Someday, somehow
I'm gonna make it all right but not right now
I know you're wondering when
(You're the only one who knows that)
How the hell did we wind up like this?
Why weren't we able, to see the signs that we missed
And try to turn the tables
Now the story's played out like this
Just like a paperback novel
Let's rewrite an ending that fits
Instead of a Hollywood horror…
“Someday” by Nickelback
Chapter Six: Reality
It’s the ultrasound that made it real. Seeing that baby, on that screen. A little tiny fucking human just waiting to be born. I knew it was real before, but seeing it, it threw any denial shit I was keeping inside out the damn window. And she waved at me, her hand moved, like a wave, I fucking swear. Holy shit. She doesn’t know I’m her daddy; otherwise I’d be getting the finger. I know it. For not hearing my voice before now. She’s had to have heard Kayden trash talk the hell out of me by now.
“Holy fucking shit.” was all I said.
I saw her look and ignored it. This shit has now hit my fucked up reality. I had to make sure I told Lisette. I know I’m fucking screwed. But I can’t hide it. I want to, but I don’t. It’s fucking twisted, like I wanna be proud of that not even born yet kid ya know? But the selfish me, the me who fucking knows how the world works, wants to hide this, do this all in secret so the media never knows, so Lissy never knows. No matter what choice I pick on this one, it ain’t gonna go over well with whatever chick I tell it to. Lissy or Kayden. Both will flip. One will fucking try to kill me again. The other will fucking scream. Fucking hell.
The doctor continues doing what he’s gotta do. He’s already had her pee in a cup to test it so that everything’s aight. Now he’s feeling around her stomach, watching the ultrasound for the baby’s positioning. I think. Everything’s normal so far though, and that’s good. I raised a brow at Kayden, who was taking it all pretty calmly. She should heh, for being seven and a half months along. Oh fuck. This child is gonna be born in less than two months. Fuck. You know that album I’m promoting, the new Backstreet Boy album we’re doing. Fucking shit. It’s out early 2007. Around the same fucking time. Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. I’m so screwed. What the hell do I do? Fuck, this means I gotta tell this shit to the fellas, who don’t know yet.
Aight. I have to delay the album. And tell the guys. Shit. I bet Kevin knows by now, cause he and Kayden still talk, but he ain’t in the group anymore. (Don’t get me started on that) I wish he was. I miss him. I felt someone watching me, and turn my head over to see her giving me the strangest freaking look. Heh, that got returned when her phone rang with a tune I never thought she’d still have on the damn thing. One of our cheesiest and dated ass songs…
Ain't nobody else can make me cry
Ain't nobody else can make me lie
Nobody but you…
Ain‘t nobody else but you…
“I can’t believe you still have that damn song for Kevin.” Six years almost exactly and she still manages to make sure that song is the ring tone.
“Of course I do, it’s my favorite solo of his.” She shrugged and answered, leaving me to watch her, amazed that even though she ain’t the same, some things haven’t changed. “Hey Kevy.”
************
“Hey, how’s it going along?”
I raise a brow as the doctor did the usual. Nick was looking damn confused, which wasn’t shocking. “It’s going. He knows, he’s actually right next to me.”
“Glad you finally told him.”
“Shocked you didn’t.”
I knew Nick hated me talking about him like he’s not here. I could be such a bitch sometimes. But hell, it’s fun. “It’ had to be you.”
“Yeah yeah, we’re actually at the doc’s, prenatal check ups.”
“I’ll let you go then, let Nick know I’ll call him later.”
“Bye Kevykins.” Betcha Kevin’s fuzzy brows just shot up at that one. I hung up the phone and glanced at asshole. “He’s going to call ya later.” I’m pretty damn happy to get out of the doctor’s after finding out everything is normal, but that my breasts might start leaking soon. Peachy. Well, gotta go shopping for that padding stuff for my bras later. Nature is just so damn great. Sarcasm here. Nick walked beside me, quiet for once as I waddled out to his Benz. I just kind of gazed at him, wondering what his random ADHD rattled mind was thinking. Yeah, he does actually have it, not that his mom ever did shit. I used to know how his mind worked once, when he was Nick, before he became asshole. I grabbed his hand, can’t explain why.
“What the fuck are you doing Kayden-”
I set it on my stomach and held it there, knowing my child was awake in there.
“Oh…oh shit.” I saw a smile appear, not that fan fake one either. Didn’t know he still had it in him. “Damn, that’s fucking cool.”
“I thought you might like that.”
“Yeah…it’s, well fuck Kayden, today made all this shit real.”
I pull away after a few minutes and the two of us climbed in the car. I almost felt like I’d been thrown in an alternate reality where everything was still okay. Where all the bullshit didn’t happen, everything was okay. I smirk a bit at the comment though, couldn’t help it. “I didn’t get the luxury of denial. The whole morning sickness deal spoils that idea.”
“I’m shocked you didn’t get an abortion when you knew.” he had the balls to say as he drove. If he wasn’t driving, I might’ve smacked him. Blame hormones. I rolled my eyes instead, peeved. I rub my stomach, glad my child can’t understand words yet. “Gee thanks, but I don’t run away from my damn problems, or do a reality show so everyone can see them.” House of Carters had been his sisters’ idea, and I’d been the one against it then, when thoughts came up two years before the thing actually became real. Part of me kind of wondered if he did it to spite me since it came soon after we stopped talking.
“It ain’t that, you always acted like you didn’t want kids. Fuck, and don’t fucking bring in the show, fucking low blow. Why do that? You’d been right before, aight just say it and get it over with.”
“Not everyone is like you and-” I stopped mid way, amazed he said I was right. Really that’s a hell must be trapped in a blizzard moment right there.
“I just had to fucking try aight! They need me, or maybe I just fuck them up more cause I’m a selfish fuck like you love to call me.”
I took a moment to say something, it’s not often he has me frozen for words. But he did. I struck a big ass nerve. “Yeah, I know…” And I did, but sometimes his sibling issues were confusing. Always had been, with my mom and being an only child. I was starting to get it due to the current bun in the oven, or so I thought. “You’re the only decent thing for em Nick.” And I hate admitting that. “I do get it.”
“Do you? Then why the fuck do you throw that in my face?”
“I do get it, and do you get that maybe I wanted this baby? It’s the same reaction I had when you said that shit to me.”
Now he froze. “Yeah, I do get it.”
“Let’s just get some damn food, I’m starved.”
After some more driving, I saw an IHOP in the distance. The drive had gone quiet, except for Nick’s blaring of System of a Down. Meh. I’d rather be listening to say Usher, Elliot Yamin, or maybe some Chris Brown right about now. Hmm, or Gwen Stefani. Nick on the other hand wanted crap that killed your ears. Ironic since he’s part of the last boy band standing wasn’t it? I was surprised when he actually pulled up at the IHOP, that ain’t asshole’s style. Him at a normal place? No way in hell, not anymore. Not since the “I Want It That Way” days. He turned off the car, and gave me the same kind of casual shrug of the shoulders I usually gave him.
“No one will recognize me.” he said, answering my unspoken question.
“Why do you care about being recognized now when you didn’t before?” The nerve of that asshole. I stormed my big wobbly and pregnant ass out of the car, slamming the door behind me. “Always about you and your damn image isn’t it?”
***********
Fucking hell.
This crazy bitch is never happy.
And here I thought she might actually have a human side buried way down deep somewhere. Forget that idea. So what if I want to make sure no one sees this? No one needs to know. I’m accepting my damn responsibility like a man. I did decide that. But I haven’t decided any other shit yet. I don’t need the damn world to be seeing me around here and start putting two and two together yet.
“You WANT this out?” I threw back at her. Her career is her most prized thing to her too.
“Could care less, world already knows I’m pregnant. They just keep asking who the FATHER is. You’re lucky I haven’t put your huge ass on blast yet anyway.”
“Can I at least work my shit out first Kay, or is too much to ask. Cause I KNOW we must all focus on your crazy slutty ass or you start getting paranoid cause it ain’t about you for once.”
“Lay off the bullshit, pot meet fucking kettle.”
“Get off my ass.”
“You wish I was on it, screw this, I’m starved.” She shoved her big ass by me, going inside and not giving a damn if I fell or not. I followed, sitting my butt down across from her. Me and my damn dick. Of all females for it to get pregnant, it had to be her.
It just had to be Kayden. Goddamn reality.
*********
Food calms me down now. I blame being preggers and eating for two. I glanced at Nick as I took another bite. Yay pancakes. I don’t have a clue how to handle him now. Everything is so fucked up now, so damaged. It can’t be that way when my, okay our, baby is born. It wasn’t always this way either. But it is now. I don’t want that constantly above her head; it will be anything but good for her. No matter how much I hate asshole, I can’t do that. We’ve been quiet as we ate too, tension hanging like crazy, it was honestly pretty odd.
“I like the name Haven.” I let him know, having wanted to shatter our silence.
“Haven.”
“Yeah, she’s been that for me. I’m liking the idea of Haven Jean Carter.”
Yes I just said that, it’s like I said, we need to figure out how to handle each other. All this shit can’t keep hovering around us. We’ve got two months to deal. Damn we’re so screwed.
“I thought you didn’t want her named after me.”
“I didn’t. But I like the flow of it, and you are her father. I want a unique name, but that bugs ya, so it’s a compromise.”
“You can compromise? Holy shit is it the apocalypse?”
“Don’t spoil it Carter.”
Leave it to him to try. His tongue snuck out the side of his mouth, without his realizing it. He’s thinking. Asshole’s done that forever when he’s thinking but never caught on that that’s a habit of his.
“Haven Jean Jamison-Carter.”
“Not Jamison-Carter, just Carter. I don’t need some anti-man dominated crap. I save that for my career.”
I saw him shake his head, and I could be wrong here, but… I think I saw him have a momentary smile at me and something I said.
Wonders never cease.
********
I had Lisette by me the next day, guitar by my side, helping her write a song. Yes a Backstreet Boy can write, Jive is just fucking evil and have always been bitches when we want to use our own songs. Her head rested on my shoulder as I grabbed the acoustic to play the open notes to the melody I had going. I jotted what I had down, and played the beginning again and heard Lissy start to sing what words I had along with me.
Finding the strength inside the gray
Maybe I'm heading for a breakdown
And maybe that's ok
Could be I’m hanging on for dear life
Maybe I need to get a grip…
I love the way music seemed to connect me and her from the beginning. That’s how our relationship’s been. She had an album out before we started dating, but she’s trying to make her mark, same as how me and the fellas are trying to prove we’re still gonna keep coming back around. But music in pure form, its passion, freedom, we can share between me and her, and anyone who listens to the meanings spoken through music.
Few people ever believe that that kind of shit can come from me. But I get like that with music; it’s all I know to actually be right. The rest? I’m fucking clueless. Like how to tell Lisette some news I was still hiding. Yeah I know I’m bad and selfish. Live with it. Love it.
“Eh…”
“What babe?”
“I’m not feeling this Nick; it sounds like it belongs on your album instead of mine.”
“There’s something wrong with that?” Like I need that shit from her. I already hear it in the business.
“I’m already dating you and my first album was very pop-ish. I’m trying to get away from that.”
Aight that ain’t cool. I know my ass stiffened up. I hate when people discredit my music. What the hell is so wrong about fun pop songs anymore? I mean fucking hell. I know I’m a rocker with most shit I listen to, but I do love the music I make. “There’s something wrong with our music Lis?”
I watched her sigh, like she’s sick of me. “Not wrong, I just want different.”
“Different.”
“Yeah, I still adore you. Just want a different style now.” She kissed me softly, and I let myself kiss her back like always. “And what is with you lately, you’ve been distant.”
I shook my head, putting the guitar down. Standing, I stretched. I don’t like this conversation. And I wasn’t even gonna start into all the shit bugging my fucked up mind. “Nothing, nothing at all baby.”
