Come A Little Closer

This was not what I had planned. I had never planned marriage and a baby. I mean, I had thought about it before, but I had never really had it as a set in stone plan for myself. I figured if it happened, then it happened.

My plan was to just go with the flow, as they say. I just wanted to have fun with my mates and tour playing the music I loved. I wanted to party and be wild, because that's what I knew how to do. I don't know how to be a husband and a father. How can I be expected to guide a child through life if I can barely guide myself?

I had made a lot of mistakes. A lot. Whether it was with girlfriends or friend choices, drug choices and all of that. I wasn't that smart when it came to making decisions. I never claimed I was brilliant like that. I had made a lot of mistakes with Honey and I had done a lot of things right with her. If I've learned anything it's that love and life are a process. You're going to have shitty times and good times, you shouldn't give up during the shitty times. I was used to giving up. That was what I did. Things got hard and I shut down, I created bad things in my mind and went with them. I have a habit of following my bad thoughts and making up my own truth as opposed to seeing what was in front of me.

Love scared me. Fatherhood scared me. Marriage scared me. What if I wasn't good enough? What if I never pulled through? What if I failed my kid? My wife? What if we had more kids and I snapped? What if we fell out of love?

These thoughts haunted me all the time. When we went to bed and she was fast asleep I would sit up and just think. Panic mostly, but I did think. I was used to a life where I just had to take care of myself, if I fucked up the only one who got hurt was me. I would take care of Emmie, but she also liked to have her independence and take care of herself.

Now my entire world was flipped around. I was married and my wife was now pregnant. I flinched at the word wife, it wasn't because I felt I had made a mistake. I knew I did the right thing for us both, not just because of the baby. It was just Oliver Sykes and "wife" were never things I thought I'd hear together.

I stood in the bathroom putting lotion on my cracked and dry hands while Emmie had a shower. So maybe I was just killing time while she was in the shower. I was scared she'd slip, fall and smash her stomach off the faucet and lose the baby. A little far out, but that's what happens when you're up all night worrying.

I took off my shirt to look at myself. I wondered if there was any room on my body anywhere to tattoo my child's name on me. I probably had some space on my back somewhere.

"Oli?" I heard her ask over the running water.

"Ya, love?" I replied walking closer to the shower door.

"I want to know the sex of the baby," She stated.

We thought we were going to wait until the day the baby was born to find out what the sex was. I really didn't want to, but Emmie did so I went along with it.

"Really?" I asked, glancing at her right before she opened the shower door.

"Yeah," She nodded. "I was thinking about it last night before we fell asleep and I want to know."

"Okay," I nodded. "We'll see at your appointment on Thursday."

"Good," Emmie nodded. I put a hand on her tummy and looked down at it. She was starting to get a few stretch marks, but I didn't mind. I thought they were beautiful. The tattoos on her hips were a little stretched out, but I was sure they'd go back into place once the baby was here.

"Oli, I'm scared." Emmie whispered.

"What for, love?" I asked. She'd never really expressed fear to me about this before. I knew she was a little nervous, but I figured that was normal and she'd get over it.

"What if we can't do it? What if we can't be parents? What if the stress of the baby, the clothing line and the band tears us apart? What if we fall out of love? What if we're just not fit to be parents?" Emmie asked.

"You have no idea how good it is to hear you say that," I sighed, stepping in the shower with her. I didn't care that I still had pants on.

"You thought all that, too?" Emmie asked as I hugged her tightly, the baby bump pressed against my thin stomach.

"Every last bit of it," I nodded, rubbing her back.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I figured it would scare you if you knew I was scared," I shrugged. "This whole thing was sprung on us pretty quick, love."

"We should tell our families," Emmie stated. My stomach twisted. I knew my family would be very excited about this, but I did not want to talk to her family. We hadn't spoken to them since that big fight between her brother and I.

"If that's what you want," I nodded. "Then we'll do that."

I was hoping to keep the baby a secret from Emmie's family for as long as possible, but if this is what she wanted then I would oblige. I had to keep telling myself that they didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was Emmie and I. If we needed help we'd have it from my family, and that's what mattered.

We finished up in the shower and got dressed again before getting into bed once more. We laid in our bed together watching movies. I didn't want this to end, because in a few months it wasn't going to be just us anymore. That scared me.