𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: Shawn Hunter x Angela Moore
𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 5186 Words
That’s how their story starts. It shouldn’t be a surprise and it isn’t. She sees it coming, for months actually. In the little things like how she can no longer find the things in him to make her laugh even when she was upset at him as she usually does. He pulls away much quicker when he kisses her, and it feels cold when he is next to her. She sees it coming and it still hurts when it ends.
They were never supposed to be forever. They weren’t Cory and Topanga and they’d never been. Words like forever, soulmate; those words were never in their vocabulary but somewhere along the way, it became possible and she could see herself spending her life with him. And what she saw, she liked it. She wanted it.
The words feel like an insult for so long. It doesn’t quite do it justice. There is a large gaping black hole where her heart should be and sucks the joy out of her days and the colour from her world. It’s almost sad to mention but heartbreak doesn’t capture it. For a long time, she fixates on the breakup, relaying the few moments in her mind. It’s not one event but a long string of moments that seem to inevitably lead to their ruination.
His words replay in her mind. The expression on his face imprinted in her mind no matter how hard she tries to escape it. In her minds’ eye, he is warm and doe-eyed, his hair a mess on his head, indicating that he just got out of bed. She doesn’t need his hair to tell that though. He’s been missing for two days and she’s been worried out of her mind.
Before he can say something sweet and smile that dopey smile that never fails to make her resolve disappear completely, she speaks. “I think we should break up.”
His eyes go wide, the sleepy expression disappearing immediately. Shawn squints at her and raises his brow. “I disagree.”
“No, I want to break up.” She bites into her bottom lip. “I’m breaking up with you, Shawn.” Her voice breaks and it sounds less sure that she’d intended for it to be.
His pain is clear on his face, his expression taken aback for a moment and Angel decides that she can’t stand to look at him. She moves to turn around, but Shawn grabs her arm before she can, tugging her towards him lightly. She moves, although she hates herself for it, as it seems that she can never help but to be pulled towards him. Shawn laces her fingers with his lightly and stares down at her behind soft eyes.
“Hey, come on. You don’t have to do that. We can talk about it.” His other hand moves strands of hair out of her face and his fingers hold her lightly. “I love you.”
Angela is weak. It is for this reason that she sinks into his touch, allowing herself to be held by him one more time because this time, it really is goodbye. No matter how many times in the past she’s told herself that. She’ll never be held by him again. Not like this.
“Where were you?” She manages to push herself from his hold, although it takes all of the willpower left in her. She feels cold without him.
Shawn struggles to answer. He opens his mouth to speak but no words come out and his expression is contorted into an expression of shame. It’s written all of his features. For a moment, she wants him to convince her that it’s not what she thinks and assure her that she’s wrong. This might be the only time that she doesn’t want to be right. But he hangs his head slightly and won’t look her in her eyes.
“So, you were drinking again?”
He stumbles over his words, as he attempts to explain. Shawn reaches out to her and Angel crosses her arms aver herself shielding herself from him. She won’t let herself be hurt by him anymore. “It was just this time. I tried to get back but then I was stuck and—”
“I’m tired, Shawn. I’m really tired and I’m sorry if it makes me a bad person but you’re not you when you drink.” She inhales deeply. Angela doesn’t feel tears and she’s grateful. She doesn’t think that she can get through this with tears. Her nails dig into her arms. She’ll miss him. “And you’re drinking more and more every day. And I’ve tried to help you. I’m there for you but me being here for you isn’t helping you get better. I’ve tried. The intervention. The meetings.”
“I’ll go to them again, please.” He’s pleading with her now, taking her hand and holding them in both of his. It makes her feel small. Shawn’s eyes are watery, tears welling up in his eyes, making the blue of them seem brighter. It takes her by surprise. She’s never expected to see actual tears from him. He was usually so good at hiding his emotions. Now he didn’t seem to make the effort. “I love you.”
The words threaten to weaken what is left of her resolve. Her fingernails make crescent moon shaped marks in the flesh of her palms. She takes a step back.
“And I believe you, but I don’t think what’s enough. You can’t want to get sober for me or you’ll never be sober. And I love you, sober or not, but I can’t keep taking myself apart to put you back together.”
Her heart feels numb. It’s nothing like she imagined. They might not be one for forever, but she thinks about the life that they possibly could have had, and she thinks that it is a good one. And more importantly, the one that they’d had before, that was good too. Better than good. But she means what she says and hard as it may be, they don’t need each other right now.
She does anyway, despite the fact that her legs feel like lead and her heart is heavy in her chest. It’s what is best for both of her, she tries to convince herself.
It really is goodbye this time. And she swears that she really believes it.
They meet again on a train of all places. All of their hopes of secretly being reunited during their years of college as they had been before had not panned out as they’d hoped and after a while, it became easier to simply avoid each other pretend that they had not been a part of each other’s world at some point. It’s less painful that way. At least it’s what they think.
They meet again on a train in France. She’s there on a trip, a well-deserved break from the constant hectic movement of her life. Moving from one place to another, especially for work, takes its toll. Shawn is there for work. They spend the night together, running around the city and reminiscing about what they used to be. Somewhere along the way, they simply don’t stop. They both fall into the habit of being around each other and find comfort in one another.
“Shawn, if I asked you to hold me right now, would it be selfish?”
There’s a shift in the weight on the bed. She doesn’t want to turn around to look at him. “Possibly.”
There’s a slight pause. “Would you hold me, Shawn?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Of course.” His arms wrap around her, his heart pressed against her back. They don’t talk but they don’t need to. His arms at that moment, feels like home. As much as she tries to convince herself otherwise, it’s Shawn. It always has been. She doesn’t voice her thoughts. Angela keeps them to herself as if they are something volatile and completely capable of breaking her.
But they fall into the routine of simply being around each other quickly. There is not much need to discuss much. They both happen to be exactly what the other needs. And suddenly, everything changes because of three words spoken into the dead of the night.
Angela begins to believe that time, here, has been the determining factor in their relationship. They are right for each other, but they weren’t ready before. And life, through all its storms and valleys, had weathered them and given them both space to grow individually before they can grow back together. She, for one, is grateful for it.
Because Shawn Hunter, strange as it might be, is her great love story.
She feels cold, wet hands snake around her body, holding her close from behind. One is planted on her hip and the other takes hold of the curve of her breast. Angela’s lips curl into a smile as he buries his face into the crook of her neck breathing deeply. Her heart swells slightly and that makes her smile more.
Kisses line her neck softly, starting out as small pecks planted along her bare skin. She shivers at the top. They become more aggressive and much more persuasive as his hands on her grip tighter. Angela allows herself to close her eyes quickly, leaning into his embrace. Her fingers go slack around the dish that she holds. She feels it beginning to slip from her grip and Angel catches herself, pushing herself forward, using his back as support.
Angela pushes him off her slightly and a low groan leaves his lips.
“This is not a good time.” She pauses. “I have dishes to finish and you know it takes forever. We won’t get anything done if we’re too busy messing around.”
He kisses her lips quickly and she indulges him, allowing herself to return the kiss but pulling away before it becomes so deep that she has a difficult time moving on. He holds onto her waist. “So, let’s not get anything done. We can stay in bed forever and just never be apart for the rest of our lives.”
She raises her brow at him. “And for food?”
“We don’t ever have to eat. We’re in love. We’ll be sustained by our love alone for the rest of our lives.”
She pauses, turning to look at him with an incredulous expression. “That has to be the corniest thing that you have ever said in your entire life.”
He makes a face as if he can’t imagine that those words truly came from his life. “I know. It didn’t feel right to me either.” The effect that she has on him. Shawn isn’t completely sure that she’s aware of its true extent. She kisses him quickly.
“But I’m serious. We don’t have to do this. We can rob banks for a living and never work or fix broken hinges and wash dishes. We can live on the road for the rest of our lives, moving from hotel to hotel. We’ll be like Bonnie and Clyde.”
“But make it sexy.” He nods at her, waggling his brow at her in a suggestive manner.
“And we’ll steal food and leave no record of our existence behind.”
“You are aware that they died, right, babe?”
He grips her ass with both his hands drawing her closer to him. The sudden motion causes the glass dish in her hands to fall to the ground with a clatter, shattering as it makes an impact. Fragments of broken glass go flying to different corners of the room that she’s certain she’ll be picking up days later. Her body is pressed directly against his, as he’d pulled her towards him when the dish fell. At the moment, Shawn had managed to chase every thought of the broken dish from her mind.
Instead, she focuses on the way that he holds her, his arms wrapped around her midsection and her back flush against his front. There’s a very obvious suggestive meaning to it but there’s something more subtle behind it as well. His arms around her feel protective, even if he is attempting to protect her from an inanimate object. Still, it’s reassuring and a clear reminder of what he’d promised her.
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” he whispers beside her ear, his warm breath fanning against her skin making her all the more aware of the lack of distance between them. She turns hot beneath his gaze and it’s crazy to her that he can still manage to do that. “But I would gladly die for you, wife.”
Angel turns around in his arms, putting her arms around his neck. Over his shoulder, she can see the door to their bedroom laying on the ground where he seems to have abandoned it. It is one of the several things about their new flat that they have to fix. It is, for all it’s worth, a good find but there is rarely anything good that happens without a few fixes. And lucky for her, she’s married to a fixer.
“As would I, husband.” She kisses him deeply, their tongues meet. It is quite the contrast from a few years ago where it might have taken them a moment to get past the strange invasive awkwardness of another person taking up much space. Now they fit together easily without many thoughts and it feels like steady waves beating against her heart. Angela pulls back much to his protest.
Her lips move against her when she speaks. “But there will be no need for that.”
“At least not if you give your darling wife a hand and clean up the mess that you just made so she doesn’t cut herself and bleed out in your arms.”
His eyes narrow at her and the brief moment of irritation—or slight anger—at her words gives her a chance to slip away. “That is so dark. It’s not funny.” His voice is steady, but his eyes give away just how much it affects him. Not much scares him but losing her, that scares him. And he doesn’t take that lightly.
Angela raises her hands in the air in a small surrender, backing away from him without watching her path. Shawn shakes his head at her as he picks up a broom from the corner. “You are so lucky that I love you.”
She doesn’t speak for a long time. When it happens, it feels as if a part of her leaves permanently as well. She feels hollow and empty. Angela cannot stand to look at herself in the mirror. She cannot stand to do much.
It doesn’t dawn on her until the craziness of it all has passed and all of the nurses have stopped coming into the hospital room every few minutes to make sure that something more hadn’t happened. Angela is finally all alone in the silence of it all and it’s nearly deafening. She feels alone. It’s not easy to reconcile the truth with herself. That in the past three months, she has not felt lonely for a moment. Because she never was, not until a few days ago. Although, up until a few days ago, she’d been pregnant and expecting a child.
And now she’s not.
Angela had not been entirely sure if she was been ready for a baby in the first place. Shawn had surprisingly been the one who was most excited at the thought of raising a child who would literally behalf of her and him. He had been so excited about it. She was the one who had been reserved. She hadn’t wanted to get too excited about a baby, worried about repeating her mother’s mistakes. And now she doesn’t even have the chance to try.
God, what if she’s killed their baby? What if somehow her body had known that she wasn’t mentally ready and that is the reason that their baby is dead?
Silent sobs escape her lips and she curls up into herself, her fingers gripping the clean hospital's pillowcase. She doesn’t bother to silence her sobs and to his credit, Shawn allows her to cry as much as she needs to. It’s killing him, to hear the sounds that she makes and know that there is nothing that he can do to take away her pain. He feels some of it—after all, that was his child as well—but it’s not the same and there is no way for him to compare it. He’s not the one who has carried their unborn child and felt the movement. It’s not the same. It will never be the same.
But he sits at the foot of the bed, his hands draped over her feet. His form acts as a protection to her although the things that she really needs protection from are not external.
She dreams for the first time that night. In her dreams, everything is red. There is blood everywhere. Every surface is coated in the stuff, crimson red and thick. The image is burned into her mind. Dark liquid pooling between her legs and the entire world had stopped for a moment. Angela wakes up in a scream, her entire body trembling uncontrollably. It seems that even in her sleep, she can’t escape her grief.
He’s still at the foot of her bed when she wakes.
Shawn is by her side, within seconds, holding her as she stares into the darkness, her eyes focused on nothing. Her mouth is frozen in a scream. There are tears rolling down her face, staining her cheeks and her body racks against his embrace. She doesn’t speak and it terrifies him but Shawn fills the silence. “I am so sorry. I am so so sorry.” He doesn’t know what else he could possibly say that could help her. “I am so sorry.” He holds her that way, repeating the words until eventually, she’s calm. She falls asleep in his arms.
She doesn’t speak for days. It feels as if a piece of herself is missing. When she does finally begin to bounce back, Shawn is there. He is the only good part of this, as her entire world feels as like it’s falling apart but even he can’t take away just how awful it is.
Angela heals, slow as it may seem. She heals and eventually it becomes another scar on her heart that scabs over never completely gone. Their marriage stays together, and her husband is her rock. She can’t seem to get past the conversation of children. He doesn’t push her especially since what they lost but he wants children and she can tell. She wants children too, even if it is harder for her to admit. But every time that she begins to feel as if she might be coming to terms with somebody’s mother, there are the hangups. The little part that she can’t get over.
It takes years for her to finally figure out what she wants. And it takes a pregnancy test.
Angela sits beside her husband, on their ground. His hands held hers in his. They are on the bathroom floor, the discarded box of the pregnancy test on the ground. Her knee bounces uncontrollably. “It will be fine, babe and whatever the results are, we will be fine.” He kisses her lips. “I promise that I will be here, and I will try with everything that I have to be the best father to a possible child.”
She grins at him. “I know.” Her fingers tighten around the stick. “You will be the best father. And we’d have the best children.”
“Beautiful children who are smart and well behaved.”
He plays with the ring on her finger. “But not snooty and they have to know how to have fun.”
“Absolutely,” she whispers through smiles.
“And our kid has to be able to play at least one sport.”
Her eyes widen at him. “That’s your deal-breaker?”
“Not a deal-breaker. Nothing could ever be a deal-breaker for me, not when you’re involved.” She places her head on his shoulder. “And our kid would grow up without our abandonment issues because we would be there for them. Always. No matter what. And we would show them how to love right from the start. They’ll be better than us.”
Angela inhales deeply, her eyes shut. Her finger squeezes his. “I’m going to say something and it’s completely crazy, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while now and I want to get it all out before I have a chance to take it back.”
“I want kids, Shawn. I want to have a little me and a little you and I want to raise children with you and watch them grow up as we grow old together. I want all of it with you, Shawn and I think that you do too. But I don’t want to have kids. I don’t think that I could do it again. I just can’t imagine myself giving birth without completely breaking down, but I do want kids with you.”
“I want us to be parents. I want to adopt us to a baby, Shawn.”
He’s frozen, eyes wide open at her. His fingers wrapped around her index finger are tighter. Shawn blinks slowly, his mind processing at the only place that he can. “I know it’s sudden, but you can have as much time to think about it as you want. I just wanted you to know that it’s a possible—” He kisses her suddenly, swallowing the words in her mouth, his fingers shifting so that their fingers are interlaced as they kiss. He pulls away and nods at her softly, a dumbstruck expression still frozen on his face.
“I want us to be parents too.”
She smiles. “Yeah?” Shawn nods in answer, kissing her again, more softly this time.
When they pull away, Angela squeezes his fingers and turns over the stick in her hand.
“Wait, you have to take the other side and tuck it under here … not here … there … his leg, you’re crushing his leg.”
“I really think the tape would be a great option right now.”
Angela stops suddenly, to stare at her husband thought narrow eyes. He looks absolutely awful and she imagines that the same goes for her. They haven’t slept since they brought the baby home two days ago. The little respite that she’s managed to get has been over two or three-hour stretches when Benji manages to fall asleep, which does not happen all too often. He sleeps as most babies do but he doesn’t seem to sleep for a long stretch of time as is to be expected.
“We can’t use duct tape to put his diaper on.”
“Well, it’s not as if we have another choice. These diapers have to be defective somehow.” That doesn’t seem possible to her. It seems like no matter how hard they try, the diapers only seem to know how to come loose. The only other option is that they’re simply both awful at this. That seems like the more likely choice.
“How are you unable to put on diapers on a baby?”
Shawn raises his brow at her, pointing his index finger at her. “Hey, from what I’ve gathered, you don’t seem to be much better at it than I am.”
“Well, why are you yelling at me?”
“Why are you yelling at me?”
Angela throws her arms up into the air. She exhales through her lips, her anxiety level still at what seems like an all-time high. “Do you see what this baby is doing? He’s turning us against each other and we can’t do that. That is exactly what he wants.”
“Angela, he’s barely a month old.”
The end up using duct tape to keep the diaper secure, at least for the time being. It’s not their proudest moment but it is the best solution that they could come up with and that is what parenting is all about isn’t it? Or at least that’s what she’s heard. Truth be told, she doesn’t know a thing about parenting seeing as she’s only been a parent for two weeks.
Angela had been foolish enough to believe that after the processing, the birth of the child and the actual adoption process, things might slow down slightly for them. They’d opt for a closed adoption, mostly because Angela doesn’t want to have to deal with it down the road. She doesn’t need anything that would make her son feel like he was less of hers.
Benji moves around in his slight manner on the bed, eyes staring at her as wide as they can. Tears fill his eyes and the wailing follows almost immediately, as it always does without fail. Angela exhales deeply. From across the room, Shawn places his hand on the knob of the door, attempting to slip away without being seen.
He exhales slightly. “I want to get more diapers. There has to be a problem with these.”
Angela picks Benji off the bed, one hand tucked underneath his arm and the other at the back of his head. Still, she doesn’t bring him close to her body as his crying seems to only intensify the closer he is to her. “I don’t care. Don’t you dare leave me with him, you hear me? Because he hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.” Shawn closes the gap between them so that he’s standing at the edge of the bed.
“He literally hates me.” Angela attempts to hand him off to Shawn, her arms are outstretched. Her husband folds his arms over his chest, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t know what to do. All that he does is cry if I even dare to come near him.” As if on cue, their son’s wails become louder and turns into a shriek that leaves a loud shrill echoing sound in both of their ears. It’s impossible to ignore.
“He doesn’t hate you. He’s a baby.” He steps away suddenly and he moves around so that he's standing behind her. Shawn places his hand gently in the crook of her arm, bending her elbow slightly. “You just have to keep trying. For one, it would probably be easier if you actually carried him and held him close to your body instead of holding him as if he’s a ticking bomb.”
Angela doesn’t bother to tell him that the reason she’s holding him that way is that he seems to be more upset when she holds him close to her.
Nevertheless, she does as he says and she rests his small head lightly on her shoulders, resting her hand at his neck. He wails even louder. Angela paces the ground at a steady pace with light movements so as not to upset him further. “It’s not working, babe. Please just come take him.” She shuts her eyes swiftly because she’s certain that if she doesn’t, she might burst into tears.
“Talk to him and rub his back.”
Angela has never seen Shawn have to try this hard with their son since they brought him home. It comes naturally to him and it’s almost a surprise to her. It feels like magic how he can get him to go silent just as quickly as he gets loud. It feels stupid but at the moment, she feels jealousy. She sounds foolish. How is she jealous of her own husband getting along with their son?
She rubs his back in small circular motions in an attempt to soothe him. Angela thinks she might be mistaken when she notes that the volume of his cries is slightly decreased. “Please don’t cry. Please stop crying. What do you want?” Angela exhales, releasing her own anxiety. Her muscles relax slightly. She repeats the motion. In. Hold for three. Out. Hold for three. “I’m your mommy, okay? And I just want you to sleep so that I can sleep because I’m tired.”
The baby is clearly too young to understand anything that she says but saying the words aloud feels like a strange kind of therapy.
“But I already love you and I’ve only known you for less than a month.”
In.
His crying subsides slowly but surely, the high pitched sound leaving his lisp reducing slowly. Angela rubs his back, staring at Shawn behind him with wide surprised eyes. She doesn’t make any sudden motions, out of fear of shaking him from whatever state is allowing her to carry him. Slowly, he goes quiet, the only thing to be heard, the light side of his breathing. Angela lays down on the bed, resting Benji on her chest lightly. Shawn lays down beside her, his weight causing the bed to sink slightly on his side.
Benji’s breathing is a steady hum. It’s far too soon for him to be asleep but she gives him a few more minutes.
“You see,” Shawn whispers towards the ceiling. “He doesn’t hate you. There’s no way he could possibly hate you.”
At his side, he links his hand with her free hand, tracing small circles into her hand with his thumb. She speaks in hushed tones. “I don’t know. Maybe he could tell that I was hesitant or unsure. I don’t know, can babies tell that?” She feels his small heartbeat in a rhythmic thump against her chest and it causes warmth to move throughout her.
Angela has been scared, more scared than she cares to admit. She’s been terrified that after the miscarriage, she might never be able to feel that warmth towards their child. And she doesn’t want to give Benji anything less than all of her. All of her love. All of our time and effort. She only had a mother for half her life, and she’d taken off. The sense of not being enough has haunted her for so long. It is one of the many ways that she and Shawn are alike. They’re both broken people in their own respective but there is something to be said for broken people finding a way to make those broken pieces fit.
Benji falls asleep quickly, he exhales falling into patterned snoring. She places him into his crib.
Angela falls back onto the bed, besides her husband. “This is our baby, you know?”
He nods softly at her, linking their fingers as he turns into her slightly. He places his head on her chest, his arm wrapped around her waist. “I do know that. Yes, I know.” Her fingers move through his hair. “This is our baby.” Angela closes her eyes, the warmth of his skin against hers making it easier for her to drift to sleep. It feels like a relief.
This is their baby. This is their home. This is their family. Whatever it may be, it is theirs. She thinks they’ve done well.
