked up the stairs and knocked on his apartment door.

Jared answered the door. “Hey guys what’s going on? Aww you brought Noah? Give him here!” He immediately reached for the car seat and grabbed it out of Kennedy’s hand. Noah was just waking up and that meant it would be time for him to eat soon.

“There’s a bottle in the diaper bag. Just add one scoop of formula and then you can feed him if you want,” I told him and he smiled, grabbing the diaper bag from me. He took Noah out of his car seat and started showering him with kisses and cooing at him in baby talk about how cute he was, and then grabbed the bottle and formula out.

I could already tell that Noah was going to be majorly spoiled.

“Where’s John?” I asked as he was walking into the kitchen.

“His room,” he called over his shoulder, not even bothering to look back. Apparently our son was far more important than either of us.

We were just about to walk back to John’s room when he emerged from the hallway.

“Hey Skylar, hey Kennedy,” he said softly, not making eye contact with either of us. “Why are you guys here? Where’s Noah?”

“Jared kidnapped him from us. And we’re here because we have news.”

John’s face immediately perked up and he finally made eye contact with me. “So?” he asked.

“He’s Kennedy’s!” I said and that huge idiotic grin made its way onto my face again.

“Thank god.” He sighed a huge sigh of relief. “I’m so happy for you guys, really. And I’m so sorry again that any of this ever happened.”

“Honestly man,” Kennedy spoke up. “I’ve already forgiven Skylar, and… as hard as this is to say… I forgive you too. I’m just happy that Noah is mine and I don’t want anything bad in my life right now. And I don’t want the band to suffer because of me, so I’m gonna be the bigger man or whatever and say that I forgive you and I’m sorry for punching you. Both times.”

John kind of chuckled and said, “No man, I’m the one who’s sorry. I totally deserved that. I’m honestly kind of surprised you only punched me twice. No hard feelings man. Everything’s cool with me if it’s cool with you.”

“I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to go back to being as close of friends as we were, but I’m at least going to be civil towards you and we’ll see how it goes from there.”

“Totally understandable.” He extended his hand and Kennedy shook it, then ended up pulling him in for a half hug.

I just watched with a smile on my face. I was glad that things were finally falling into place and everything was turning out a lot better than I expected. I was glad that guys didn’t hold grudges as much as girls did.

Once they broke apart from their hug I ran up to John and hugged him. We had already worked things out and I was just in a hugging mood since I was so happy. And once I pulled away from that hug I went straight to Kennedy for another hug from him.

We stayed there for a little while so that Jared could finish feeding Noah and he and John just wanted to see him, then we made our way back home.

Noah had fallen asleep on the way home so we took him to the nursery and put him in his crib. After he was tucked in, I stepped back and leaned my head on Kennedy’s shoulder, just looking at our son. I was glad that I could finally say “our son” and I knew that it was true in every sense of the word. He was ours.

“I love you Kennedy,” I whispered.

“I love you too.”