The day was warm and bright, not a single cloud could be seen, the ground below his feet already warm. For a weekday the large area of trees and dirt trails was a bit busier then what he had expected but it was mainly people from a certain generation, a generation, he hoped, full of people who would not recognise him. He was pulled forward slightly by Layla when she spotted another Dog in the distance, her barks drawing it’s attention as it began to bark back.

“Layla-” He warned as he tugged on her leash, “Sit.” The sandy coloured dog did as she was commanded but continued to bark occasionally at passing dogs, cars and people on push bikes. Nick glanced down at his watch for what seemed like the millionth time since he had arrived. It was eleven forty, she was ten minutes late, Adie was never usually late for anything, he scanned the parking lot again, sighing when he did not spy her or her car anywhere. She had stood him up. He angrily fished in his shorts pocket for his cell phone, hitting the speed dial that held her number and quickly placed it up to his ear. It rang for all of two seconds before she answered.

“I’m late I know. I’m about two minutes away,” She told him.

“Okay. I’ll see you in a bit, I’m by the first trail,” he told her.

“Alright, bye.”

“Bye,” he echoed as he removed the phone from his ear, clicking the end call button before placing it back in his pocket and sure enough when he looked to the entrance of the parking lot again he saw her pull up. The roof of the red convertible VW beetle was down and when she pulled to a stop he could see her frantically try and sort her wind swept hair out in the rear view mirror. He watched as she opened the door, reached for her purse and then proceeded to loop it around her neck and left shoulder, letting it hang loosely on one hip before she slammed the door shut. She looked around momentarily before she obviously spotted him and walked in that direction and he had to keep a tight hold on Layla’s leash as she wagged her tail and whined in excitement of seeing the familiar face.

“Hi,” she said as she reached him but before he could reply she had bent down and was petting the dog. “Hello to you to,” she greeted in her best baby talk voice as she showed the excited dog some attention.

“Aren’t you hot in those?” Nick asked when she stood and brushed the dirt of the knees of her black sweat pants.

She sighed at his comment, it had been half the reason she was late. She had woken up this morning and she had just felt like her stomach had completely expanded, sure it had started to harden, yes she should have expected it but it was almost as if telling Nick and her family had caused this ballooning to happen. Then again maybe it was because she had practically lived in scrubs and sweats since she found out, the items of clothing loose, comfy let her wallow in her own self denial. None of her shorts would do up, she knew she wouldn’t feel comfy in a skirt if they were going to walk the dog, and her jeans had just been too uncomfortable when she had tried to squeeze herself into a pair. That had only left her with one option, her sweats and while the were comfy around her suddenly expanding waist line, they did nothing to hide the small protruding roundness. That hadn’t been the only thing she had noted a change in, her breasts seemed far fuller and god did the ache when she had woken up this morning. She had thought the would have been the first thing that he would have noticed but when she looked up to him after she finished wiping the dried earth from her sweats she realised she had caught him staring at her stomach.

“Nothing else fits,” she said softly, making him shift his gaze to her eyes a small smirk apparent on his face. “Don’t,” she warned.

“Don’t what?” he asked confused.

“Laugh at me.”

“I wasn’t, I…you’re pregnant it’s supposed to happen,” he told her.

“I know. Can we go towards the creek? I don’t think I wore the right shoes for the woods,” she asked as they both glanced down to her flip flop clad feet.

He chuckled as he looked back up at her, squinting in the midday sun before he said, “Sure.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes both unsure about what needed to be said, how to approach a situation as complicated as the one they were in and Adie had never felt so distanced from a person even though she was stood right next to him, only inches apart. She could feel the tears start to well up from behind her eyes and foolishly blamed it on the hormones racing through her ever changing body, totally ignoring the real reasons for her emotions as she fished into her bag for the sun glasses she knew were in there. It was when she went to put the case away she realised there was also another pair in there. A pair of Nick’s because he always forgot to take them and it would drive her insane with the amount of complaining and squinting he would do. She had totally forgotten that they were in there until now and so she pulled them out and handed them to him, knowing that he would want them.

He laughed slightly when he took them from her, “Guess some things never change huh?”

It was just a pair of sunglasses, a small insignificant item that you could live without if you really had to, but it got her thinking. How many small insignificant items did a baby need? What would happen if he forgot diapers? Formula? To check the temperature of the bath water? How would he cope with looking after a newborn or a toddler by himself? Because that was their reality. There would be no team work here, there would be no sharing late night feeds, diaper changes, it was going to be all then nothing. One of them was going to have the baby while the other didn’t, they wouldn’t be there to support each other and she knew for at least the first few months she was going to be the one with that baby, she had one thing he didn’t and she wanted to breast feed. Was that really fair to him? To steal those first weeks away from him? Was it really fair to her? To be constantly there for a newborn with no support? How the hell were they supposed to work this out because she couldn’t see it getting any easier the further time went on either, who would their baby spend Christmas with? Birthdays?

“I heard Rach kind of chewed you out yesterday,” he said breaking her from her thoughts.

“Yeah,” she scoffed.

“What about your folks? How did they take the news?” He asked as they strolled along the water’s edge.

“Kind of shocked but my Dad’s excited said that if she’s born on his birthday it would be the best present, I think that kind of tipped Rach over the edge.”

“Alex said she’s moody a lot at the moment, said he found her sobbing at an infomercial the other day and the ten minutes later she was cussing out the dishwasher when it wouldn’t start.”

“He said that he’s giving her the benefit of the doubt at the moment,” she told him with a small laugh, a sound that quickly stopped with his next comment.

“Should I be doing that with you?”

She stayed quiet and carried on walking not realising he hadn’t followed her until she was at least twelve paces away from him and when she looked back she saw him lean down and take Layla off the leash so she could have a swim, a favourite past time of hers. She spotted a bench not too far away and headed towards it, crossing her arms across her chest as she sat down and waited for him to catch her up. He sat down next to her and placed the leash in the floor at his feet.

“How is this going to work?” He asked as he stared out across the expanse of water before them.

“I don’t know,” was the only reply she could think of.

“I don’t want to be a weekend Dad, I don’t want to argue with you at Christmas’s or Birthday’s, I don’t…I don’t want the only time that I am going to see you be when I’m picking her up or dropping her off. I don’t want to miss the first smile, the first tooth, the first crawl, the first steps. I want to be with you through all of this, I want you to wake me up in the middle of the night because you have a hankering for ice cream, I want to see you sobbing at infomercials one minute then be bitching at me the next,” he said reaching for her hand but she pulled away quickly. “Why don’t you want that?”

“It just won’t work.”

“That’s bullshit Adie and you know it. Four months ago you were unhappy because I wouldn’t commit to you, because I said I was unsure if I wanted to have kids but here I am ready and willing and you still push me away, I can’t win with you. I know I have been closed off but I was trying, I was making an effort and maybe it wasn’t quick enough for you but I was trying.”

“You don’t want this,” she stated.

“Stop telling me what I fucking want and don’t want!” He almost hissed making her tense at a tone she had never heard from him.

“Look Nick I haven’t come here to try and work on us, I’ve come here to try and work out how this is all going to work okay? I’m more than happy for you to be a part of her life, but that’s it, you can be a part of her life, not mine. We’re over, that part of our lives is finished and nothing you say to me is going to change that,” she told him quite harshly but if it was the only way he was going to get the message then so be it.

She could feel his stare on her even though she was looking dead ahead out at the water and she expected for some smart retort, some argument against what she had just told him but he just shook his head and pushed himself up from the bench, walking away from her, whistling to Layla who quickly swam back to the shore line. She sighed deeply and watched as he picked up a stick throwing it out into the water, Layla swimming eagerly to get it. She was so tempted to just get up and walk in the opposite direction back to her car but she knew that she needed to make him see today, she knew they had to come up with something and so she lent down and picked up the leash he had left on the floor and took off after him.

“I love you, doesn’t that mean anything?” He asked softly when she reached him.

“I have an doctors appointment on Thursday it’s at ten am, you can come if you want,” she offered, ignoring his last comment.

“I don’t believe you can fall out of love with someone as quickly as you have unless you never really loved them at all. Did you never really love me?” He asked.

“It’s not about love.”

“Then what is it about?” he asked again, throwing the stick when Layla had retrieved it.

“Protecting her,” she whispered.

“From me?” he asked turning his head to Adie and she didn’t miss the hurt that flashed through his blue eyes.

She shook her head, “No, from us, from all the fighting and arguing.”

“What happened to you?” He asked staring her down.

“What?” She asked confused.

“What happened? You used to be the most positive person I knew, you had a great upbringing with great parents it’s not like you’ve witnessed first hand a bitter divorce, so why so pessimistic all of a sudden? Did I do that to you?” he asked.

“No. No it wasn’t you,” she told him knowing instantly she had given away too much.

“But it was somebody?”

“Are you going to come on Thursday or not?” She asked trying to change the subject.

“Of course I am. So this is it? This is how our lives our going to be?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded.

“I meant what I said you know. I will get you back, no matter how long it takes,” he told her firmly.

“I have to go,” she said turning on her heel but he grabbed her arm softly stopping her and for a moment she thought he was going to pull her into a kiss again but he didn’t.

“Wait…there’s something I need to give you, it’s in the car,” he said whistling to Layla again before he started heading in the direction of the car, knowing that, at least for today, she was a lost cause and it was better to let her go rather then run the risk of pushing her further away. They walked the five minute journey back to their cars in silence, and when they were five feet from his car he unlocked it leaving her to wait for him. He reappeared a few moments later with three leather bound books and instantly she knew what they were. She had seen him writing in them ever since they had moved in together but she had never questioned him about them, had never tried to find where he kept them even though she had so desperately wanted to see what he had been writing.

“Are you sure you want me to have these?” She asked taking them from him.

“Yeah. Read them.”

“Okay. So I’ll see you Thursday?” She asked.

“Yeah, do you want me to pick you up?” He asked as he opened the trunk so Layla could jump in.

“Erm no I can meet you there,” she said as she clutched the diaries close to her chest.

“Fine, I’ll see you Thursday,” he said as he watched her walk the short distance to her own car. She waved bye before starting the engine and moving out of her space and two minutes later her shiny red car had left his sight of vision and he slumped back against the door of his own car with a sigh. A twenty minute encounter with her had left him feeling drained and yet nothing had changed, she was still adament that nothing was going to change between them. He looked at his watch it was only twelve fifteen, there was no way he wanted to go home yet and so he opened the trunk door again and Layla hoped out.

“Come on, lets go for a run,” he said as he clipped her leash to her collar before closing the trunk and locking the car.

***

She looked at her watch as she sat in traffic, barely twelve thirty, their encounter couldn’t have lasted more the fifteen minutes tops. She wiped at the tear that spilled past her sunglasses and tried to pull herself together, wanting to kick herself at alost giving away too much.

How could one person do this to her? Make her question everything? She thought she had gotten past all that, gotten over what had happened so long ago but this was almost as if history was repeating itself, yes the situation was slightly different but the outcome was the same, she was still hurting just as badly. The main difference was that this time she would have the baby and this time she wouldn’t be the only one that was hurting, he would be too.

A strangled smile fell from your face
It kills me that I hurt you this way
The worst part is that I didn't even know
Now there's a million reasons for you to go
But if you can find a reason to stay

I'll do whatever it takes
To turn this around
I know what's at stake
I know that I've let you down
And if you give me a chance
Believe that I can change
I'll keep us together whatever it takes

She said "If we're gonna make this work
You gotta let me inside even though it hurts
Don't hide the broken parts that I need to see"
She said "Like it or not it's the way it's gotta be
You gotta love yourself if you can ever love me"

I'll do whatever it takes
To turn this around
I know what's at stake
I know that I've let you down
And if you give me a chance
And give me a break
I'll keep us together, I know you deserve much better

But remember the time I told you the way that I felt
That I'd be lost without you and never find myself
Let's hold onto each other above everything else
Start over, start over

I'll do whatever it takes
To turn this around
I know what's at stake
I know I've let you down
And if you give me a chance
And believe that I can change
I'll keep us together whatever it takes

Song: Whatever it takes - Life house - Recommended by Yara!