Let The Walls Break Down

-October 14th 2011-

John and I were laying in the bed facing each other with Holden in between us. “I just don’t want to leave him alone,” I said and lightly stroked his head while he looked around the room.

“Me either,” he agreed. “I don’t know how I’m going to start touring again. I don’t want to be away from him.”

Pat, Garrett, Kennedy and Jared quietly came in the room with wide eyes and big smiles.

“Oh my gosh he is so freakin’ adorable!” Jared said. “Can I hold him?”

“No! Yeah, sure.” I handed him carefully to Jared and Holden was passed along to each of them while John put his arm around me.

“How tired are you guys?” Garrett asked and sprawled himself at the end of the bed.

“If you count the rings under our eyes, each one represents a week without sleep.”

He got close to John’s face and acted like he was counting. “Wow. I don’t think I could ever be a parent. It sounds so exhausting. You always see in the movies them complaining about how all babies do is eat, sleep and poop.”

“That is so not true! They also burp, sneeze and vomit everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much vomit,” I said.

Pat wrinkled his nose. “Okay, I’m definitely not going to have any kids.”

“I think Holden needs to be changed,” Kennedy said as Holden was passed to him. “Smells like death.”

“Do not say my baby smells like death!” I defended.

“Fine. Your whole apartment smells like death. Happy?”

“Yes, ecstatic. Now, Kenny darling would you be a dear and changed Holden for me? I’d greatly appreciate it.”

He went to the changing table and started changing him. “If I do this do I get to be the godfather?”

“Sure.”

“Hey what about us?” Garrett sat up and looked disappointed. By this time Kennedy was almost done changing him.

“Don’t worry, you’re all godparents,” John insisted.

Kennedy brought Holden back to the bed and stopped. “Now I don’t feel as special.”

“You are special, Kenny. In your own way.” Pat was the first to laugh and then lied on top of Garrett. “Holly, do you-” John started and then stopped what he was about to say. I had fallen asleep.

****

Alex and Sean Silverman from This Century were throwing a Halloween party and The Maine, A Rocket to the Moon, Austin Gibbs and Maria were there. “Holly, why did you bring me here, knowing Eric is here?”

“We didn’t tell you to come! I told you to stay home if you didn’t want to see him but you insisted.”

“Well I wasn’t just gonna sit at home by myself.”

“Well then stop complaining.” John was holding Holden and he started to get restless and began crying, instantly crashing the party. “Jared! You upset my baby!”

Jared was mid-chew of something then looked at us like a deer caught in the headlights. “What’d I do?” Everyone started laughing and then they came over to us to see Holden.

While Joel was playing with him and Kennedy and Eric were watching them, John took my hand and pulled me into one of the bedrooms. When we were in the hallway, I said, “It feels like we’re in high school again. Sneaking into rooms.”

“Let’s have another kid,” he said suddenly.

“Are you crazy? Are you gonna carry it this time?”

“Sure.” He intertwined his fingers with mine and brought them slightly out to the side and kissed me and then opened the door next to us. We started to go in but stopped in our tracks because Maria and Austin were making out on the bed, unaware we even came in the room. We slowly closed the door and opened an unoccupied room this time.

“Can we wait a year or two?” I leaned into him as we sat on the bed and he put his arm around me.

“For what?”

“For baby number two.”

“No, let’s just have 6 of them consecutively.”

“Six?! Whoa, slow down there. How about two, maybe three?”

“That’ll be fine. That will work for me.”

“Okay. Because I am not birthing six children.”

He smiled and we started cuddling. “This is how you know when you’re getting old. You sneak off to a bedroom sans child and all we do is cuddle.”

I laughed and started kissing him. “Is this better?”

“Mhm.”

After a few minutes of this, there was a loud bang against the door. “OPEN UP! I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!” Before waiting for a response, Garrett and Kennedy busted in the room. Garrett was holding Holden and when they came in the room, he held him up and started singing the Lion King Song.

John laughed his adorable laugh and helped me get off the bed.

“How dare you try to pawn off your baby to us while you’re in here havin’ a good ol’ time,” Kennedy said and then made an identical loud bang against the room Maria and Austin were in.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” I said.

“Who’s in there?” Nick Santino asked as he took a sip of beer.

“Maria and Austin,” I said without even thinking about Eric. He instantly looked down to where we were and had a hurt expression on his face then started to walk away. John instinctively followed him as Garrett passed Holden to me. We walked back to the main room of the house where everyone else was and I got a text from John.

‘We have to go. We’re taking Eric home, he’s upset.’

Without thinking about Maria, I got our stuff and we left the house and outside, Eric looked like he had been crying. Once in the car, Eric started spilling out his feelings. “I don’t understand how she could move on so fast…and to Austin? Really? He’s not even her type…”

“Maybe she’s hurting just as much as you and she chooses to deal with it differently. Like instead of sitting at home, she’s rebounding.”

“We got divorced a month ago. Not a break up, a divorce. Shouldn’t that take some time?”

“Yeah, but it’s Maria. I mean, when she started hooking up with you, she was technically still with Jack and they went out for almost two years.”

“We should have never gotten married,” he mumbled under his breath and in my mind I agreed with him.

We got back home to put Holden to bed after dropping Eric off at his place and as expected, Maria didn’t show up all night.

“I think we should name our next kid Alex,” I said as I was lying on top of him on the couch.

“Why’s that?”

“Because we have Holden, the miscreant of The Catcher in the Rye, then we should have Alex, the miscreant of A Clockwork Orange.”

He looked at me. “I like that. I would have never thought to name our children secretly after curmudgeons.”

“I also like the name Caleb…”

“Caleb Alexander. Sounds legit.”

I laughed and I let Family Guy carry me to sleep until Holden started crying.

-December 24, 2011-

--John--

“Holly! Your phone’s ringing!” I yelled.

“Who is it?”

“Your mom.”

“Answer it for me. I’m changing Holden.”

“Hey Mama,” I said into her iPhone.

“Hi sweetie, I just wanted to let you guys know that we’re all going to be meeting up at your parents’ house tomorrow at 11 so there’s no split time between all of us.”

“Oh okay. I’ll let Holly know.”

“Alright, I’ll see you guys tomorrow, give Holden hugs for me.”

“No hugs for me?”

“Of course hugs for you, dear.”

“Yessss. Okay well we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Hun.”

I ended the call and her text screen was still up and as I was putting it down I couldn’t help but see a conversation between her and Rian. I didn’t know they were talking again. And the last thing she sent to him was I love you too. Holly…why… She came in the room then and asked me what her mom wanted. I couldn’t think of any words.

“John, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I think I just might have.”

I walked past her and went in the bedroom to lie down.

--Holly--

I was confused as ever and I picked up my phone to see if Rian texted me back and when I unlocked my phone and the screen was up and you could clearly see my feelings for Rian in black and white. I felt sick to my stomach. What have I done? I’ve just ruined everything between us. John and I barely talked the rest of the day and I felt so guilty. How could I have been so stupid as to even text Rian, but tell him that I love him?

“Are we going to talk about this?” I finally asked after a mute dinner without even as much as eye contact.

“What’s there to say?” He moved his fork around on his plate, still not looking at me. “You love him.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. “I love you so much more.”

“I know,” he said quickly. “But you have feelings for another man. You’ve been keeping secrets from me and who knows how long that’s been going on. Before Holden was born?” He finally looked up and his eyes were puffy and bloodshot and I nodded. “Why are you still here with me? You want to be with him.”

“But what about Holden?”

“Is that the only thing keeping you here?”

“Of course not. I want to be with you.”

“Then why on earth would you go behind my back and do something like this to me? Have I done something wrong? Have I not given you everything? Have I not loved you with every inch of my being?” I couldn’t speak. I felt like crap. “Now we have a child so you can’t just walk away Scott-free.”

“I’m not leaving, John. Honestly, I don’t know why I texted him and I don’t know why I texted him that I love him.”

“Because you do…” He took a deep breath as if to calm himself down. “I don’t want you to leave. I can’t exactly put this behind us, but I’d like to try. That is, if you want to try.”

I started to cry so my voice was cracking. “Of course I do.”

“First thing’s first…You have to promise me you won’t text him anymore. I don’t care if you have to block him, he has done nothing but hurt you and now me.”

“I promise, John.” We stood up and I hugged him, but he didn’t really hug back but just kind of stood there and looked off to the side, uninvolved. I looked up at him and finally he looked into my eyes but the only emotion there was pain. Things would never be the same.