Tiptoe Through the True Bits

“Mom, dad, grandma. We have some news.”

This was the part I had been dreading. Gerard’s family were going to think I was a slut.

I think they already knew what was coming but they let him carry on.

He put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek. He could tell I was nervous. “We’re having a baby.”

I’m not sure how I expected them to take it. Thankfully, they seemed quite happy, and I think that’s because they could tell that we were happy. They congratulated us and hugged us. Even Don. Gerard’s grandmother let out a few tears. I softly asked her if she was okay.

“I never thought I’d live to have great-grandchildren,” she beamed, wiping her face with her fragile hands. I welled up again and gave her a gentle hug. “Thank you, my love,” she grinned. “You’ve made me a happy woman.”

I laughed and cried and hugged everyone a lot. Over dinner we laid out our plans. I think Donna was relieved that we’d thought everything through and that we wouldn’t be depending on her. We were going to do this ourselves. We were handling it like adults. We were taking responsibility.

So what if we hadn’t known each other long? So what if we’d only been together for a couple of weeks? Love is love, right? We knew each other better than anybody else had ever known us, and we were desperately in love, and now we had this tiny little thing living inside me that would bond us together forever. We were young and we were happy. What could possibly go wrong?

Apart from everything.

--

They definitely didn’t belong there, all those socks. They weren’t mine. They were far too big, for a start, and all of the elastic had been worn out. If I put them on my feet, they’d have just looked ridiculous. Like clown socks.

So I deduced that they were his socks in the drawer.

I think people probably always thought we were moving too fast. We were doing so much, so young. We’d only known each other a month and already we were having a baby. But it felt to me like we were doing more than that. We were starting a family. Starting our own lives together.

Looking back now, perhaps people were right. Perhaps we were doing things too quickly. Perhaps we did spend too much time together. Perhaps we were too young to settle down. Perhaps we didn’t know each other well enough. But it never felt that way at the time. It felt wonderful to be held and kissed and loved by somebody who meant the world to me. It felt wonderful to know that we were having a child together.

So when I found the drawer I didn’t freak out or confront him. I just laughed and pretended I hadn’t noticed.

He continued to stealthily move his stuff into my house, leaving some shirts here and some CDs there and whatnot. He was doing it a bit at a time. I don’t know why he didn’t just ask. It wasn’t like I was ever going to say no. But after a month Gerard had fully moved in, and we had never even discussed it. But obviously it wasn’t a problem. It was lovely.

We still saw his family all the time. Everybody came with us for my first doctor’s appointment, although they’d only let Gerard and myself into the examination room, obviously. Still, we proudly showed our sonogram picture to anybody in the waiting room or the street who would look at it. It didn’t look like a baby yet but we didn’t care. The doctors seemed pretty happy so we were happy.

Everything was perfect for a few weeks. Amber got me a job at the coffee shop where she worked part-time, and Gerard begged his friend Ray to get him an after-school job at a comic book store. We still had the weekends to ourselves and we would mostly watch old movies and eat Doritos and Gerard would sing to my womb every night before we went to sleep. We went for more ultrasounds and everything was normal and I wouldn’t let anybody tell us what we would be having because I wanted it to be a surprise.

Before we even knew that time had passed, it was Christmas. It took me a long time to think of something perfect to get him. Boyfriends are easy enough to buy gifts for because they’ll be happy with a DVD boxset or a new iPod or a hoodie. But Gerard was more than just my boyfriend. He was my baby’s daddy. So I wanted my gift to mean more to him that just something that he wanted and couldn’t be bothered to buy for himself.

For weeks leading up to Christmas I trawled the mall, bobbing into all of the small alternative shops that are hidden away and usually missed. It’s those sorts of places where the real gems are. But all I really got from those shops were incense sticks and jewellery for myself. Nothing was shouting out at me that it would be perfect for Gerard.

And it came to me as I was in the food court one afternoon, chowing down on a Burger King. The reason I couldn’t find anything perfect for Gerard was because there was nothing perfect for Gerard. No product had ever been made with him specifically in mind. If I wanted this gift to be special then I had to make it myself. It was all so obvious.

When I got home that afternoon I took my unfinished oceanscape off of the easel and set down a blank canvas. I had gotten the outline done in a couple of hours but I didn’t have long before Gerard got back from work, so I hid it behind the couch and put the oceanscape back. It was never going to get finished. I should have just accepted that and saved myself the hassle.

We spent Christmas morning in bed together, eating cereal and watching cheesy TV in our pyjamas before we got around to presents. I was really excited about giving Gerard his gift, probably more so than I was looking forward to receiving mine.

It wasn’t a particularly big canvas so I managed to wrap it all up and leave it under the little plastic tree in the living room. There were other little presents we’d gotten each other, too, so the gifts were not too sparse. We were sitting on the floor as we opened our gifts; some jewellery for me, some CDs for Gerard, some little bits for the house and so on. Mostly silly things.

After we’d opened our little presents, we got onto the main ones. I could tell Gerard was dying to open his. He’d been eyeing it up ever since I’d finished it and put it under the tree a few days before. I handed it over to him and he grinned, ripping off his wrapping paper like a child.

He stared at it for a few moments and I bit my lip as I watched his expression. I was nervous for some reason, even though I knew he’d love it.

It was our tree in the park, with us underneath it. I’d drawn us wearing the exact same clothes we’d been wearing that day. I tried to fit in every last detail, even the freckles on our necks and the sunshine bleeding through the rainclouds.

“El, it’s beautiful,” he grinned, grazing the surface of the painting with his fingertips. “It’s perfect. Thank you so much.”

I beamed and we shared a long, sweet kiss. A kiss of love. Not lust, or desire. Just love in its purest form. It left me breathless for a second. As we pulled away, we gazed into each other’s eyes for a while, just smiling.

“Okay, my turn!” I clapped my hands together excitedly and Gerard shook his head and laughed and passed me a shoe-box sized present, wrapped in Winnie the Pooh paper. It rattled a lot. I felt like a little kid again as I tore away at Tigger’s face.

The box itself was beautiful; wooden and engraved with a delicate pattern and hand-painted in red and gold. The latch was shiny and stiff. I held my breath as I unfastened it.

Inside the box were probably hundreds of guitar picks, of every shape, colour and pattern imaginable. Just like before.

I gazed up at Gerard with a look of shock. “You remembered,” I managed to choke out, my eyes filling with tears. Gerard took my hand and smiled. I leant against him. “I can’t believe you remembered.”

He kissed the top of my head. “Of course I remembered.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He pulled me to my feet and hung our canvas up above the fireplace. I picked a blue, heart-shaped plectrum out of the box and sat down on the couch with Jennifer the guitar. I sang All I Want for Christmas is You to Gerard as he cleared away all of the discarded wrapping paper and found homes for all of our stuff. He laughed and called me a dork.

After a quick shower together, we headed over to Gerard’s parents’ house for dinner. Donna had, predictably, laid out a colossal amount of food on the table for us all. There was only seven of us in total; Gerard, Donna, Don, the boys’ grandmother Helena, Mikey, Amberlyn, and myself. We were sat in that order.

“It’s so funny to think that next year there’s going to be another little person around this table,” Donna beamed at me as we ate. Gerard touched my hand and we smiled.

After dinner, we all sat around the couches in the living room watching The Wizard of Oz. We had just gotten to the part where the monkeys were freed when Gerard turned to me and said, “Oh, I got you another present.”

I looked up and he was holding out a little blue velvet box. When he opened the top, there was a ring inside. It was silver with a little emerald and it was perfect.

My face must have been a picture because everyone in the room started to giggle as Gerard slid off the sofa, got down on the floor on one knee, and said, “Elise, will you marry me?”

For the first time in months, I was unable to speak. So I just nodded furiously and sniffed and wiped away my tears with my right hand as Gerard slid the ring onto my left hand. Everybody in the room was clapping and it made us laugh because it was all so wonderful and perfect, just like in the movies.

For the next couple of months, life was hectic. While Gerard was at school I was making wedding plans with Donna and Amber and then we both worked in the evenings. It was hard, not seeing him as much as I would have liked to, but at the end of every day we climbed into bed together and shut ourselves off from the world. We talked about stupid stuff and our days and wedding plans, and then most nights we made love.

We set our wedding date for February 10th. It came around extremely fast, but we decided to spend the night before the wedding together. In the daytime we visited Gerard’s family so we could sort out some final arrangements, but in the evening we ordered a takeout, got our pyjamas on, and cuddled up on the TV.

There wasn’t much on any of the regular channels so Gerard flicked through the Discovery channels and eventually settled on a documentary called Demolition Lovers about...well, about a demolition company.

“Why on earth are we watching this?” I laughed after a couple of minutes. There was a man called ‘Gavin’ talking about how he was in charge of a team of seven bulldozers. Wow. Go Gavin.

Gerard shrugged and stroked my hair. “I don’t know. Shut up.”

I stuck my tongue out at him but settled down to watch the documentary anyway.

“I’ll admit,” Gerard said after another couple of minutes, “I thought it would be more interesting than this.”

I laughed. “Why did you think that?”

He sighed. “It just sounds like a good name, don’t you think. Demolition Lovers. It should be something massive. Something epic. Like a heavy metal album or a kick-ass piece of art. Not thirty minutes of Gavin talking about wrecking balls.”

I giggled a little and the doorbell rang. “You’re silly,” I told him as I jumped up to get our food.

--

Most girls have dreamed of their perfect wedding since forever. Ever since we were read bedtime stories about princesses and their handsome princes and living happily ever after, we believe that this is achievable. This is normal. We will all meet our prince. That’s always where stories end; with a wedding. Think about it. Cinderella, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White... They all end with weddings. But life does not end when you get married. And so neither does my story.

Before I even opened my eyes that morning, I was giddy with excitement. I was a little disappointed to find that Gerard had already left, but on his pillow there was an envelope that read, A letter to Elise. I laughed and opened it and inside there was a note.

To my beautiful bride,
It’s bad luck to see each other or some shit, isn’t it? I don’t know. I’ve gone to my mom’s. Breakfast is in the fridge. I’ll see you later I guess.
Gee x
PS. I love you and shit.

I smiled and pinned the note to the kitchen noticeboard on my way for breakfast, though I felt a little sick with nerves and the thought of eating made me feel queasy. But it wasn’t about me; I had a little baby in me that needed some food, so I ate up the orange juice and muesli that Gerard had set up for me, and then I barely had time to wash up my bowl before someone was hammering away at my door.

“Alright, I’m coming,” I muttered, wiping my wet hands on a kitchen towel before I went to open the door. Amber had her fist raised mid-knock and I thought she might punch me in the face but instead she threw her arms around my neck and jumped up and down and squealed. Sometimes I forgot that she was only sixteen and excitable.

“Happy wedding day!” she beamed, letting herself in. Donna and another woman came in behind her. I gave Donna a quick hug and shook the other lady’s hand. She introduced herself as Iris and said that she’d be doing my hair and makeup. This confused me but Donna seemed to have it under control. I thought I’d be doing all of that junk myself but she insisted on hiring Iris and said she’d sort the money out and that I deserved to be pampered for the day. It was her gift to me, she said, so I didn’t argue. Heaven knows what might have happened if I had.

Amber had been looking after the dress for me so she went to fetch it from the car. It had taken me a long time to find one that didn’t make me look too pregnant. I mean, don’t get me wrong, at 3 months, I had a bump. But it wasn’t especially rounded as yet and it didn’t protrude. It was easily concealed with a loose dress. I’d gone for a sleeveless cream lace dress that we’d found at a vintage store, and I’d added a green sash around the waist to match Amber’s bridesmaid dress and my engagement ring. Since my shoes weren’t visible I was wearing ballet pumps, as my ankles were getting swollen and fat from the pregnancy.

“You look beautiful,” Donna told me as I stepped out of the bathroom with Iris looking all smug and accomplished behind me. She’d done a good job. My hair was left down but took a surprising amount of time to reach the desired effect of ‘undone’ and my makeup was as minimal as she would let me get away with. I wanted to look natural in the photos. I wanted to look like me.

A limo came to pick us up and Donna and Amber sipped champagne as I drank orange juice. I didn’t mind. I never much cared for champagne anyway.

We had the smallest of ceremonies at a tiny chapel where Gerard’s parents had gotten married, and as we pulled up I got the best butterflies in my stomach. Donna slipped into the church ahead of us. Everybody was there. Waiting for me.

“This is it, El,” Amber grinned, squeezing my hand.

I squeezed hers back. She looked so gorgeous in her fitted satin dress, with her scarlet hair tied up in a French plait and her pale legs going on forever. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek and headed inside. I waited four seconds for the music to start before I followed, counting every single breath.

Being someone’s girlfriend is all very nice. Being someone’s baby momma has its perks. But I just couldn’t wait to be someone’s wife. Gerard’s wife. I couldn’t wait for that connection; to know that we are each other’s, and each other’s alone.

Some people say there is no romance left in marriage; that it is all just formality and legality and irrelevant tradition. I defy any of those people to walk down an aisle in a big white dress, approaching the man of their dreams with the widest smile on his face, and a hundred people smiling and whispering to each other how beautiful they are, and say the same thing. Because it’s impossible. I knew I was one hundred percent doing the right thing.

I wished more than anything that my parents could have been there. I liked to think that they were, in a way. I liked to think that they were watching me from somewhere. Everybody says that, don't they? Everybody who has ever lost somebody they loved. It's nice to believe it, I guess. So I let myself think that my mom and dad were watching.

My side of the church was filled with Gerard's friends and relatives since I had nobody to invite. I had no friends or family. I had nobody to walk me down the aisle. But that was okay because at the other end of that big room there was the man of my dreams waiting for me and he was all I ever needed.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of him the whole way down the aisle. Everybody else in the church disappeared. It’s like there was only he and I in the whole world. I just looked at Gerard and smiled the whole way. It was honestly the happiest I’ve ever been.