My Baby, My Darling.

The kitchen was quiet, so quiet that I could practically hear every clock in the house tick in synchronized motion. I pulled two bowls from the cupboard and proceeded to pour cereal and milk. I slid one of the bowls to Travis, who was standing at the other end of the counter, fiddling with his cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling lightly.

I nodded, taking a spoonful of cereal into my mouth. I didn’t realize until then how hungry and hungover I actually was. It was like everything hit me at the same time: the clocks ticking, the unbearable headache from the lights, how dry my mouth was. I took a long gulp of my coffee and wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my sweater.

“So, about last night,” he started, awkwardly fiddling with his spoon.

I shook my head, putting my finger up to silence him. I didn’t want to talk about it yet, I didn’t want him to ruin the silence. I just wanted to eat my cereal, have at least a few moments without confrontation. I shoveled another spoonful into my mouth and looked up, meeting eyes with a concerned Travis. I watched him stand up straight, scrutinizing my every move in the silence of my mother’s kitchen.

“We don’t need to talk about it.” I shook my head, swallowing the cereal in my mouth.

He shook his head, his grip on the counter increasing as he leaned forward. “I think we should.”

“I just,” I raised my voice, abruptly slamming my hand onto the counter. “I would really love silence right now. I would love it if everyone would stop wanting to have serious discussions with me and force me to make decisions I’m really not ready to make. I just want to eat my cereal. I’m hungover and tired and I just want everything to be quiet and for the love of god will the damn lights stop being so bright.”

He cleared his throat and backed away from the counter, moving to the light switch by the kitchen door and sliding his hand down, flipping the switch so that the room was suddenly dark, all except for the filtered sunlight streaming in through the sheer curtains of the kitchen window. “Better?”

My eyes looked up to meet his as he moved back to the counter and leaned down to take another spoonful of his cereal.

“Thank you.” I muttered, taking another sip of my coffee.

We sat in silence, watching each other eat cereal until both of our bowls were empty. I pushed my bowl away from me and watched as Travis raised his eyebrows, silently asking if I was satisfied. I nodded, bringing the last drops of coffee up to my lips.

“So about last night.” I cleared my throat, fiddling with the handle of my mug.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that.” He smirked.

“I’m sorry.” We both said at the same time. I furrowed my eyebrows, watching as his mouth turned up into a smile.

“Why are you sorry?”

“It seemed like the only appropriate way to start.” He shrugged, a heavy breath escaping his lips.

“I know you’re in a difficult place in your life right now and I shouldn’t have sprung that on you like the way I did. I should have just kept it to myself, and I don’t know why but I lost control of the situation and words just kept rolling out of my mouth and long story short I spent the night at my uncle’s house thinking about just how stupid I was.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, Trav.” I said.

“I feel like I should be. We’ve been friends for a long time and doing that to you was unfair and pretty fucked up. You’re a good person and we have fun together, you know. I just kind of want things to be okay again between us, my unrequited feelings aside.”

“You’re being very okay about all of this.” I narrowed my eyes. “I imagined this whole situation going very differently. Actually, I don’t know how this conversation was going to go. You do know what you said last night, right?”

I nodded, laughter escaping his lips. “Believe me I am well aware of every gory detail. I guess it was just the adrenaline talking last night and it just kept going and… it doesn’t have to get weird between us, you know. I have feelings for you, but so what. I won’t let it get to me if you won’t.”

“Okay.” I nodded, apprehension in my tone. “Friends. We don’t have to like shake hands or anything, do we?”

“That would be really weird.” He said, licking over his lips to bite back laughter.

Gabe’s voice suddenly erupted throughout the house, followed by the loud thud of my front door making contact with the wall behind it. “Travis, you son of a bitch! Where are you?”

Footsteps rumbled through the living room, into the dining room, and suddenly Gabe’s muscled frame appeared through the swinging door. In a matter of seconds, Gabe had Travis’s shoulders pinned against the refrigerator door using his toned forearm. “Three fucking hours,” he pointed a finger at his best friend, who towered above him a good five inches. “We spent three fucking hours looking for your ass. We finally found out where your uncle lives and guess what he told us. You already left. And then we searched every bar and sandwich shop in New York City.”

“We didn’t search every sandwich shop for you, Trav.” Nicole suddenly appeared in the doorway, proceeding to make her way towards the kitchen counter and nonchalantly hoisting slim frame onto the fine kitchen granite. “Gabe over here got a little hungry.”

Gabe looked over his shoulder, clucking his tongue at Nicole. “Babe, I am trying to be dramatic here. Do you mind?”

She threw her hands up in surrender. Her gaze landed on me before pointing at Travis’s half-full coffee mug. I shrugged and pushed it toward her, watching as she muttered a thank you and downed its remnants.

“Anyways, where was I?” Gabe muttered, looking down at the ground with his arm still pushing Travis’s shoulder against the fridge.

Travis cleared his throat, “Every bar and sandwich shop.”

“Hell yeah, I checked every bar and sandwich shop for your ass. I organized a fucking search party. Do you know how many bars there are in New York City? A shitload, there are a shitload of bars in New York City. And then I come back here and your faulty-ass Honda Civic is sitting in the driveway with no goddamn care in the world. How do you think that makes me feel?”

I struggled to hold back laughter, watching as Travis fought to hold back laughter in front of a seething Gabe.

“Hungry?” Travis answered with a shrug

“That is correct.” Gabe removed his arm from Travis’s shoulders and stepped back. “Make me a fucking sandwich, you bitch. And for one month you must call me Thor, god of lightning. The whole goddamn epithet, you hear me. The things I do for your ass.”

He turned away and stomped out the kitchen door, swinging it shut behind him. “Good to know you’re still alive, Travie-boy.” He called out from the living room. A few moments later, the faint sounds of the television echoed past the kitchen doors.

Travis looked to me and Nicole, a hesitant smile plastered onto his face “Any chance you ladies will make him a…”

“No chance in hell.” Nicole laughed, hopping off the counter and pulling me out the kitchen doors and into the backyard. “C’mon Chels, we need to talk.”

The sliding door shut behind us and we walked over to my mother’s patio set in what appeared to be her tightly spaced backyard.
“Are you comfortable?” Nicole asked, false sincerity in her tone.

I nodded, eyeing her warily.

“Are you sure? Because I can go get some sweet tea and bring it out here, maybe some pillows or a foot massage perhaps?”

I shook my head, furrowing my eyebrows, “Nik, what are you-“

“Good.” She said, severity in her eyes. “I’m glad you’re comfortable because I am about to metaphorically kick your ass.”

I blinked, my lips parting slightly as I attempted to formulate a response.

“I thought we were friends. Best friends.”

“We are-“

“No no. Hush now, I’m talking. I am the one that gets to talk right now. Where the fuck do you think you can get off withholding vital pieces of your life from me like that? I tell you everything, every fucking thing that happens to me. Things that don’t even remotely concern you, I tell you. And then what do you do? You go and you have this monumental break-up with who most definitely is your goddamn soul mate and hide it from me. You hide it from me. Who the fuck do you think you are? When did you decide it was okay to not tell me these things? You had me walking around like a dumbstruck idiot flaunting her relationship in front of you like it was no big deal.”

“Nicole, I…”

“And you told Annie. Don’t get me wrong, I love that beautiful whore to death but what did I do to deserve that?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why? Why didn’t you tell me? I could have done something. You needed me, I could have fixed everything. There is a special protocol I have for this and you refused me that right to help you, as a best friend, I should have been there for you.”

“I didn’t tell anybody!” I yelled, causing her to abruptly close her mouth. “I didn’t tell anybody because I didn’t even know what was going on, how was I supposed to explain to you what happened. Everyone figured it out on their own. Annie heard it from Dexter, I didn’t tell her. You couldn’t have done anything. You still can’t do anything. There is no way to fix it. I’m fine. I’m okay. I’ve accepted it. We can move on and just pretend everything’s fine even if it isn’t. That’s what you can do for me right now. As my best friend, can you do that for me? Just let things be. Please. I’m okay, really.”

She blinked, her gaze dropping down to the ground as she submerged herself in deep thought. “Where is he?”

“I sent him home.” I said.

“Why?” Her expression was confused. And I now knew that she set that up, deliberately made it so that he was the one taking me to breakfast. She was rooting for us.

“It was right.” I said, more to myself than to her. “I knew it, and deep down he knew it. It was what needed to happen.”

Suddenly, she was beside me, crouched down with her hand on my arm, grabbing my attention. “You’re okay?”

I nodded, convincing her and half-convincing myself. I was okay. Or at least I was going to be okay. I was done crying. What I did was the right thing. And I was determined to be finally be okay with it. That was the only way I was going to be able to keep going.

---

Dexter POV

The heavy door of my apartment slammed shut behind me as I stumbled into my dimly lit confines of my living room.

"Oh, you're back." Monica sat upright on my nearby couch, reaching up to turn on the lamp. I could tell she had been asleep before I walked in. It made sense, considering I made it home at nearly 6 AM. Monica always liked to sleep in, but for the life of me I couldn't understand why she was sleeping in on my couch.

"I used the emergency key you gave me," she explained, getting up from the couch and folding the blanket. "I got here yesterday afternoon and you weren't here, so I just...I decided to wait. Lydia's asleep in the other room." She gestured toward my bedroom.

I nodded, taking in her words. "I went to New York for a night. And when I got back I just went straight to the hospital, so I didn’t really have time for personal calls."

It was partly true, I didn’t have time for personal calls. But really, I just didn’t want to have to deal with Monica after what happened.

Monica blinked, scrutinizing my face for a few moments. That was the thing about her, she liked to think she knew what was going on in my head at all times, like she was the master of my emotions. As if she knew me better than I knew myself. And that might've been true three years ago, but I was an entirely different person now. "She left, didn't she?"

I furrowed my eyebrows, shaking my head slowly. "I'm not talking about this with you." I walked past her and into the kitchen, pulling out a bottle of water and twisting it open.

"It's okay to talk to me about it, Dexter." She said, leaning against the kitchen counter.

I sneered, narrowing my eyes. "What makes you think talking to you about anything other than Lydia is okay?"

"We were friends once, weren't we." She whispered harshly, "More than that at one point."

"'More than that'" I laughed sarcastically, mocking her words. "You can go ahead and say it. You left me at the altar and raised our child for three years without telling me about her existence."

She sighed, dropping her eyes to the ground. "Dexter, I-"

"So forgive me," I continued, throwing my half empty water bottle into the nearby kitchen sink. Dishes clattered harshly and Monica jumped at the sudden noise. " Forgive me if I don't want to talk to my ex fiancé -who attempted to commit fraud in my name, might I add- about yet another love of my life leaving me when it is partially your fault in the first place."

She was quiet in front of me, her eyes not quite meeting my own. I was right and she knew I was right. But my accusations were harsh and uncalled for. I was just angry and otherwise wouldn't have called her out like that. After a few minutes, she licked over her lips and turned to face me. "Lydia's sick, Dexter."

"What?" My tone dropped, worry crossing my face as I moved past her and into the bedroom, where Lydia was snoring silently in the middle of my bed. "What happened?"

"She just woke up the other day with a fever and she kept coughing and I'm pretty sure there's this rash on her arm..." Monica explained, watching as I picked up Lydia and carried her into the living room.

I laid her onto the couch, cooing softly to her as she fussed slightly from being woken up so suddenly. I reached for my backpack and pulled out my stethoscope, checking Lydia's vitals. "Why didn't you take her to the hospital?" I whispered harshly at Monica, who took a seat behind Lydia on the couch and made soothing sounds so that Lydia would stop writhing.

"We don't have insurance," she said. "And I figured since you were a doctor..."

"I need to put an IV in her arm. She's dehydrated." I moved to the other room, gathering what I needed and came back to kneel in front of the couch. "Keep her still."

Monica soothed Lydia as I inserted the needle. I connected the IV and hung it up and over the nearby lamp shade. "Did you give her any medicine today?"

"A little bit of Children's Motrin about seven hours ago." Monica said, kissing Lydia on the forehead.

I nodded, rifling through my bag to pull out the medicine I needed and pushing a spoonful into Lydia's mouth. After making sure that she swallowed, I zipped up my bag and pushed it under the coffee table.

"I gave her something to help with the fever and the cough but that isn't a rash on her arm, she has a mild case of Atopic Dermatitis, commonly referred to as eczema." I explained to Monica, leaning forward to run my index finger across Lydia's warm cheek. "Her pediatrician didn't talk to you about her eczema?"

Monica shook her head, "She hasn't been to her pediatrician since we left Washington. It only started showing up when we got here."

"It could be due to the sudden climate change," I said, looking down at the rash.

It was quiet for a few moments. We sat in silence, watching Lydia slowly drift back to sleep and making soothing sounds as we cupped her cheeks and kissed her forehead the way parents normally do for their sick child. And it was natural, it was a natural thing for me to do, like I had been caring for Lydia her entire existence even though I’d only just been presented to her a month ago. I carried Lydia into my bedroom and put her to bed, leaving the door open slightly so that we could hear her if she woke up. I came back to the living room and took a seat on the couch next to Monica, who had her knees curled up to her chin, just like how I'd seen her do it a million times before. It was the position in which she was most comfortable, allowing her mind to go somewhere else, somewhere I was never invited.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you." I said, breaking the silence.

She nodded, "You have every right to, Dexter. I shouldn't have asked you about Chelsea. You were right, it is my fault you two aren't together."

"It isn't." I said, shaking my head. "It's not your fault. Well, it partly is. But you aren't the reason we broke up. That was my fault. I'm the one that lied to her. I did the one thing she asked me not to do and I lied. I'm always going to be the idiot that lied."

"Everyone lies. Some more that others" she smirked, turning to face me. "When you asked me to lie to her, I did it because I thought you had a good reason. You told me you wanted to protect her. And I respected that. But no one likes being lied to, even with a good reason. You know that. Hell, I just figured I owed you one. But Dexter, Chelsea doesn't seem like the type of person that needs protection. She strikes me as the type of person that wants answers, no matter how messed up they are."

"You don't know her, Mon."

"I don't know her, you're right. But I know you. And I know how much you love her. I know that you don't want anyone you love to see a side of you that you're ashamed of. I'm not saying you're ashamed of Lydia. But maybe you were afraid she wouldn't love you anymore if she knew about all of your...baggage and you just panicked. It’s natural to want to protect something like that."

"I don't remember you getting a degree in psychology."

"Hm. There you go with the Dexter wit I'm so fond of." She smiled, rolling her eyes at me. "I think this is the most civil conversation we've had in a while."

"It's because I just got off a 24 hour shift and I'm too exhausted to argue with you anymore." I muttered.

"You know, it doesn't have to be so hostile all of the time." She said. "We could be friends again."

"I hope you know a large part of me still hates you." I said, "and I don't know if it's going away."

"It will." She said, "if you're still the same person I said yes to all those years ago, you don't really hate me and it will go away."

The couch shifted as she stood up. "I have a few meetings today with lawyers and I have to pay my balance at the front desk of our Motel. Do you think you could watch Lydia for today? I know that you haven't slept so it’s okay if you can't."

"I'll take her." I said, half exhausted and moving to sit upright on the sofa. "Plus, it will give me a chance to monitor her vitals every few hours."

She nodded, pulling on her coat and slinging her bag over her shoulders. "Okay. Alright, thank you, Dexter."

I nodded, waving her off as she disappeared out my front door. I sat there for a few moments, wondering how I had a heart-to-heart discussion with who I thought was the most heartless woman alive.