And Baby Makes Two?

“Argh! Your brother is so confusing! I don’t understand what he’s doing, I can’t tell where he’s coming from!” I said, pacing my living room and putting my hand on my forehead.

“Callie, calm down. Explain.” Laura said to me. I sighed, sitting down, and began to explain.

I hadn’t got a wink of sleep that night. When I had walked into my house, my head had been spinning. I was utterly confused. One moment, we were acting like buddies, goofing around and teasing each other, the next it was all serious and… well, almost leaning towards romantic. I had no idea what was going on. Were we just friends, or did he see us as perhaps something more? Either way, I wanted to know what was going on, and that’s why I had gone to see Laura. Maybe she’d have the answers.

“So he keeps leading me on in one direction, then veers off in the other. I don’t know what to do!” I said, sitting down and resting my head on my knees with my hands on the back of my head. “What should I do?” I said, muffled.

“Well, you said you’re moving in with him?” She said, and I nodded. “Well, watch him and see if he keeps up with it, or if he picks one direction or the other. I’ll keep an ear out for him to slip something out, but just see what happens.” She smiled, and I sat up straighter, slightly smiling as well.

“Alright. Thanks for the advice, I really didn’t know what to do. But anyways, on to something else… how was your, shall I say, date last night?” I asked, and Laura blushed.

“Well, we went on a bunch of rides, then went to pick up something to eat. We drove around town for a while, then I went home. It was really fun though. I think I really like him.”

“I hate to say I told you so…” I said, and Laura made a face at me. “Haha, mature!” I said, and we started laughing.

“Well, should we get packing?” Laura said, and I nodded. One of the other reasons she’d come over was to help me pack, so we could get a start on it. Today we were going to get all my albums and books, along with my personal items and some of my clothes, which meant anything that I wouldn’t be able to fit into for a few more months. All my maternity stuff would be taken last. We were also packing all the baby stuff I had gotten on my birthday. We grabbed a couple boxes and some garbage bags and began.

“Okay, all the novels and most books will go in here,” I said, indicating the box in front of me. “All my albums will go in here,” I pointed to the box in front of Laura. “All my trinkets and junk’ll go in there, my clothes will go in the garbage bags, and the baby stuff in here!” I said, nodding towards the appropriate boxes and bags.

“This,” Laura said, “Will take a while. I mean, look at all the crap you have!”

“Shut up, it’s not my fault, I seem to keep everything I get.” I said, and began to tackle my closet. I took all the books off the lower shelf, Laura getting the top ones, and we stacked them neatly in the box. We then crammed all my clothes into the garbage bags, and stacked them with the books by my door. All my trinkets, my birthday cards I’d gotten long ago, my posters, everything in my drawers, and any spare items around my room were shoved into the other box, and the baby stuff was stacked by the door – anything small enough was put in the box. After about two and a half hours, we had finished my room.

“Wow.” Laura said, mocking wiping sweat off her forehead – at least, I think she was faking it. “Told you it’d take a while.”

“I have a lot of stuff.”

“That’s for sure.”

“Well, what now?” I asked, resting a hand on my stomach.

“Let’s eat something.”

We sat down at the kitchen table with a bowl of Cheerios each. When we were done, we went and started on getting all my things from my bathroom. I had a small box filled with hair products and clips, a medium sized bag of makeup, and all my towels and everything else stacked by the door at the end of the hour. We looked at the clock, and it was 5:30. Ryan was coming around this time to come take what we’d packed over to his house. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I let Ryan in and he began packing stuff into his car (his wrecked one having been written off, he had gotten a brand new one).

“Holy crap, Cal, look at all this stuff!” He said, and I put a hand on my hip.

“You think that’s a lot? That’s only the junk from my bedroom and bathroom!” I said. He grabbed a box and lugged it out to his car. I grabbed a few light baby things, Laura grabbed a box, and we followed him.

After fifteen minutes we were done, and we went into the kitchen.

“What now?” Ryan asked, pushing his falling glasses up his nose.

“Well, we could get a start on the rest of my house.” I said, and we made to go do some serious packing. By the time it was 9:00 pm, and after a couple trips on Ryan’s part to his house, we had gotten everything out of my bathroom, my bedroom, and the living room. All that was left was the kitchen and all the large furniture. Ryan already had one couch, but we had decided that I could bring my other one to his place. I was to take all my bedroom furniture, but other things, like dining table and such, were to go into storage.

“Well, I should take all this stuff to my place.” Ryan said. “Tomorrow at 10:00 am?” He asked.

“Yup. My dad’s coming then to help pack up all my furniture into his pickup.” I said.

“Alright, see you tomorrow then.” He said, exiting my house.

“Well,” I said to Laura, after a few moments of silence. “Since you’re gonna be here helping out tomorrow morning, do you wanna just crash here?”

“Sure.” She said. I went and grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of PJ pants, two of the few articles of clothing left in my house, and gave them to Laura. She changed in the bathroom and went to go sleep on the couch. I went to my bedroom and laid down on the bed, staring in the darkness around my now empty room. All that I could think was that this would be one of my last nights in this house. I rolled onto my side, taking care to not lay on my stomach, and fell asleep.

The next morning Ryan came right at 10:00, and my dad came five minutes later in his red pickup. He had one of those moving dollies with him, and him and Ryan began taking stuff out to the truck. They got my dresser out of my room, and Ryan periodically had to drop stuff off at his house. Eventually, all that was left in my house was my bed and my couch.

“Wow. That didn’t take long at all.” I said, standing in my empty house. I wandered around, making sure that I didn’t forget anything. It seemed surreal, that I was about to leave this house.

“Okay, do you want to get the one end of the bed, cause I don’t think we can put this one on the dolly.” My dad said to Ryan, and they began shoving the bed out of my room. Laura decided to try and get my couch with my dad’s girlfriend, who had come with my dad to help, and I was left just standing around feeling very useless. I wanted to help badly, but I knew that I couldn’t. I felt exactly like I had when I was 11, and my mom and I were moving into our house.

Finally, everything was out. I took one last look around my house, and left with everyone else. The landlord had said to just bring her the key sometime that week, so we just left. I got into my car and followed my dad’s pickup to Ryan’s house.

When I got inside, it was a disaster. All my stuff was piled throughout the house, and there was barely enough room to get the bed into the bedroom. They eventually did, and after everything was out of the truck, my dad left, kissing me on the forehead. Laura had already left from my house in her own car, so Ryan and I were alone. We decided to begin bringing the boxes into my room, and when we were done I started unpacking a few. After an hour, Ryan popped into my room.

“How’s it going?” He asked, sitting on my bed, which was scattered with clothes and other stuff.

“Not too bad. I don’t really mind doing this – it’s almost relaxing. I just still can’t believe how fast this went.”

“Ha, yeah, it did go quickly.” He said, staring at the wall. I grabbed a bunch of shirts, draping them on my arm and taking them to the closet, hanging them up. “So, what do you want for supper?”

“Well, what is there?” I asked.

“Uh… pizza, mac and cheese, bread… yeah, I need to buy some groceries…” he laughed.

“Mac and cheese sounds great.” I said, and he left the room to start preparing the food. I kept unpacking until it was ready, and then we ate.

A few hours later, after I had had enough of unpacking, I flopped onto my bed, dead tired. I crept under my covers, snuggling into them. I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep, but for some reason, tired as I was, I just couldn’t fall asleep, or get comfortable for that matter. I rolled onto my right side, then my left, then back again, tossing and turning. I grabbed a pillow and put it up under the side of my stomach, and put another between my knees, to see if it helped, but I still couldn’t fall asleep. After a half an hour, I decided to go and try the couch. When I got out there, though, I saw it was occupied.

“Ryan? What’re you doing up?” I said.

“Callie? Is that you?” He said.

“No, it’s Michael Jackson, do you have any little boys here? ‘Course it’s Callie.” I said.

“Is something wrong?” He said, starting to get up, but I stopped him.

“No, I just can’t sleep.”

“Oh. Same here.” He said. He scooted over, patting the couch beside him. “Here, sit down.”

I walked over to the couch, plopping myself down beside him. The TV was on, but I had no idea what it was that was playing. “So, you can’t get to sleep either then?” He asked, and I nodded sleepily.

“I’m dead tired though, so I don’t understand why I can’t.” I said, and I looked at Ryan. He looked as tired as I felt.

We watched TV for about a half an hour, and my eyes began to droop. I yawned, stretched, and, without thinking, leaned up against Ryan’s chest, using him as a full body pillow. I think I took him by surprise, because he was stiff for a second, then he relaxed and put an arm around my shoulder. I snuggled up for warmth since it was freezing in his house, and I felt a blanked being thrown on top of me. I sighed. I had no idea what was going through his head, whether he was just wanting to be a friend or something more, but either way, he made a nice pillow.

“I’m so tired…” I mumbled, and yawned again.

“Callie, you can’t fall asleep like this. You should go to bed.”

“I’m not falling aslee…” I began, but before I could finish my sentence I was out.