Robbers’ Sideblog

The desaster came in stages, like so many of them do. Matty always deemed it a fatal misconception of the human mind that a catastrophe always came upon you unexpected, something you were completely at the mercy of. By his own experience, there were warning-signs more often than not, a buildup, leaving you more than enough time to react to it. The only condition for that to work was that there was somebody around to notice the disaster brewing. And it wasn’t exactly like Lily didn’t try to warn him about it. She did. Everytime he came home from one of his trips to the city with the next item for the baby’s room which was “absolutely necessary, honestly, everybody has that, we’ll look like absolute clowns if we don’t.” And that was how a made-to-order changing table, a cradle for several thousand dollars and an aesthetically fitting rocking-chair made their way into the house. Matty figured it wasn’t his fault that suddenly there seemed to pop up a new shop offering designer baby supplies all over London and he basically couldn’t go to the city anymore without seeing something he was absolutely convinced they still needed. It was also

not his fault, he figured, that the good weather drew him to the city on a regular and way more often than not, his premonition of window-shopping-only turned into facts before he could do anything about it. He carried the heaviest bags through half of the city and there was barely a day where the postal-service didn’t ring their doorbell with huge deliveries.

The breaking-point came one afternoon in late August. Matty didn’t see what exactly happened but he heard a bang and when he yelled if everything was ok, he didn’t get an answer. He never ran a flight of stairs down so fast in his life. Lily sat on the floor a few steps behind the entrance door, one hand held to her head. The sight made Matty take three steps at once, literally jumping down the stairs.

“Lily? What happened? Are you ok? Do you need something?”

He was by her side in no time, sitting down next to her, phone already halfway pulled out of his jeans, ready to call the first emergency-number he remembered.

“I’m ok, I think…”, but hissed when she removed her hand from her head. Matty kneeled down next to hear.

“Do you feel dizzy or something?”, he asked, taking a closer look at her temple. There was a slight cut through the skin from where a little bit of blood ran down her temple.

“No, I don’t. Just had a bit of a shock.”

“Good. The not dizzy I mean. That’s good. How many fingers?”

He held three up in front of her face and she answered correctly, the hint of a smile on her lips. Matty searched his pockets for a pack of tissues and did find one indeed he used to wipe the small droplets of blood from Lily’s head.

“I’d say it’s just a cut but maybe we should get you to the hospital anyway, just to check and-”

Lily put a hand on his, shaking her head. “I’m not going to spend my afternoon in an ER just for them to laugh at us when we get there. It’s fine. One of the smaller boxes came down and graced my head a little, that’s where the cut is from, I guess. It’s ok. I didn’t fall and it only touched my head.”

He didn’t really hear what she said, his mind was too busy going through the options now. He still considered a hospital the savest option but maybe they could talk to the medical on-call-service first before going there?

“Matty? Hey…” Lily’s hand was on his cheek carefully making him look at her. “We’re good, ok? Nothing happened.”

“Are you absolutely sure? I still think we should-”

“I am sure. I don’t want to go to the hospital now and I really don’t think we need to. We’re good. The only thing I’d suggest is that we…maybe…fix this?”

She gestured around the space where all of the parcels were stored.

“Yeah. Yeah sure, of- of course. I wanted to do this for ages, actually, I should have done this before, I’m so sorry. I-”

Lily taking his hand in hers and putting a kiss to the back of it interrupted him.

“It’s ok, darling. Please don’t worry. We can just do it now, alright?”

They would learn soon enough that this was way more easily said than done. Matty swore to the god he didn’t believe in that when he started to park the parcels in the hallway, because he didn’t know where else to put them, there had been a system. Heavy things that needed assembling stacked on each other on the right. Technical equipment like bottle-warmes, clinical thermometers and lightening to the left. Toys in between those two piles on the right. Clothes spread over all of the towers as some sort of layer. And on top of that decorative elements, like the mobile that just went rogue and hit Lily in the head. But it didn’t take them too long to figure out that none of this former system was existent anymore. Everything was just all over the place and he would later on even come to see that some of the heavier things were stored upon others and they probably had been really lucky that the thing that hit Lily in the head had only been the mobile.

“Ok, this is…a mattress, I think…?”, Matty said as if he was asking himself, trying to identify the name on the label of the parcel he just lifted off the pile.

Lily chuckled from her place on the chair where Matty had put her. He had forbidden her to lift a finger and was still monitoring her closely from time to time, watching for any signs of dizziness, sickness or that anything else was wrong with her.

“Another one?”, she asked, raising her eyebrows, “That means we’re at…”, she took a loook at her phone where, as he knew, she kept a list of the things they were discovering here, “three mattresses.”

“But the last one we had didn’t fit the bed anyway, right? So it’s two”, Matty argued, smiling triumphantly.

“Yeah….yeah, I guess…”, Lily said, the look she shot him half concerned, half amused.

“See? It’s not that bad”, Matty argued while climbing down from the ladder he stood on and putting the mattress in the left corner where parts of the bed and the changing-table stood. He leaned it against the other mattress, the one that didn’t fit was already laying on the rapidly growing pile of things that needed to be returned or sold at some point. Matty decided to not look at it any further.

When he returned, his gaze fell on quite a huge parcel which was resting way too high up for his liking. He stepped back on the ladder again and grabbed for it. It was way more heavy than he expected it to be and his stomach turned once more at the sheer thought of it being a parcel of this weight coming down instead of the one that did.

“This…”, he said, turning it in his hands curiously, “could be….”, he turned it again, finding the shipping label, finally. But the name didn’t ring any bell whatsoever. “I have no idea what this is, I’m sorry.”

“Give it to me then”, Lily said, smiling softly at him. He didn’t follow suit though. “Yeah, absolutely not, this is way too heavy for you”, he explained, putting it down next to her on the floor instead. Lily pointed her phone-camera at the label.

“AI says it’s from a shop for cradles. But we have a cradle already and it came differently packed. Any idea what this might be?”

He looked at her puzzled, his mind racing, trying to find out what it could be he ordered. A thousand things came to his mind. Teddybears and fuzzy blankets and Toni-boxes and a-

“Could be a playpen”, he finally said, and Lily reached for the knife lying next to her on the floor.

“Alright, let’s see…”

The first few packages, she made him imitate a drumroll when she did that. None of them had the energy to keep that up anymore now. Lily slid the parcel open and exhaled audibly.

“That bad, huh?”, Matty asked, not really sure if he was kean to know the answer.

“It’s… a rocking cradle. The next one, actually.”

Matty felt a lump built up in his throat. It was the first time in all these hours they did this he heard something in Lily’s voice that hadn’t been there before. Resignation.

“I’ll check which one has the better reviews and send the other one back”, he hurried to promise, but Lily only buried a hand in her hair, exhaling audibly while she looked at him.

“I’ll have it done by tomorrow. I promise. Give me two more days and I swear all of this is solved. We’ll have it sorted out. I’ll sort it out. Don’t you worry, ok it’s-”

“But I am worried, Matty.”

Lily’s voice wasn’t loud, although she interrupted him. But the worried undertone dripped out of every word. He swallowed. Hard.

“No”, he hurried to say, “No. No, please, don’t be, there’s no need. None it all. I have a plan, ok? I’ swear, this will all be done in a few days and nothing like this is ever going to happen again, I promise, I-”

“Is this you being manic?”

Her talent for being direct up to the point of cruelty showed in full force once again. There were times when he appreciated that. There were times when he didn’t. And there were times when he didn’t know what to do about it. This was one of them. He just stood there, looking at her, puzzled.

“What?”

It was the only thing he felt capable of saying.

“Is this”, Lily repeated, making a grand gesture as if she was to include the entire room full of all of these boxes, “you being manic?”

Matty exhaled audibly, burying a hand in his hair while he tried to figure out the answer to that question. He didn’t think about it, this far but when did one ever think about the things one did during a manic phase being such? Mostly, the revelation came after the breakdown, the crash, when the high wore off and he felt quite similar to becoming sober in the old times.

“Do we have to do something?”

The way she said “we” so casually, so naturally almost made tears fill up his eyes.

“No. No, Lily, I swear this is not…this is not it.”

She nodded slowly and he could hear and see her swallow hard.

“What is it then?”, she asked. He didn’t like the worry in her eyes. The plan was to not have her worried as good as possible. But apparently, this plan was failing. He climbed down from the latter and went over to her chair, kneeling down in front of her. He took both of her hands in his, resting them on her belly that slowly started to grow these past few weeks, inhaling deeply, trying to sort his thoughts out. It worked semi-well.

“I don’t really know how to put this into words so that you’ll believe me, but I’ll try anyway. I’ve never been this happy in my life, Lily. Never ever before have I been this happy before. I want this to be good, for the three of us. No, not just good, I want this to be perfect. I know that our baby is going to grow up in a home where they are loved and protected and supported no matter what. And I want them to know that. From the very first breath they take, I want them to know that. I don’t want there to be anything missing. When I buy three different kind of mattresses, I want us to have options so that we’ll be able to make the best decisions for them. I want to be prepared. I want it to be perfect. That’s all there is to it, Lily. I swear to god, that’s all there is to it.”

She just looked at him, not speaking, so he bowed down to put a kiss on top of her belly.

“I swear, Lily, there’s all there is to it. I’m fine. No, that’s not right, I’m not fine. I’m the best I’ve ever been. Still. I have been ever since you told me about our baby. I love you. Both of you. And you two are the best reason I ever had to take care of myself better.”

The sound Lily made was half a laugh, half a sob.

“You always have to make everything so dramatic, don’t you?”

He got up from his knees so that he could lean in to kiss her, hand still on her belly.

“I’m sorry for that, darling. I swear I’m working on it.”

(...)

“Alright…”, Lily said, putting a box down next to her on the floor. “Set of reusable nappies for, five and six. Should be a total of…30 now, I assume.”

“You might say this is too much but I swear we’ll be happy for every pair we have to spare, mark my words”, Matty said, picking the box up and putting it on the stairs where “stuff that is going to go upstairs” was stored. Why it didn’t occur to him before to that most of the things he bought were best kept in the room that was actually going to become their baby’s at some point, he had no idea.

“Are they at least in different sizes?”, she asked dryly and Matty cleared his throat.

“‘m sure they are…”, he said although if he was quite honest, he would have to admit he had actually no idea. Lily laughed and directed her attention to the next box.

“And more bottles as well”, she stated, “One could really think we don’t own a dishwasher in this house.”

Matty chuckled. “Those go to the kitchen, right?”, he asked and Lily just nodded. Matty carried the box over to the next rom and put it on the counter. They decided to leave the unpacking to another day and now focus on building back the tower of boxes in the hallway. When he came back, Lily had already took on the next box.

“These are…weird small sacks?”, Lily said questioningly, “I have no idea what to do with them, to be honest.”

Matty looked at them puzzled as well for a hot minute, then it dawned upon him.

“Oh! Those are warmies.”

“What?”

“It’s like a hot-water bottle, but without the hot water. I think there’s stones inside or something or…no, it’s not stones, it’s cherry-seeds. And you can put it in the oven or in the microwave so that it get’s warm and then it helps with tummy-aches. It’s more safe than a hot-watter-bottle I read. Look, I know this might seem over the top, but Lily, I swear-”

He stopped when she shook her head. “No, it’s fine- It’s actually really thoughtful, I think. We’ll definitely keep that.”

Matty smiled at her happily, taking the box out of her hands to put it on the stairs.

“Next up we have…Oh, that’s a nice one too, I think. It’s a cushion for breastfeeding, isn’t it?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Oh that’s really nice. Going to make both of our lives so much more comfortable, for sure…”, Lily smiled at him. Matty cleared his throat.

“Glad to hear you like it. I think there are two more similar ones. At least.”

“Well, we can choose which one we like the best”, Lily shrugged.

He noticed a while ago that she mostly gave up on looking at him scoldingly or sighing when he revealed that he at least bought two things of any kind, even more in some cases. Sometimes because he lost overview, sometimes because he thought he’d decide for one of the options later. He put the cushion on the “Things to be decided on later”-pile and took a look around. The pile of unidentified boxes was still huge, but not as massive anymore as it used to be a few hours ago. Everything was going to be ok. There was a solution, once again. He shot Lily a look. There was a bandaid where the cut was on her temple, but apart from that she looked fine. A bit exhausted, maybe, but apart from that, not hurt. That was good. No, more than that, actually. It was the most important thing of them all. That she was there, still. That she was ok. He shot the box she pulled up in her lap another look, knowing from the shape what it most probably was.

It was strange coming here in this state. Mainly, because “This State” wasn’t even such to begin with. When he entered the grounds of the private clinic in Hale before, he had been a mess, barely aware of his surroundings, his anxieties triggered through the roof by heroin-sideffects, his body so sleep-deprived, he walked around like a zombie. But now he walked in there securely on his feet, shoulders straightened and with way more awareness about the beauty of this place. The reception for example, where a man stood, smiling at him once he got close to the bar, gave hotel rather than clinic. The receptionist was wearing a uniform and Matty was sure if he had a hat on his head, he might as well have been sitting at the reception in a quite expensive hotel. 

“Mr. Healy! Welcome to The Town.”

Matty couldn’t help but smile a little. Hearing the oh so familiar accent now was comforting in ways he couldn’t even explain. It was why he chose this place now, this time and not one of the more fancy ones around London. 

“This is your keycard, I will guide you to your room in a minute. The first thing I encourage you to do, is download our app, please. In your room you’ll find a paper with a unique QR-code to be scanned with the app to log you in. Once this is done, you’ll find your weekly therapy plan which will be updated every Sunday at 5 p.m. for the upcoming week and on the go, of course, in case there are changes, so it’s really worth checking it a few times a day. You will get your first plan soon after your initial talk with the chief of the department responsible for you. Breakfast is every day from 6 to 8, lunch from 11 to 1 p.m. and dinner from 5 to 6 p.m. Therapy sessions start at 8.30. We kindly ask you to not be late to the sessions, especially when it’s a group therapy you attend. Do you have any further questions or is there anything else I can assist you with at the moment?”

Matty declined, pulling the hems of his right sleeve down with his hand. He let his gaze wander around the hallway. Everything here was different than what he was used to. Calmer, sort of. More welcoming. It would take him a while to understand where this came from, though. 

He set his room up first, which mainly meant emptying the suitcase as well as  the duffelbag he brought with him and putting its contains into the places where they belonged. Sweatpants, mainly. For working out, for yoga, for meditation, for walks in the park, because of course the fresh-air-conspiracy-theorists were in here as well. When he reached the bottom, he found a green turtleneck underneath his own clothes. A safety-pin attached a pink post-it to it that said “Don’t think I have forgotten”. And neither did he. It was the turtleneck she wore the day he met her at the record store. He took it out of the bag completely and unfolded it. There were little holes on its sleeves and he just remembered that he didn’t know when he saw her wear it for the last time. She kept it nonetheless, and now he would. A visual representation of the butterfly-effect leading them here. The best of his life. He didn’t put the shirt in the wardrobe, but placed it in the drawer of his nightstand. 

On top of the nightstand, he lined up the photos. George and him on the day they moved in together (“This is going to stay like this forever. Because this is how it’s meant to be. I never felt so whole in my entire life.”) . Adam and him posing in front of ELS during their first trip to the US (“One day, Adam, one day, I promise you, we’ll record in there. And it will be a fucking fabulous record, I can tell you that much…”). Ross braiding his hair while Matty sat between his legs (“This is the most intimate I’ve been with anybody in ages, I am not even kidding.”). Louis holding a bottle of beer into the camera, grinning shyly (“We won’t tell mum. I promise you, we won’t tell mum.”). His dad with both hands proudly on his shoulders while Matty held the guitar he just got for Christmas into the camera (“She is so beautiful, dad, thank you so much!.”). And a picture of Lily, of course, Lily’s face scrunched from giggeling after an absolutely stupid joke he made, the sunlight falling into her face perfectly, reflecting from her beautiful red hair (“I’m in love with you. I am so fucking in love with you, it’s pathetic. But it’s alright. I have accepted that. Because it’s absolutely impossible to feel anything but pathetic next to the grace that you are, the beauty, inside and out. So I’ll say it.  I’m in love with you.”). He put it up in front, so that it was most probably the first thing he was going to see every morning and the last thing before he fell asleep. There was quite a huge chance they would restrict his phone usage after his initial talk and he wasn’t even opposing it anymore. In fact, a part of him basically begged for it. All or nothing. No distractions. No methadone. Just him and the work he had to do. In every aspect. And when they did, the pictures would still be there. They would be. 

____ 

“To be quite frank with you, Mr. Healy, your application has been quite a surprise to me when I read it. I mean of course, the mentions of cocaine usage are something we treat quite regularly here, but to be honest with you, people who have a history comparable to yours, usually wouldn’t even consider this a problem. I’m not trying to belittle you or anything, I’m just trying to figure out what we’re dealing with here. Is there anything you probably didn’t tell us in your letter? Anything you’d like to add? It’s perfectly common that patients don’t disclose everything when they first reach out. But in order to get you the best possible support, we need to know as much as possible about the current situation.”

His voice was perfectly calm, like he really meant it. And Matty was inclined to believe him wholeheartedly.  Unfortunately, he also knew this was going to make what was to come even harder. 

“No. No there isn’t. And I know that’s hard to believe but I’m really ‘cokelifornia sober’ as my girlfriend puts it. So coke very occasionally plus weed it is, recently. No smack. No alcohol. No online games. Nothing else.”

The doctor wrote something down on his ipad. 

“When was the last time you used heroin?”

Matty told him the last date he remembered but added that it was possible there were shorter instances inbetween he didn’t recall anymore. The time between his final separation from Gabbriette and moving back to London was still filled with a lot of gaps where he sometimes couldn’t quite explain what he had been doing for days. He hated it.

The doctor wrote everything down before starting the physical exams. Matty was weighed, measured, his vitals checked, blood drawn and the doctor told him he would like to do a further exercise electrocardiogram in the next few days. He then called in a woman who would be his personal assistant the next few weeks, responsible for his therapy-schedule, having an eye on his stats and making sure he always got the right treatment. Matty couldn’t help but giggle to himself on the inside. Her hair was red. 

____ 

“Why are you here, Mr. Healy?”

The woman opposite of him was taller than him but younger, he figured. More like Lily’s age, maybe. Or maybe he just lost every sense of a relation between looks and actual age. Whatever it was, sexism plays a huge part, you knobhead, because no matter her age she managed to graduate from studying psychology. 

“Because I want to stay clean. Or to become really clean, that is and built the base to stay this way. No more coke, no more weed, nothing. And I feel like I never was this close to achieving that.”

“Where does this sudden urge come from?”

That was easy, Matty thought. 

And so, with a broad smile on his lips, he told her about Lily. About their relationship, about how much she calmed him down, made him feel secure, loved, worthy of such a thing like genuine love, affection. 

“And recently, we…we vaguely started to talk about children. About how nice it would be to have a baby, to raise a child together, to bring somebody else into what we built for ourselves here. And I’d love to. I really do. But I know I don’t only have to be clean for that, I have to stay this way. Like…there’s just no way I can relapse once there’s a baby involved. Like ever. I’ve seen what growing up in a household of untreated mental health struggles and addiction does to you and I can not let that repeat itself. I have to have the tools to not let this happen.”

“And you currently feel like you don’t have them?”

“No. No, I do, I just…need a touchup, I think. Because I’m so lucky that for once in a very long time, I’m with somebody who cares. With somebody who is willing to not give up on me. I promised her I would quit coke more times than I can count and I didn’t and she didn’t leave me.  And I need to do my part so that she doesn’t have to give up on me. I can’t put that all on her.”

“But she seems to be willing to take it, from what you just said”, his therapist threw in. 

“Well, she shouldn’t. It’s not her job to take care of me, especially not if there should be children involved at some point. It’s mine. I’m turning 40 next year, I should finally take responsibility for my life.” 

His therapist wrote something down.

“Is this the first time you think about having children?”

Matty shook his head. “No. But it was never that realistic, I think. Usually, those thoughts always came in stages when it was not even clear if the relationship was actually going to make it that far. I always…clung to that idea because I thought it could make something complete that was just so big in my head, that seemed so unreal. Or, more recently, that it could fix something that was inevitably broken. But this time it’s not like this. I’m not thinking ‘this relationship needs a child to bring it forward’ or ‘I think having a baby with her would make me feel like I’ll never leave her.’ I just…I just look at Lily and I think: ‘That’s it. She is it. That’s the person I want to raise a child with because I know she’s going to love them, she’s going to teach them about all the beautiful things in this world, because I know she’ll be patient and kind, no matter whether I have the capacities or not’. She sees things I don’t see, she makes me see things I couldn’t see. She made my life so so so much better since she’s in it and I love her so much. She believes in me. She considers me worthy to be the father of her children. She trusts me with it. And I think that’s all that counts.”

“That’s a lot of pressure you’re putting onto her. Making her image of you the only thing that counts. What if it changes? What if she decides one day that you aren’t good enough anymore?”

Matty swallowed hard.

“I think about that. Everyday. Once, at least. And that’s also why I’m here. Because I have to become a person who gives her absolutely no reason to even think about leaving me. Ever again. I have to become stable, reliable and able to deal with my shit. Because she deserves it. Because our child deserves it.”

The women opposite of him smiled at him. 

“I see what we have to work on.” 

______________

“Hope you enjoy lunchtime. I just finished mine and am off to another dance class. First rehearsals for Swan Lake this winter. I’m absolutely hyped! I’ll call you when I’m home, don’t quite know when I’m finished. I love you! I’m so proud of you. I love you so much.”

He saw her message in the late afternoon, right before his last session of the day. They were encouraged to leave their phones in their rooms throughout the day and mostly the days were so packed with activities that this was the better option anyway. Matty had group therapy this morning, followed by resilience training, he booked himself into the music-room for a couple of hours before finishing the day off with two hours at the gymn, a massage-session on the Aqua-Jet-machine and a visit to the pool. 

He discovered quite early on that he was doing best when he kept himself busy, constantly talking to his advisor about how they could optimise his schedule to keep him occupied. That was how he ended up on the floor now, sitting on his yoga mat, waiting for the others to come in. 

He chose an advanced class because he considered it most helpful for his goal of achieving something and since he enjoyed the last session a lot, he was curious about what was going to come this time. There were not many people around him, although the session was supposed to start in several minutes. Matty only saw three women doing some stretching on their mats and one guy sitting on his, legs crossed and so absolutely calm Matty wondered if he was meditating. He didn’t do that in a while, not finding the state of inner calmness to do it. Maybe that would change soon, he hoped. 

The instructor came in and they started with some breathing exercises first. Feeling your own breathing, focusing on it. No screens, no words, no substances, no distraction. Just him and his breath. 

“Listen carefully to your body. Which muscles move when you breathe? Which parts of your body are involved you probably don’t think of at first? What changes now that you do it consciously?” 

Everything. That was the point of it, Matty thought. Everything changes when you do it consciously. Breathing. Living. Loving. There was so much more to it, once you did it consciously. Not as a distraction. Not as a side-effect while actually doing something else but consciously choosing to do just that. Not choosing people as a band aid to fix something else that was wrong in your life. But for their sake. Loving them for what they were. Not for what they could do to him. So he kept on breathing, consciously. Feeling, consciously. When the instructor told them to open their eyes again, there were tears on his cheeks. He didn’t even wipe them away. He was too proud of them to do so. 

_______

The FaceTime-signal rang three times before she picked up. He saw her foot first, covered in blisters and bruises and hissed slightly. 

“Tough day, was it?”, he asked and Lily yawned. 

“Dress rehearsal as usual”, she shrugged. “Nevermind though. How are you? What did you do today?”

Matty propped his head up on his hand and just watched her for a few minutes while thinking. Her “nevermind” was close to outrageous but he didn’t feel in a position to tell her. 

“I had group therapy this morning and  there was this guy, early twenties, maybe. And he talked in depth about his sex-addiction. And I just thought…you know…I’m so happy that this is something I never had to deal with. At least not to that extent, that is.”

Lily frowned. “I wasn’t aware that it is this common.”

“No it isn’t. But what is common actually is that it is a vicarious satisfaction. Like…you don’t do drugs but in order not to do drugs, you become a sex-addict.”

“I see…sounds awful though.”

“It is! And I’m so happy you never let me go there. Honestly. That you said: No, we’re not using sex to make you change how you feel.”

Lily shook her head. “It wasn’t me, darling. It was you. And you know it.”

He didn’t though. But maybe it wasn’t important. Maybe what was important was that he got to watch her now. She was tired, he could tell from her movements. Routined movements in which she cleaned, put cream on her feet and taped them, but clumsy ones, from time to time. 

“Can’t wait to see you do Swan Lake”, he said after a way too long period of silence.

Lily chuckled tiredly. “Yeah don’t get your hopes up. If I don’t get my last pirouette under control, it will be embarrassing and nothing else.”

“I’m sure you will. Nobody dances as graciously as you, I know that for a fact.” 

Lily looked up to him after her gaze had been directed at her feet for most of the time. There was a tenderness in her gaze, as if she was about to say “Thank You”. 

“Well, if I don’t at least you won’t see it”, she sighed and it made his heart ache a little. That he was still going to be here instead of London when she had her big premiere coming up stressed him out more than he would like to admit. Obviously, the regret about it was visible on his face.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry. No. No, Matty, I didn’t mean…you know I don’t mean it like that, right?”

Funny thing was, he did. He told her as much and made her tell him more about her day. About her rehearsal and the dinner-date she was going to have with her best friend on the weekend. And he listened to her talk, doing nothing but enjoy it. Consciously. Because she was enough. Of course she was. And he would show her. This was what this was about. Showing her exactly that. 

**** 

The tears came freely today. Way too freely, actually. He was crying for most of the time he was here. The therapist said she wanted to talk about some childhood themes he brought up in yesterday’s group-session and he told her everything he could remember. He knew it wasn’t everything though. He knew all too well there was stuff buried so deep he would probably never unpack it, actually. 

“Do you miss your mum sometimes? Do you wish you could speak to her again?”

He hesitated for a second. He had thought about Denise more often ever since he came here, naturally. More often than he did ever since he went no contact with her for sure. He still didn’t quite know what it felt like though. 

“No and yes.”

“What would you like to say?”

He swallowed hard. But he didn’t have to think too long about the answer to that question. 

“Why did you do it? Why did you have me in the first place when you must have known you weren’t equipped for it? How could you make me feel like I was only worthy of love if I was of service for you, somehow? Why did you not love me just like that? Why was this my fault?”

He took a deep breath, still crying, before he continued. 

“Like…I’m here, debating for months if I can take responsibility to bring a child into this world. Not only because obviously I’m most probably going to pass on a lot of shit to them, but also because I can’t be sure if I don’t fail catastrophically as a parent. And we’re talking about scenarios where me just leaving them at some point would actually be an act of kindness level catastrophic. I’m debating everyday if I can do this to Lily, if I can do this to our baby, if I’m even allowed to think about reproduction when I know what I am. And worse, I know what I can become.”

“Well, those are valid concerns and it’s perfectly normal to have them especially given your own history as well as your familie’s. What I know is that you want to become better. That’s why you’re here. And you coming here is a very important first step.”

“Yeah but it’s not enough. Like this time there is so much at stake, I can’t fail. I can’t do this. If Lily and I ultimately decide to try for a baby, if we succeed in having a baby, then I can’t fail anymore. I’ve seen what my mum failing did to me. I see what my mum failing did to my dad. And there’s absolutely no way I can ever do this to Lily. She doesn’t deserve that.”

His legs were shaking. He didn’t care. 

“Well, another way of looking at it is that if she thought you did, she wouldn’t have chosen you. Did you ever think about that?”

“Well yes. And that’s why I have to get better. I have to become the man she thinks I am. I want to become the man she thinks I am. I want to become better because she deserves it. She trusts me so much she’s even willing to start a family with me. She absolutely deserves me in my bes state.” 

“And the fact that you could be the one deserving that too never occurred to you, did it?”

He looked at her as if she just slapped him in the face. Too stunned to speak. 

“It’s absolutely noble that you think you should become and most of all stay clean because you want to be a good partner, you want to be a good father, you want to pay her back for all the love and trust she puts into you. Because, as you rightfully stated, you won’t be a good partner or a good parent when you’re on drugs. But before all of that, you should think about yourself. You should value yourself enough to think that you deserve to be better. For yourself and yourself only. And before you see that, feel that, accept that, I think, there’s not much use in trying to stay clean. Because you’ll always get to the point where you’ll find an excuse why somebody else is not enough  to stay away from drugs anyway. Or why you’d do them a favour if you gave them a reason to leave.” 

Her words hurt. Not because they were bad. But because they were true. 

“Because if you admit that you’re doing it for yourself, you’ll finally take responsibility. You’ll stop making other people responsible for your happiness. You won’t repeat your mother’s mistakes. And that’s the only way to do it, Mr. Healy.” 

It took him some minutes until he felt collected enough to look up to her again. 

“I could do none of these things if it wasn’t for the way Lily loves me. If there wasn’t her support, her understanding, her love for me. None. And I always will. I’ll always do it for her, sort of. Because she’s worth it.”

His therapist nodded in agreement. “Oh I know. But so are you. And one goal of therapy here will be to make you aknowledge that.” 

_______

It took him three days to find a smoking-buddy. David was born and raised in Manchester and an aspiring tech-specialist, until his coke-addiction made him loose focus on his AI and he crashed. Talking to him always felt like time traveling to Matty. Like a cruel, dystopian version of what could have become of him after the self-titled-album if people didn’t intervene. They did for David as well, but way too late, Matty figured.  

“What got you smiling like that? Must be good shit, can I have some?”

He came over to the tree where Matty stood under, pinching ashes to the ground. 

“I’m not going to show you nudes of my gorgeous girlfriend, don’t be weird”, Matty scoffed but David just shrugged. 

“So I figure she’s ugly then. If she was so hot, she’d never be with a loser like you.”

“You’re one to talk…”, Matty says, shooting him a displeased look. 

“Well yeah. No matter what I am, but at least there are no songs written about my tiny dick.” 

“The way you behave, there absolutely should be”, Matty spit but he stayed where he was. He was in no position to judge anybody to leach out because they were having a bad day. David let himself fall to the ground and looked up to him. 

“Will you tell me about her then? If you don’t want to show her to me?”

Matty let himself fall to the ground as well. 

“She’s dancing at the opera. She’s currently the Black Swan in Swan Lake. I haven’t seen her on stage for that, yet, unfortunately, but I know she’s amazing. She has a super weird taste in music, but it’s the good kind of weird and I managed to influence her a lot ever since we started dating. She’s amazingly patient and sensitive and passionate and smart. She’s the woman. Period. And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving to her that I’m worth all the love and trust she puts in me.”

David looked at him for a few seconds puffing his cigarette. Then after a moment of silence, he said: “Ok, but is she hot though?”

Matty snorted. “Oh to be young and dumb again. Once. Just once.”

____

“I thought about something the other day.” 

His therapist looked at him without saying anything. 

“I thought about how paradoxical it is that when I used to be on stage, I was convinced I’m god’s gift to entertainment, I was  entirely sure every single person in this room either wants to be me or wants to fuck me. I’m completely convinced that all of them love me and I actively ask them to do it. Like if they don’t give me the feedback I want, I ask them to. Because I think I deserve it.”

“And yet here you are, thinking you’re not worthy of a love that is not putting you down in some way. Of a love that is not transactional or that you don’t have to make major sacrifices for. So much so that you don’t even think you deserve to get better for your own good.”

“Yeah. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think it is, no. What fans give you, what success gives you, it’s something that is directly dependent on your behaviour. On what you do. Like I said, it’s transactional. And that’s what you know. Your parents made their attention directly dependent on your behaviour. Your mum used to make her love for you dependent on you behaving in a way she deemed appropriate. Your dad is mainly the last instance of cleanup after a crash. Your best friends basically put their financial and creative future into your hands by letting you be the front man who makes the main decisions. Your ex-wife made it very clear that you were only of interest to her if she could use your name and your contacts to build her own career.

And I think what makes you so insecure in this relationship you’re currently in, constantly questioning if you’re worth it - which from what you told me, is a behaviour you already showed in past relationships - is, that this is not there. From what you tell me, your partner doesn’t expect anything from you. She just loves you. She loves your humour, she loves your passion for music and literature and people you care about. She loves you and she feels understood by you and she wants to be with you so much she’s even willing to have a baby with you. She plans a future with you. She gives you a perspective. And a new purpose in life, maybe. She loves you for the things you are, not for what you are not or what you could be to her. Because she sees all those things in you. She sees a reliable partner. She sees a man willing to love somebody and therefore absolutely able to love a child. She sees a trustworthy man in you. A man worthy of her love.” 

Matty just sat in silence for a few moments, trying to gather his thoughts. 

“That sounds like she really thought this through”, he stated. “The baby-thing, I mean. She…She really chooses me for it. Because she trusts me to handle it. She knows me so well and she still does.”

“Because she knows you, she sees you, you say that so often. She knows you and she sees what you’re capable of. She is fully confident you’ll be able to stay clean. You’ll be able to be a good parent.”

“Yeah and I hope so much she’s not wrong with this.”

His therapist just looked at him for a few moments. Then she said: “Did you ever try to look at it the other way around? Did you ever consider because of what happened to you, because of everything you have going on in your life, you’re an expert in that as well? That you know what not to do and how to protect your child from it? And that is what could make you a great parent?”

“And what if I fail? Hm? What then? I can’t afford that.”

“And what if you can’t fail because you’re not alone? Because you’re not solemnly responsible? Mr. Healy, this is not the same situation as with your mum. You know what you’re doing, you know what you have to look out for, the warning signs, the triggers. And from what you say, Lily does as well. You’re both perfectly equipped for this. And you’re here now, you have been clean from day eight, you’re working out, you’re eating, you’re taking care of yourself. You do everything right.”

He shook his head.

“Yes you do. I’m going to say it again. And you’re going to listen. And you’re going to let the words get to you. You do everything right, Matty. You do everything right. You can do this. You said you came here to regain the tools you had to handle this. You already do. Trust yourself with that.”

And for some reason he couldn’t explain, the words would stick with him. They’d be on his mind right before he went to sleep. They’d be ringing in his ears when he woke up. And he would start doing things not only consciously, but register the effect they had. How he gained weight again, became more athletic again from working out and paying attention to his meals. How he took advice from the group therapy sessions made by others. How he didn’t try to turn it into a joke when somebody complimented his guitar-skills in the music room. Because they could actually mean it, he thought. And if this was true, who was to say that there wasn’t any truth to it? Who was to say that Lily, of all people, was wrong about him?

______ 

She still was hot when she picked him up a few weeks later. Hot and beautiful and gracious. And she was there. Holding him like she was never going to let go of him again, burying her head in his neck as if she needed him to breathe. Whispering love vows and praises in his ear he was sure she held back the past few weeks in order to not let him see how much she missed him. And he held her just as tight. Told her how much he missed her and how thankful he was she came to pick him up. How appreciated it was. She took him to the car which proved rather difficult with his urge to kiss her every two minutes. But when they managed and they were sitting in the car and she just started it and began to drove away, when the grounds vanished into nothing in the background, he put a hand on her knee reassuringly. Taking a deep breath he said: “I’m ready, Lily. I’m ready now. And I can’t wait to have a baby with you. I love you so much.” 

The fan on the ceiling was annoying. Annoying and way too loud. Matty didn’t even know why it was so present to him now, but a lot of details were. He didn’t let go of Lily’s hand for as much as a second ever since they entered the grounds of the clinic and she held his just as tight. They were each others lifeline, the reassurance that no matter what today was going to bring, they were going to be ok. Just right in this moment, the nurse called them into the doctor’s office. He walked two steps behind Lily, close enough so that she could feel his presence at all times, far enough to let her lead the way. The doctor was already in his office when they arrived and greeted them politely. He made them say their piece about how they had been trying for nine months now, how it didn’t work and how they were slowly running out of clues about what was wrong. 

“Alright, so according to your medical records, Ms. Warnstein you already had most of the relevant testings done by your OBGYN, except for the bloodtestings. We’ll do that today. As for you, Mr. Healy, the situation is a bit more special due to your complex medical history.”

Matty bit his lip. 

“Yeah I…”, he cleared his throat, “I feared so.”

The doctor continued: “Your long history of regular smoking and drug absue is of course a factor that could influence your fertility in a bad way. It can lead to a low sperm-count and general low quality of sperm which is crucial for conception.”

Matty swallowed. Hard. It wasn’t exactly like he wasn’t aware of it, he fully was. That his way of living was not exactly fruitful for starting a family had been obvious. Even to him. Nonetheless, he had been naive enough to think that maybe it wouldn’t be an issue. Enough of an romantic to think that this time it would work nonetheless because everything else was perfect. 

“What can we-”, he interrupted himself, shaking his head, starting over again. “No, sorry, I mean, what can I do about it?”

The doctor explained that there had to be tests done first to find out what exactly was the issue at hand. 

“After the results are in, we can talk about options. The most important ones of which I’m sure could help in your case as well would be a change of lifestyle. No more alcohol. No more nicotine or weed. And no more hard drugs, of course.” 

Matty forced himself to keep his head up. He had no right to look down to the floor now. All of this was his doing and he was perfectly aware of it. Lily closed her fingers around his hand even tighter. He squeezed hers back.

“If all of this doesn’t help, there are, of course, other options like IVF, insemination et cetera. But those can be discussed once we know what the issue at hand is.”

Matty felt dizzy, almost, his head ringing with all of the buzzwords just thrown at him. 

“And to know that you need..?”, Lily asked. 

“A sperm-sample. You can choose if you want to go home to give it or, if you feel ready anyway, you could do it right here today, whatever you prefer. We’ll analyse it and then discuss further steps.” 

Matty didn’t exactly know why this scared him so much right now. He was perfectly aware that something like this was a possibility, it always had been. But it was something else to have it said to you like this, apparently. 

(...) 

“You really don’t have to do this…”

Lily closed the heavy door behind herself with a smile. The room was trying very hard to look friendly. An armchair, two flatscreens, warm lightening, a towel hanging on the wall, everything kept in warm, bright colours. But on the desk across the room from the armchair there was the strange looking container he was supposed to fill. It was now that he understood what their doctor meant when he told them he “didn’t expect to get it back filled to the brim”. Matty directed his attention back to Lily, again, still trying to convince her he was perfectly able to do this by himself.

“I am…I have… equipment, obviously.” 

He gesticulated towards the TV hanging on the wall. The sterile TV in this sterile room with the uncomfortable chair and the dimm lightning. Lily raised her eyebrows, took the remote and turned the TV on. 

Matty let himself fall on the chair, while she flipped through the selection shown on the screen. 

“I mean, if you’d rather have ‘sexy schoolgirls on summer camp 3’ instead, I totally understand, I just…thought I’d give you some options.” 

After lazily scrolling some options, she turned the TV off again. 

She stood right in front of him now, slowly unbuttoning her blouse. Matty leaned back in the chair. There was nothing like her. There never would be. 

“And what would those be?”, he asked, crossing his hands behind his head and watching her. Her blouse was halfway opened by now, the pink cups of her bra peaking out from underneath. Lily shrugged the blouse off and started to run a hand over her right breast, slowly pulling the cups of her bra down. 

“This, maybe?”, she asked, gasping theatrically when she pinched her nipple. Matty hissed slightly. 

“Go on”, he ordered and Lily pulled her bra down completely, kept on playing with her breasts for a while. Watching her fingers fumble with the soft flesh he loved so much was something he hadn’t seen in a while and it worked as intended. She really got him hard. Matty had just started to fumble with the belt of his trousers when Lily took a step closer and put her hand on his. 

“Let me do it…”, she whispered, “You don’t lift a finger now, ok? I’ll take care of you.” 

With that, she opened his pants and pulled them down along with this underwear. Uncovering him as he was. Hard. Ready. Waiting for her. She still did that to him. After all this time. 

“You just tell me what you want, yeah?”, Lily purred, one hand resting on his upper thigh almost casually. “Anything you ever wanted, today you’ll get a freepass”, she offered and he couldn’t help the dirty smile forming around his lips. 

His hand wandered to her breasts almost automatically. 

“Stay here”, he murmured, voice dark, “Let me keep those in reach.”

Lily smirked, going down on her knees. 

“Is that close enough?”, she asked and he just started to roll her nipple between his fingers instead of answering. 

“Here you go…”, Lily whispered, “take what you need, baby. I’ll do the rest.”

And with that she slowly moved her hand up his thigh, cupping his balls delicately. Matty couldn’t help but groan. Acting like they had all the time in the world now although of course they didn’t was a very Lily-thing to do. And it was perfect. She knew how to drive him crazy and not even the fact that they really had a lot of sex recently changed anything about that. 

“You good? Relaxed? Slightly turned on?”, she asked and when he nodded she spit into the palm of her hand. 

“Fuck yes I am…”, he all but groled when she wrapped the exact same hand around his cock. She jerked him off in skilled, precise movements but he knew he wasn’t able to let go entirely. Not yet. The “Do you really want to know what comes from this?”-question kept on hammering in his head. Lily leaned in to him so that her lips were grazing his earlobe. 

“What can I do to help you relax?”, she asked.

Matty looked at her, eyes glassy. Anything, she would do anything for him. She just said that. And here he was, making things so difficult for both of them. 

“Kiss me”, he whispered, “Kiss me like you mean it.”

As if she ever didn’t. 

“Oh I can absolutely do that…”, Lily grinned and leaned in to kiss him. Tenderly, at first but it soon became more passionate. Breaths shared, teeth gracing lips. When she took his lower lip between her teeth and sucked on it, he was done for. Because in his head, it was her mouth wrapping around his cock and sucking it as harshly as she did his lip now. He growled into her mouth. 

“Here you go…”, Lily whispered, only letting go of him for as much as a second, while she increased the movement of her hand, “here you go, baby, that’s it.”

His hands groped her breast more harshly while he focused on the movements of her hands up and down his cock. Fast. Slick with spit and precum. Messy. 

“Fuck, Lily….”, he breathed, “Fuck, I-”

“I know, baby”, she whispered in his ear, “I know. Let go. Come for me. Come for me now. I know you can. Do it.”

And he did, letting her mouth swallow the shameful moan that left his lips while her hand worked him through it. He collapsed on the chair while Lily kept on kissing his temple, whispering praises, love-vows and thank yous in his ear. He heard some weird clicking noises like from afar and kept his eyes closed. 

When he opened them again, Lily just put the cup to the side that wasn’t empty anymore. 

“Looks absolutely perfect to me”, she stated, shooting its contains a admiring look before putting the lid on it. Matty scoffed. 

“You’re biased”, he said and Lily just grinned “Maybe”, before she put the cup on the table where it was supposed to go, washed her hands  and came back over to him again. Matty still lay here, his pants hanging loosely around his ankles, head resting against the back of the chair. He felt exceptionally tired. Maybe because he didn’t sleep enough. Maybe because this felt like an extraordinary effort for some reason. Lily put a stray strand of hair back behind his ear, burying her hand in his hair, scratching his head. All those things she knew calmed him down and she herself was the most important of them all.  

“How are you feeling?”, she asked, her voice so full of compassion it gave him goosebumps. 

“Good. Exhausted, I guess. A little anxious, maybe.”

“Don’t be”, Lily said, her hand resting on his cheek, “I’m sure everything is going to be ok.”

“Why? Like seriously. What makes you think it’s going to be ok?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked him in the eyes as if she was looking for something. Then the hint of a smile formed around her lips. 

“Because you promised me, remember? When I was freaking out because I got my period unexpectedly, you promised me it was going to be ok. And I believe you, Matty. So should you.”

And when she kissed him now, he was inclined to do exactly that. 

______________________________________________

Matty suspected for a while that it was good having George in close proximity again. Charli and him moved back when it became clear that her acting-career didn’t quite turn out the way she had hoped and George especially started to complain more openly about how draining LA was (Matty liked to tell himself it was also because he had missed him as well). But if there would have been any more proof needed for his suspicion, it was the way George pulled up on his front lawn now, honking. The way he rolled his window down, casually leaning one arm out of it and whistling. 

“Get in, babes”, he mocked him and Matty almost stumbled because of the way he tried to walk down to the car in the most pseudo-runway-manner he was capable of. He opened the door and just now noticed the music, Dijon, he figured, but nothing he himself recognised. 

“You look absolute shit”, George stated and Matty replied with a mumbled “Fuck off” while he fastened his seatbelt. He was so glad George was around it almost made him tear up. But he had cried enough today already, he figured. Way more than enough.

George didn’t ask him what was going on. Of course he didn’t. He didn’t offer consoling smalltalk either though, so they sat there in silence. And for some moments, Matty felt like there was just George’s presence, calm, reassuring, as per usual, and the music and them driving through the streets of London the night painted dark. The ever so similar beat from the music slowly started to sort his thoughts out that had been running wild for hours now, calmed his way too fast heartbeat down, so that he could start to untangle the knot his insides had been twisted into eversince that fateful moment in the doctor’s office. 

“I have shitty sperm.”

It felt incredibly weird saying it out loud like this, but way less embarrassing than he thought. And Matty just realised that up until this moment, he didn’t waste one thought on how George’s reaction to his revelation might be. He hadn’t been scared of it. He hadn’t been expecting anything from it, really. The man next to him, however, burst into laughter. 

“Come again?”, he asked when he gained his composure back, halfway, at least and Matty knew that this pun had been absolutely intended. 

“I”, he said slowly, emphasising every word of the sentence almost comically from now on, “have shitty sperm.” 

George looked at him in confusion for a second as if he expected him to explain the joke before directing his gaze back on the road. So Matty went on: “It’s official. Like, medically diagnosed. There are very few healthy sperms down there. I’m shooting blanks.”

It was the first time ever since they got out of the doctor’s office that he put it into words like this and he didn’t know how to feel about it. He didn’t know how to feel at all, if he was honest. 

“I’m sorry, dude”, George said, looking back over to him again, “that fucking sucks.” 

Matty just nodded. “Yeah, me…me too. I mean, who would have thought that a lifestyle including cigs, drugs and being underweight for years somehow has…consequences.”

The sentence was supposed to drip with irony. It tasted nothing but bitter on his tongue instead. Nothing worked as intended. Not even his speaking, obviously. George just kept on driving and Matty wished he would have done so faster. Put the pedal to the metal and maybe, just maybe, he had a chance to escape his own thoughts then. 

“Maybe it’s for the better, right? Maybe that’s god or whoever is responsible telling me that someone like me should in fact not reproduce. That someone like me should just not have children. An insatiable mess with an army of mental illnesses to pass on. Yeah, maybe that’s just evolution doing it’s thing right here.”

“That’s bollocks and you know it.”

Did he though? Or wasn’t that just the logical consequence? Wasn’t that not just what you got when you didn’t give a fuck about your mental and your physical health for too long? Wasn’t it nothing but logical that somebody who wasn’t even able to take care of himself good enough should not be trusted with an offspring? The thoughts weren’t exactly new, they were familiar, in fact. Alas, he usually sat on the other side of things, the child secretly blaming his mother for why on earth she thought having him in the first place was a good idea. Blaming his parents for why they thought having children when they must have known their marriage wasn’t going to last. But now he was here, on the other side of things and felt closer to them than he ever did. 

Matty just shrugged. He would have killed for a cigarette now. 

“I’m just sorry for Lily, you know? I know she wants this just as much, heck, she’s willing to give up her career for that and now I’m just…I can’t do it. She deserves it so much and here I am, holding her back from it. Pathetic. I should leave. I should let her go and be with somebody who is actually worth it.”

George scoffed. “Yeah. I mean, you do you but maybe you should talk to her about it first. Ask her what it is she wants, maybe. If she really thinks you’re not worth it.”

“How should she? Despite the fact that these”, he pointed at his chest, “are some shitty genes anyway, I’m obviously not even able to pass them on. This is the epitome of fucking up, George. Why would she chose to stay with somebody like this?”

“I don’t know, it’s just a wild guess but did you ever contemplate the thought that she loves you? And that you are more important to her than anything else?”

Matty heard what George said. Loud and clear. But the words seemed to get stuck somewhere on the way from his brain to his heart. He didn’t feel them. They didn’t break through the walls of self-loathing, disgust, hatred these past few hours had built up inside of him. 

“She doesn’t deserve this. She’s young, she’s healthy, she’s athletic, she’s perfect. She should be able to have children whenever she wants and not have to go through endless anxiety, treatments and self-doubt just because I am a fucking looser. I’m a disgrace. This is disgraceful.” 

George drove the car to the side of the road and stopped. He exhaled audibly, then he turned around in his seat to face Matty.

“You’re right it’s disgraceful. But the fact that it is has nothing to do with you shooting blanks or whatever, it is they actually said because I still haven’t heard a proper diagnosis from you, actually. What is disgraceful though, mate, is that you’re willing to give up so easily. You’ve been going on my nerves endlessly about how your relationship is so stable because it is built on three things: Trust. Communication. Love. And if didn’t straight up lie to me while chewing my ear off on how amazing she is in those departments, this, and this alone is the way you’re going to solve this. You are going to trust each other. You are going to communicate to find a solution for the situation you’re in now. And you’re going to love each other. And I swear, Matty”, George took his hand in his own, “I swear, a year from now we’re going to sit here again and you’re going to yap endlessly about what an amazingly cute boy George Matthew Daniel Healy is.”

And for the first time in what seemed ages, Matty laughed. A genuine laugh that made the knot in his insides break. And as it did, the tears flowed down his cheeks freely, for the first time ever since. George put both of his hands on his face, wiping them away. 

“It’s going to be ok, Matty. Everything is going to be ok.” 

_____________________________________________

Usually, the point where the sex became a chore had been the one where Matty would have bolted out of relationships. When asked about why it felt so different this time, he didn’t quite have an explanation, yet. Usually he would have thought that at the point where it was clear that he was the issue, it would have killed him, turned him into an anxiety-ridden mess that basically wasn’t capable of doing anything in the bedroom anymore. 

“Don’t worry, it’s pretty common, it happens to lots of guys.” becoming way more real than he could ever have feared.

But for some reason that didn’t happen. And as he looked down at Lily now, lying underneath him, her eyes still closed in pleasure, breathing heavily, for the first time he felt like he had a hunch as for the why. Because even now, with everything that was going on, she was still around, lying here, giving herself to him, her hands reassuringly on his back. He was still as close to her as possible, half-soft but buried inside of her nonetheless. Matty closed his eyes and lowered his head until his forehead was touching hers. 

“You are amazing, you know that, right? And I barely tell you enough”, he whispered, still slightly out of breath. 

Lily smiled. He couldn’t see it, of course, but he could hear it in her voice. “I think you tell me plenty. But it’s good to hear nothing about your opinion of me has changed within the past five minutes.”

She put a hand on his cheek. Soft, warm palm of her flesh against his face. Still there. Still his. 

“I love you.”

He knew he told her too often. He knew he was at risk, again, that the words would wear off. Loose their meaning. That she wouldn’t believe him anymore. But nonetheless, he hoped she did. Because this was why it had to work. The main reason why they did all of this. He saw her gaze wandering off. To the nightstand where the little white ovulation-test lay. There were traces of them trying all over the house by now but others than Matty would have thought a mere few months ago. Nutrition supplements in every cupboard of their kitchen instead of tables broken under the weight of their joint bodies. A complete set of new underwear in his drawers, supposed to reduce heat building up around his testicles (they were way more comfortable to wear than his old ones but he would never admit that out loud. Instead he used to make fun of them when Lily first brought them home. Because making fun of something was more easy. It always was.) instead of exclusively new and hot dessous Lily owned.  And he knew that although she didn’t explicitly tell him about it, Lily had started a habit of obsessively monitoring her own body, trying to figure out how to maximize their chances of it finally working, instead of them just mindlessly fucking as often as they could.

 And all of this because he didn’t bring it. All of this because he failed. Lily caressed a stray curl back behind his ear. They were too long by now, on the verge of making him look ridiculous, but Lily said she liked them that way. “Makes playing with them a little easier”, she argued when he begged her to let him cut them off again.

“I love you too”, she said, looking at him with so much affection it almost felt like an additional touch. Still there. Still his. He slipped a hand in between their bodies, laying it flat on the lower part of her stomach. Oh how much he wished he had magic powers, god like ones, something, whatever it was, to finally make this work. To finally see Lily’s eyes light up when looking at a pregnancy test. Oh how much he wanted it. And oh how much he wished there was something he could do. More he could do. Her body was still here in his arms so soft, warm, beautiful. Almost subconsciously, he let his hand slide further down while slowly pulling out again. When his fingers found her core it was still warm, wet, waiting. Hopefully. He moved them rhythmically, with determination. Matty always believed that there was a correlation between people who were good at sex and good at dancing. And Lily, of all people, absolutely confirmed that to him. 

“What are you-?”, Lily asked, the last part of her sentence drowning in a pleased moan. “Yeah, whatever, just keep that up…”, she hushed. He increased the intensity of his movements. Faster. Harder. The pain of Lily’s nails scratching down his back only spurring him on. He could feel she was close by the way she clenched around his fingers and kept on going until she fell apart for him for a second time. He kept his fingers buried inside of her while kissing his way back up to her again. 

“Making sure it stays”, he finally answered her question from before. Lily wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled his head onto her shoulder and kissed his temple. She knew as well as he did that with every week passing, they were getting closer to their self-proclaimed deadline. April 8th, his birthday. If they weren’t successful by then, they would “bring on the big machines”, as Matty joked. Intrauterine Insemination. IVF. All of these big, scary words describing things that were even more scary. He pushed his fingers in deeper one more time. 

“Making sure it fucking stays”, he murmured.

The drumming noise drove him crazy. A constant “bump” that underlined the smalltalk in the room. Usually, this would have been a situation where he would have tried to take the tension out of the situation by telling a joke, doing something, anything, to relieve it. But no matter how hard he thought about something, there was no joke within him, no witty comment, nothing to somehow make this less nerve wrecking. He just answered Lily’s occasional questions, clearly aimed to distract him from time to time, but that made him feel like he was in an interview. 

“Matty…”

The touch of Lily’s hand on his knee made him look up to her for the first time in what seemed like ages. At around the same time the sound dissappeared and Matty realised that he had been the one responsible for it. 

“Yeah?”

She took his hand and closed her fingers around his. I’m here. I got you. I’ll stay. No matter what. We’ll keep on going. All of this was in her touch and he hoped that the way he reciprocated the gesture just told her as much. He cleared his throat but it didn’t really do much for the raspiness in his voice he realised when he spoke on. 

“How long?”

Lily grabbed for her phone that lay next to her on the floor and tapped the screen. 

“30 seconds.”

“Good. That’s good. It’s really good”, Matty replied, nodding a few more times than necessary. A rumble in his stomach reminded him that he didn’t eat in too long. He didn’t care. 30 seconds. 20 now, maybe. 20 seconds until they might find out that their life was going to change forever. He looked at Lily again, consciously this time. There was a fresh bleeding spot on her lower lip where she obviously bit it the past few minutes. But apart from that she seemed remarkably calm and he would have given everything to be able to read her mind right now. To know what she thought. To know if she was even more nervous than he was. He knew he would have been. He thought about it a lot the past few weeks, how he would feel if he was the one who’s body was about to grow a new human being. It would most probably have freaked him out completely, he figured. 

The harsh beeping sound of the alarm going off on Lily’s phone made him jump. He took it and needed two attempts to turn it off, missing the respective button several times. But then there was silence. A silence so full of anticipation he almost felt it prickling on his skin. Lily removed one of her hands out of his hold, but the remaining one held his even tighter. 

“You ready?”, she asked.

 “Absolu- Actually, wait a second.”

He crawled over to her on the floor until he sat behind her and wrapped her up in his arms. 

“Better”, he murmured, his head leaned against her shoulder. “This way I can see it at the same time as you. We started this together. I think this is how we should continue. Is that ok?”

Lily replied “Of course” and kissed him briefly before reaching over to the little plastic stick that lay next to her on the floor face down. She picked it up but didn’t turn it around yet. Instead she looked up to him.

“Any last words before this is probably going to change both of our lifes forever? A last farewell to your freedom or something?”

“Are you crazy?”, he breathed. 

“Alright…”, Lily said, closed her eyes for a second and took one final breath. 

Matty’s heart skipped a beat when she turned the little stick around. He looked at the Clearblue’s display. The little display showed two words. “Not pregnant” was written there, unmistakable, clear. And the disappointment hit him harder than he would have expected. Or, to be more precise, he realised just now how high his hopes had been that it would have worked, that they would welcome their baby in the beginning of next year. He took a deep breath and exhaled audibly. The next thing he did was pulling Lily even closer to him, wrapping his arms around her even more tight, holding onto her. 

“Well, the good news is, we still have the best excuse ever to fuck several times a week, my love. A win is a win, in my opinion.”

Lily snorted. “Glad you’re happy”, she replied, voice grave. 

“Oh, actually, I am.” Matty put a kiss to the crook of her neck, while carefully sneaking a hand under the t-shirt Lily wore. His fingers caressed her skin tenderly. Lifting his head slightly he whispered in her ear: “I wanted to get you out of this t-shirt ever since I noticed you leaving the bedroom half-asleep.” 

He carefully started to pepper kisses on her neck. Distraction was a good thing, he figured that out quite early on in his life. If you didn’t really know how to handle the feeling something triggered, simply distracting yourself from it was an option. Always. 

“Matty…”, she protested but only half-heartedly, aching her back so that her body melted into the touch with which he caressed her breasts. 

“Listening?”, he said, stealing the gasp from her lips that left her mouth when he swiped his thumb over her nipple. She didn’t protest further though. So he had no reason to stop. 

____________________________

Charli and George were late. Of course they were. In fact, Matty couldn’t remember a single occasion where Charli had been involved where the timetable could be kept. Lucky for him that was way better to bear in the safe and dry environment of a restaurant than out at a movie venue or right before a concert. And even better for him that meant he could just pretend that this was a date night exclusively for Lily and him, until the Daniels decided to make their appearance, that was. 

“Promise me to remind me of this the next time I’m stressed out that we won’t make it to a date with those two chaos queens on time, will you?”

Lily smirked and Matty grinned, carefully caressing a hint of smudged lipstick off her mouth. “Promise”, he said, “But for what it’s worth: You look absolutely amazing for somebody who literally stood on a stage about an hour ago. I usually don’t look half as good.”

“Liar”, Lily chuckled, “You know damn well you-”

“Evening to the lady and the gentleman.”

George’s low timbre cut Lily off, although most probably unconsciously. 

“Well, look who made it”, Matty mocked him and got up from his chair immediately to hug George. He didn’t see enough of his best friend lately who was all over the place producing for some of the biggest industry names, going for a grammy. There was a smell of an aftershave on him Matty was completely unfamiliar with and there once had been a time when this seemed absolutely unthinkable to him. 

“Yeah, sorry about that…”, George murmured and Matty forgave him before he hugged Charli who was busy complimenting Lily’s pink bow earrings at length before they all sat down again. His girlfriend started to explain to Charli how she was basically starving and Matty took that as a hint to wave to one of the waiters to get them the menu. Lily buried her nose in it as soon as it arrived and George asked Matty some questions about whether he was going to Glasto this year since Charli didn’t want to and he was looking for somebody to come with him. Matty agreed without thinking about it twice. They didn’t do Glasto together ever since they headlined it so this was absolutely no question to be asked for him. They got so lost in their planning of the event afterwards that Matty was caught slightly off guard when the waiter asked them if they chose something already. 

“Yes. I think I’ll take the Sauvignon Blanc, the scallops for starters and the braised duck”, Charli said. 

“I’ll have the Beetroot and Haddock for starters and the artichoke with lamb”, Lily smiled. 

“Very well. What would you like to drink?”

“Oh yeah, of course, sorry. I’ll have some water, non sparkling, with a splash of lemon, please, thank you.” She closed the menu and handed it back to the waiter who turned around to Matty. 

“I’ll have the wine of the house, the beetroot with haddock, and the pumpkin.”

George concluded with ordering the langoustinge and the monkfish along with a martini and the waiter went away. Charli followed him with her eyes only to sigh as soon as he was out of sight. 

“Good heavens they have declined in here…”, Charli complained, not exactly bothering to keep her voice down. “The last time they had an entire menu dedicated to fish, an extra one for mussels and clams and now they barely have scallops.” 

Lily shrugged. “Maybe it’s not the season? I don’t know that by heart unfortunately.” 

“It’s always ‘the season’ for seafood somewhere”, Charli argued and Lily just chuckled slightly. 

They continued to talk about the weather, Matty’s sorrow with his students, and where each of them were planning their summer vacation. When  the waiter came back with their drinks Charli’s jaw fell agape. She turned around to Lily with a shocked look on her face. 

“This is gin, isn’t it? I thought you and the waiter had some secret code when you said something about ‘none sparkling water’”, she said in shock, gesticulating at the glass of clear liquid the waiter put down in front of Lily. Matty’s girlfriend just shrugged. 

“We can pretend it is if it makes you feel better”, she said, thanking the waiter for her drink and putting a hand on Charli’s arm when she had just started to order something different for her. 

“It’s ok, baby, really. I have a hell of a week ahead I have to make it through. But I promise we’ll get wasted some other time, alright?”

Charli didn’t look entirely convinced though. “But I miss how giggly and embarrassing and fun you get when you’re drunk”, she argued, nudging her arm.

“I promise I will again, at some point. I absolutely promise”, Lily said but Charli didn’t look convinced at all. 

(...) 

As much as Matty loved the food at the place they were staying at, it always made him feel exceptionally full, even though he objectively definitely didn’t eat too much. That was why he took George’s invitation to go outside for a smoke with gratitude, following his friend outside immediately. They ended up in the alley behind the restaurant, where a few patio heaters were placed to make sure one at least didn’t freeze to death while ruining their lungs. While Matty wrapped his coat around his body more tight, George fumbled in the pockets of his trousers for a second before he finally pulled out a fag packet and a lighter. He presented Matty the half opened box and raised his eyebrows in confusion when Matty declined. He didn’t say anything though, for now, that was, while he took a cigarette out himself, slid it between his lips and lit it. Matty took the opportunity to enjoy the sound of the rain on the heaters. In combination with the dark of the night, there was something absolutely calming to all of this. 

“So when were you going to tell me?”

There was no anger in George’s voice. A mocking curiosity, maybe. It didn’t help the fact that Matty didn’t understand the question. 

“Tell you what exactly?”

“That Lily is pregnant, you moron!”, George scoffed and Matty couldn’t help but laugh a little about the serious offence his best friend took.

“Err…I guess as soon as there’s something to tell about that?”, he answered and George looked at him with his eyebrows raised. 

“So…she isn’t?”

“No!”, Matty chuckled, “No…at least not as far as I know. I mean, we’re trying. Hard. For more than half a year now. I swear, George, I never thought I’d find myself fucking on a schedule but here we are, apparently. But we…we weren’t successful that far.”

George hummed, signaling understanding. “Any idea why?”

Matty inhaled deeply, sort of mirroring the way George puffed his cigarette. 

“No, not really. To be fair I…I sort of thought that it would just solve itself. I always thought…you know….I thought it didn’t work with Gabbriette because it just wasn’t meant to be and it probably was  better that we didn’t bring any children in the mix, in hindsight, at least.”

“Oh, trust me, it absolutely was.”

“But now that it’s not working…I don’t know…I’m starting to think maybe just loving each other is not enough.”

George scoffed. “You’re a pathetic simp at times, you know that, right?”

“I think ‘hopeless romantic’ is the word you’re actually looking for, thank you very much”, Matty clapped back. 

For a few moments there was silence. Then George said: “I’m sure it will work out eventually, Matty. Because I actually think you’re right with these things happening when you’re ready. And honestly, I haven’t seen you as happy and relaxed and at peace with yourself as I did for the past year.”

Matty couldn’t help but tear up a little bit. Those words meant a lot in general. They meant even more coming from George. Because George of all people knew what he was talking about. He absolutely knew.

______________________

“Lily?! Hey! Lily!!”

He hammered against the door for what felt like the 100th time. His fist hurt. He was tired. He didn’t care.

“Lily c’mon. Please open up that door. Please. I promise you whatever this is, we’ll fix it. But please let me help you. Please.”

There was silence. Still. Frightening, deafening silence from behind that door he had no access to. His mind made up horror scenarios by the thousands, them turning more cruel every minute. He knew she was in there. It was one of the very few things he was certain about, because he heard her sob what seemed ages ago. He didn’t hear from her ever since. 

“Love, I promise you we’ll fix whatever is going on, ok? I’ll be there, I’ll help you, you’re not alone. But please let me in, Lily. Please let me in.”

Silence. Again. Alas, he slammed his fist against the door for the next time. 

“Lily. Please. Please open. Please open the door, my beloved. You can tell me to fuck off and I will as soon as I have seen you and made sure you’re ok. But please let me check on you.”

The panic had him on chokehold, his body, his mind and in his mind he was already going through the kitchen utensils and cleaning supplies, trying to figure out if there was something that would help him punch this door down. 

“Alright, love, I’m sorry, but I’m not doing this anymore. I’ll count to three and if I don’t hear from you then I will-”

A click of the lock. The door being pulled back slowly. And there she was. Hair messy. Cheeks tearstained. Shoulders slumped and knees slightly bent. She had her gaze fixed on the floor when she spoke. 

“I’m sorry”, she said, her whole body shaking, “I just…I needed some time for myself.” Matty’s gaze roamed her body in panic, desperately trying to figure out if there was something physically wrong with her. He couldn’t see anything but he knew that didn’t mean much. 

“What’s wrong? What’s going on? Do you need help? How can I help you?”

He wanted to touch her, hug her but she just stood there in the bathroom’s doorframe without moving, breathing heavily. If she wanted to be close to him now she would, he figured. But Lily closed her eyes, exhaled audibly and shook her head. Matty forced himself to stay calm. It didn’t exactly work that way though. 

“Lily, please tell me what’s going on. Please, my love, I’m begging you. What’s going on?”

She lifted her head in slow-motion and looked him in the eye for the first time. Her eyes were red and slightly swollen, her face raw from crying, some strands of her curls plastered to her cheeks by tears. She didn’t talk, still. And maybe that was the scariest thing of them all.

“I’m a failure”, she whispered into the empty space inbetween them, “I’m a fucking failure. And I’m so sorry, Matty. I’m so so so sorry.”

“You’re not a failure my love. I swear you’re not. Let me just- do you need help? Is there anything-”

He cut himself off when she lifted her right arm. Her fist was closed around something he didn’t notice that far. But now Lily held her hand up and carefully opened some fingers of the fist and made it clear that she held something in it. Instinctively, he held his hand under it to catch it before she dropped it to the floor. He gave it a closer look. It was a tissue, no, a piece of toilet paper, he figured. Except, most of it wasn’t white, actually but covered in a big spots of red blood. His stomach turned and the panic started to boil in his blood.

He looked up to her.

“Lily what…what happened?”

His voice was shaky. Sending the words over his lips so carefully as if they could hurt her if he said them too harshly. Taking a shaky breath, Lily said: 

“My body is a traitor. A fucking traitor. I’m not…it didn’t…”

She cut herself off, grabbing a fistfull of her hair with her own hand. He didn’t know what got him moving now but something did. So Matty stepped forward, closed his arms around her, buried his head in her hair.

“It’s ok, Lily. It’s ok. I love you. It’s ok.”

She shook her head violently. “No it’s not. My body is a fucking traitor. I was so sure this time. I was so fucking sure because I was fucking ten days late and that never happens. Never. This is not…”

A sob cut her off and her legs started shaking so much he held her even tighter to make sure she didn’t collapse on the floor. He carefully guided her into the livingroom and over to the sofa, pulling her in his arms immediately after sitting down. He still held the piece of paper with the bloodstain on it in his hand without consciously noticing it. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so…gimme a minute, just…”

“It’s ok, don’t worry, darling, alright? You take all the time you need. I’ll be here. It’s ok.”

It took Lily some time to pull herself together, indeed. But after a while, she finally said: “I’m not used to this. I’m not used to my body betraying me like this. We’re used to pushing through things. We’re used to making things work. If I need to make it through the fifth nutcracker-performance in a week because my co-worker is sick, I’ll do it. No matter how sore I am, no matter how much my feet are bleeding, no matter the exhaustion. Body and me, we’re a team. We push through. But now…it’s…I don’t know. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t do what I want it to. It doesn’t give me a baby. It gets my hopes up for five days. Six. Seven. And on the tenth day, I start bleeding. And that’s when I know. I failed. Again. But I’m not just failing me, am I? I’m failing you as well. I know how much you want this and I’m so sorry that I can’t-”

“Stop it. Now.” 

It was hard to keep his voice steady. He tried anyway. “Please don’t say that, my love. Please don’t ever say that, alright? You’re not failing me. You never could, do you hear me? You could never fail me. And you definitely aren’t now. Things take time. That’s how it is.”

Lily shook her head. “It’s not how it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to work. This body is supposed to do what I want.”

“It will, Lily. I promise you, it will. We didn’t even try for that long, we-”

“And what if it doesn’t? Hm? What if I can’t give you that? You said over and over and over again how important this is to you. And I know it is. As it should be. But what if I can’t make this work? What if this fucking body isn’t even good enough to do that?”

She was crying, again, shaking uncontrollably. And he held her tight. Held her tight, kissed her head, her temple, her neck. Whispered reassurances and sweet nothings in her ear, in order to calm her down. But he knew that this wasn’t enough. He knew he had to do more. Because seeing her like this broke his heart. He couldn’t let her be this devastated. He just couldn’t. 

“I love you”, he said over and over and over again. “I love you so much, Lily. We got this. I promise you, we got this.”

(Disclaimer: I am not a songwriter and my rhythmical feeling absolutely sucks lol so please treat this as a poem rather than a song thank you very much!)

Lyrics:

She has a fire in her heart that lights up ballrooms

Gracious enough to light a candle in my dark.

Holds my hand when my battles did exhaust me

When my flame is fading out she gives the spark.

She has a way to move that is nothing but majestic

A way to talk that apways shakes me to my core.

And when we sit and yapp at each other for hours

It’s all I ever dreamed of and more.

I wish the world knew everything about your beauty.

About your fabulous mind about your gracious heart.

About the way your voice has healed something inside me.

About how every single move you make is art.

But forgive me, my beloved, for I am selfish.

I can’t risk to share too much of the sensation that you are.

Cause if they knew that you are nothing short of perfect

They would ask questions that would break my fucking heart.

Those questions oh they haunt me every day.

Make me question how somebody so tender

could ever love someone who’s as fucked up as me.

There’s shelter in your arms, relieve in your touch

And a beauty inside and out as well.

Makes me think that if you should ever leave me

the only place I will be staying then is hell.

But until then I’ll just cherish you forever

Watch you endlessly ‘cause all you do is art.

Watch you dance in ballrooms and our kitchen.

He gave up at 2.30 a.m. Two and a half hours, he figured, were long enough to seal it: No sleep for him, not tonight anyway. With a silent sigh and dramatically rolling his eyes on himself, he pushed his blanket back and lifted himself out of bed carefully. After he got up, his eyes lingered on Lily for a few seconds. She was cosied up, the blanket as per usual pulled up until directly under her nose so the only thing visible was her red hair poking out from underneath it. Quiet. Peaceful. Able to recover after a stressful showday. He envied her so much and if he would have been asked right now, he would have told everyone that he would have sold his soul to the devil to just get an hour of what she had. Alas, here he was. Awake. Alert. Stressed out. He hated what he felt. But he hated just being awake like this more. Biting back a groan he turned around and started walking without really knowing where he was going. 

He found himself in the kitchen, opened the door of the fridge just to close it a few seconds later without taking anything out. There wasn’t too much in it anyway. His resolution to do the groceries today turned out to be too big of a task so he ordered sandwiches so that at least Lily would have something to eat when she came home. He low-key expected her to make fun of him for that. She didn’t. He grabbed for one of the premade iced coffees that were sitting on the doorside of the fridge rather mindlessly, not sure if he was even going to drink it, but the feeling of holding something in his hands would maybe do for now. 

He couldn’t really explain how he ended up in the garden, the iced coffee in his right hand, a pack of President’s in his left, a lighter slipped between his fingers. When he planned the house, the garden had been meant to be a place of absolute peace, no distractions, a place for him to go when everything seemed too loud. Too overwhelming. It never worked quite how he intended though. The t-shirt he wore barely shielded him from the cold, he didn’t care. Maybe that would clear his mind properly, finally, when nothing else seemed able to. Today’s conversation with his mum still rang in his ears, bits and pieces of it, repeating themselves over and over again until they made it to his brain, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. What if his mum was right, though? What if he would in fact never make an album again that was in any way successful? What if he really wasn’t happy? 

Matty fumbled one of the cigarettes out of the pack and slipped it between his lips. The movements were way too well known, muscle-memory for years. Some things you didn’t forget. Riding a bike. Lighting a fag. Rolling a joint. Dancing in rhythm. Fucking in rhythm. The first cloud of smoke floated out of his mouth and vanished into the night. Funny to think that there had literally been songs written about this very act. Now it was funny. It wasn’t back then. Back then it had been everything but. His mom’s voice was still in his ears. The accusations. The blame. The worry. He didn’t want to get his mum worrying about him, he never did – and he failed in that. Over and over and over again. 

“How could you do this to me, Matty? How dare you do this to me? You’re breaking your mother’s heart, you know that?”

Funny that he still knew these words by heart. Funny and cruel at once. He didn’t remember much about the conversation when he told her about how him and Gabbriette split up but he remembered her reaction all too well. Those memories tended to come back in moments like these especially. In moments where he felt insecure. Hurt. In moments where he couldn’t sleep. 

Matty directed his gaze back up to the darkness of the cloudless sky. No clouds, a full moon and a gazillion stars. Peace. Quiet. Continual. Everything he himself wasn’t. Everything his life wasn’t, no matter how hard he wished for it. The cig in his hand was nothing but a stump by now. Tar and tobacco turned into dust and sediment on his lungs. Maybe, probably, killing him eventually. He started to care about this more just recently. How unkindly he had treated his body these past years and how he was slowly going to change that. Eventually. 

“Senile insomnia stroke again I see?”

With everybody else, he would have wondered why he didn’t hear them coming. But he knew by now that Lily moved without being heard for most of the time. He switched  the hand he used to hold his cigarette with and used the free one to grip Lily’s waist as soon as she was close enough, pulling her into him.

“Well, you’re not exactly sleeping either, are you?”

Holding her felt good, it always did. Like the weight of her body against his grounded him, somehow. Reminded him that there was more to all of this than what his manipulative, always-working-against-him-mind told him. And in moments like these, when he was able to hold her, he was inclined to believe there actually was. She only wore his Ramones-shirt for sleeping and a pair of panties, nothing else. There were goosebumps all over her body by now.

“You talked to your mum again, didn’t you?”

There was an interest in her tone. And pity. None of it he was deserving of. Matty just nodded, dragging his cigarette again. 

“What exactly does it do to you? Like…what is it that keeps your mind so busy you can’t sleep?”

He dragged his cigarette again instead of answering her, at first. It wasn’t like he didn’t try to explain this several times in his life already. But so far it had mainly been people who knew Denise well - who knew how she could be, the way she could turn the most banal things into accusations, the way she knew exactly how to turn her words into daggers aimed against him. Explaining this to somebody who wasn’t familiar with all of this was something else entirely. 

“It’s…it’s the way she makes me feel. The things she makes me think about. How awful of a person I am, how I always have been like that, my tendency to treat people like shit, to treat her like shit. She says one thing, one particular thing which can be a word in a subordinate clause and I can’t stop thinking about it for hours. I can’t stop…feeling about it for hours. Feeling because of it for hours. Feeling like shit because of it, mostly.”

Lily took the arm with his cigarette-free hand and pulled it over her stomach.

“You’re not an awful person, Matty. You really aren’t. She is for making you feel like this.”

He knew those words all too well. Yet they ran off of him in drops like rain against the glass of a window. Maybe that was why his whispered “I know” sounded stale rather than in any way convincing. 

For a few moments there was silence. Then Lily said: “What do you usually do in moments like  these? To get back to sleep, I mean?”

A dry laugh left Matty’s lips. 

“I don’t. I either look for something to keep me awake or for something to change how I feel.” 

“Drugs, you mean?”

There was a quiver in her voice he maybe would have interpreted as disgust a few weeks ago. But the jewelry still hanging around her neck was proof of why he knew better by now. 

“That’s one thing, yeah. But there’s others as well. Going on social media is one, Tiktok especially is absolutely lethal for me in those moments because I have…an algorithm that greatly overestimates the level of masochism I can handle and shows me a lot of bullshit I actually can’t cope with.”

Lily chuckled quietly. 

“Doesn’t it do this to all of us? I swear, once it realizes I’m a dancer, you don’t want to know how hard it was for me to get out of ED-tok”

“Yeah. Yeah I know but I…have a feeling that for me, in those moments at least, it’s worse.”

“What are the others?”

He choose to light another cigarette instead of answering her right away. 

“Online games were something I used quite a lot, especially when I was younger. Getting lost in WoW, Warhammer, CoD, all of that bullshit where you can literally rot away for hours because somewhere in the world there’s always someone who doesn’t have to be at work or at school just right now. And then…”, he took a pause, keeping the smoke in his longues for a few heartbeats before exhaling it in lengh, “there is sex, of course. Girlfriends. Hookups. Escorts. The now ex-wife,, at some point. I’m actually until this day convinced one reason my marriage lasted as long as it did was because that worked surprisingly well until right before the end.”

He would have expected for Lily to interrupt him now. Tell him to stop, that this was something she didn’t want to hear about, that he was disgusting. He couldn’t have held it against her if she did. But instead of saying anything, she just closed her fingers around his tighter. 

“The goal is always the same though. Trying to change how I feel. Trying to get my mind off whatever it’s spiralling about. Works surprisingly well sometimes. Works terribly bad on other occasions.” 

He didn’t understand why she was there, still, really. And sometimes he wondered for how long she would be. As if she heard his thoughts, she turned around in his arms just now. 

“If I said I might be able to offer you something else, will you let me try? Or is that imprudent of me?”

The right answer was that she shouldn’t try anything. Only partly because he was convinced it was not going to work, mainly because he was of the strong believe she shouldn’t have to. But it was way past three a.m. by now. So fuck right and wrong then.

“Yeah…”, he whispered, leaning his head against hers, “Yeah I’ll let you try, darling.”

She told him to go back to bed and turn the lamp on her nightstand on and so he did. A few moments later she returned to the bedroom as well, a cup in each of her hands and balancing a book on the top of her arms in between them. He took them out of her hands as soon as she was in his reach and put one on the nightstand, keeping the other in his hand, sniffing curiously on it. He couldn’t quite tell the colour of its contents in the dim light but the smell was sweet, but not exactly familiar.

“What kind of tea is this?”, he asked while scooting over on the bed so that she could sit down next to him. 

“None, actually. It’s milk heated in the microwave with honey and it’s-”

“Ah! Fuck!”, Matty cursed who had just burned his tongue on the liquid that was surprisingly hot. 

“... ‘hot’”, Lily finished the sentence. “Alright, Matty, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get comfortable now, ok? As comfortable as somewhat possible. You’re going to drink the sleeping-potion and while you do that, you’ll listen to me reading, alright? And sooner or later, one of us is going to fall asleep and I hope”, she yawned almost aggressively, “it’s not going to be me. But we’ll see.”

Matty couldn’t help but grin while he leaned in to kiss her. “Anything you say, love. Anything you say.”

And with that he cuddled up in his blanket, trying out a few different positions until he came to the conclusion that the most comfortable one was with this head leaned against her shoulder (he considered putting it in her lap first before realising that would make drinking basically impossible), the cup of milk in his hand. And it tasted surprisingly good, not too sweet but warm, soothing, heating him up from the inside. Calming him down. Lily smiled at him.

“Ready?”, she asked and he just nodded. And so Lily began reading. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysteriously, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.”

Matty had thought about throwing this book out more times than he could count by now. JKR being the most obvious reason, the less obvious ones being the fear of not being perceived cool anymore because of it. But somehow, as in opposite to a lot of other things, his Harry-Potter-collection survived the several moves, manic episodes and “oh my god this is so cringe nobody needs this”-fits of people he used to live with. And maybe that had been a sign. A sign that it would be needed for moments like this.

“Why this one?”, he asked when Lily paused for a second after finishing a paragraph. 

She shrugged. “I don’t know. You said you needed something to change how you felt. I thought that might do the trick.”

And oh was he inclined to believe her. Because right now, while he lay here, drinking the milk and listening to Lily reading, he could slowly feel his body relax for the first time in what seemed hours. For the first time, the constant feeling of fear and anxiety slowly faded out of the body. And maybe, just maybe, that was the sign that things were in fact not that permanent. 

“Know when you’re coming home already?”

Never would Matty have thought that one of the best days of his life started with such a simple text message. An almost ordinary one, in fact. One of the kind Lily and him were exchanging several times per week, a desperate attempt to make having dinner together work again, somewhere in between him getting his students ready for their exams and Lily being in the last stages of practice for the upcoming easter-performances at the Opera. Little did he know that these tiny lines of text would actually change his life forever. Alas, his reply was rather basic. 

“Finishing at six sharp so shouldn’t be long after that.”

The sound of the text message sending had barely vanished into thin air when he saw the three grey dots appear in the bubble of the conversation that belonged to Lily. He couldn’t help but smile a little, imagining her sitting on the sofa, her phone in her hand. She had the day off today since she was going to be on stage the entire weekend and nothing to do except for some appointment in the morning he remembered faintly. The next text he received was remarkably short. 

“Bella Cosa?”

Matty chuckled.

“Feeling fancy today?”

The reply followed promptly. Again. 

“The only question of relevance right now is what you fancy my love.”

Unlike with their usual Pizza-place, Matty didn’t know this one’s menu by heart which resulted in him having to check it on their website now. A few minutes later he came back to her with the order as followed: Margarita with Mushrooms, Pepperoni, Ham and Artichokes. Lily replied with an emoji looking nauseous followed by an “(very affectionately)” addition. He was just about to FaceTime her just to see the mischievous look on her face, when the doorbell to his office rang, announcing his next student. So he opted to confirm that he intended to be home at around six thirty and telling her he loved her, again, because he always tended to end texts like this when he knew he couldn’t reply for some time. 

He didn’t get home by six thirty though, basically because he regularly tended to forget the rush hour and how that meant waiting several minutes to find a tube that wasn’t absolutely overcrowded. His strings of apologies to Lily, however, were cut short by her when she kissed him right away, telling him not to worry. 

“You’re here now. That’s good enough for me”, she murmured in between putting two kisses on his lips and he responded with absolutely zero irony, that he was happy to hear it. Lily told him to sit on the couch already while she would get the pizza out of the oven, brushing his offer to help her off. 

“I’ve been the one who didn’t exactly work today, so let me spoil you a little bit”, she argued and who was he to contradict her on that? So he went to the livingroom because pizza was traditionally eaten on the sofa in their house and let himself fall onto the couch. It was one of those days, he figured, where he wasn’t aware of how tired his body really was until he got a real breather. That was quite exactly now. 

Now that he let himself sink down into the sofa cushions, feeling the weight of his body and the exhaustion that befell him. He did a lot of teaching this week. A lot of teaching and a lot of babysitting the Hann-children and while he loved both, it took a toll on him too. And just now he realised how much. His mind was blank. His body heavy. He closed his eyes for a second and was thankful for the darkness. Not having to see anymore. Just darkness surrounding him and the faint sounds of Lily buzzing around in the kitchen. Taking breaths. Long. Deep. Allowing the body to get in a state of relaxation, finally. He didn’t in too long, he just noticed that now. Times were weird at the moment, in every aspect and on some days he had the impression like he felt it more than on others. Today seemed to be one of them, without him knowing the cause for it. Maybe it was his birthday coming up in a few weeks, presenting him with his own mortality, once again. The undeniable proof that another year had passed. Another year where he didn’t do an album and the question what exactly he had achieved in it. He got used to it, or maybe he just didn’t have the energy anymore to worry about it the way he used to after “Being Funny”. The distances between the albums following that one didn’t make sense to anybody – Matty himself included. A touch on his cheek made him jump. 

“You’re exhausted, aren’t you?”

He took her hand in his and put a kiss to the back of it. “No”, he mumbled, his lips not leaving the back of her hand, “just glad I’m home. Haven’t seen nearly enough of you, lately.”

Lily snorted softly, but the way she buried her hand in his hair told him that she wasn’t making fun of him, neither did she ask the question who’s fault that was, exactly. Instead she caressed his thumb with hers and said: “Well, let’s make up for that now, shall we?”

Nodding, he scooted to the side a little to make room for her and watched her sitting down next to him. 

“I’m starving…”, Lily groaned, right before she put the upper of the two pizza-boxes on Matty’s lap. “Honestly, I confess, I was acting like a true Karen at Bella Cosa because when I arrived they didn’t have yours ready, although the notification said so. So I told them that this is not the kind of service I expect from them and if they seriously think this is customer service. It was utterly embarrassing.”

The scene started to evolve in front of Matty’s eyes and made him pause the process of opening his box. Lily standing in front of the bar where they were handing out the takeaway and explained to the waiter in the most passive-aggressive way anyone ever did how she expected her food to be ready when she was notified of such. A knowing smile spread all over his lips before he could help it. 

“How embarrassing are we talking? Like on a scale from zero to ‘you calling the waiter at the Les Garcons a pretentious fucktwat’, where were we? Approximately?”

Lily frowned for a few seconds. Then she said: “A solid eight I’d say. Anyway, it was enough to make me cry on the tube on the way back.”

He exhaled audibly. “So when I open this now, there’s a non-zero chance that I’ll find a gigantic bogger on my food? With love from the kitchen?”

Lily giggled. “No. No I promise you, I checked and everything is in there as intended.”

“Alright”, Matty said and dramatically put both of his hands on the lid of the pizza box, “then I guess it’s save to-” 

He froze. Literally. The lid of the pizza box was opened now, both hands resting on the corner of it, still holding it. His gaze, however, was fixed on the inside of the lid rather than on the content. On the bottom half there was the pizza as he had requested it. A huge, fluffy dough, the mozzarella melted perfectly, ham, mushrooms and pepperoni all sitting on there, perfectly glazing in grease as they should. But Matty didn’t bet an eye on it. All he could look at was the tiny picture in black and white pinned to the lid with posterstrips. He had dreamed of this moment so often during these past  months. After every time Lily and him had sex, in the aftermath of every doctor’s appointment to check either of them up, every time when the doubts got too high and overwhelming. He thought he had imagined it so often that when it finally happened, he would know exactly what to do. He would know exactly how to feel. That was a mistake. He didn’t know shit, he knew that now. The tears running down his cheeks now were proof of it.

For a moment he wondered if he was dreaming. If he was making it up in his mind because he wanted it to become reality so bad. He even wondered if she was trolling him. But on the upper right corner of the ultrasound picture, there was Lily’s name written on it, right next to today’s date. His heart started racing in his chest as if it understood the information before his brain had fully processed it, pumping adrenaline through his veins. And dopamine. Oh so much dopamine, almost making him feel dizzy and unable to think straight. Feeling so much, he wasn’t aware of what it was, really. Joy. Love. Anxiety, maybe. Pride. When he looked up to Lily again, she smiled at him and he would have bet that the tears shimmering in her eyes were the same ones he felt running down his cheeks. 

“Are you ok?”, she whispered, her voice hoarse and raspy. He shook his head while he breathed “Yes”, still trying to figure out which one of the 300.000 things he wanted to tell her now he was going to say first. When he opened his mouth, all of them came out at once. “IloveyouthisisamazingIcan’twaittomeetourbabyIloveyouhowlonghaveyouknownthisisamazingyouareamazingIloveyousomuch.”

He reached out to her almost desperately, needing to touch her now while his limbs didn’t really seem to obey him. So his hand landed somewhere on her arm.

Lily made a weird sound, half of a sob, half of a laugh, then she leaned over the opened pizza box and kissed him. Softly, tenderly, the tears on her cheeks mixing with his.

“I love you too”, she said, burying her hands in his hair as if she wanted to pull him in even closer. Matty closed his eyes for a second to collect himself a little bit better. All the exhaustion was gone from his body all of a sudden, he felt as awake, as energized as he hadn't in weeks. Because everything that mattered was right here. Right here in his arms. Lily was, their baby was. They did it. After all the hoping, the wishing, the doubting, especially from him, they did it. And nobody would ever convince him that the love they felt for each other didn’t play a huge role in them being successful now as well. He put the pizza box away without letting go of Lily for more than a second, making sure the lid of the box with the picture in it stayed open, of course, then he pulled her into him until she sat in between his legs, her body resting against his. It had never felt this good to hold her before. Never felt this special. Taking a deep breath he carefully lifted his hand and put it on Lily’s stomach. The part of her body where their baby was growing. Their baby. Lily’s and his. A human being they created, with a heart, a brain, growing a little bit each day, developing their own personality eventually, some day. And this was the first time of him consciously touching the part of her body that carried something so unbelievable. He let his fingers touch it first, then the palm of his hand, pressing down gently. Of course he knew better than to expect to really feel something there. But nonetheless it felt like right here, right in this moment, he was making contact with their baby for the first time. And he couldn’t help but cry, again, mumbling an apology when Lily gently wiped the tears from his face. 

“It’s ok”, she said, keeping a hand on his cheek. 

They kept on dreaming, together, for a while. About first steps and first words and first days of kindergarten. About favourite toys and hobbies and when was an appropriate time to introduce them to their first instrument. Lily told him that she took the first test about two days ago but that she didn’t want to tell him before she got the ultrasound. 

“Who are you going to tell first? When we’re out of the woods, I mean?”, she asked him at some point. 

“George”, he said without any hesitation. “And then the rest of the band. And Louis. But George needs to know first.”

Lily intertwined the fingers of her hand with his. 

“What about your dad?”

“Yeah…”, Matty said, the word tasting stale on his tongue, “Yeah sure. He’ll be…absolutely over the moon. But I should get this done before my birthday or he’ll be overly emotional there.” 

Lily smiled. “Yeah, I can imagine that. Tim will be super proud of you given how invested he was in our journey.”

Matty agreed, pulling her closer again. Maybe that was why he noticed now how Lily’s body tensed a little bit before she spoke again.

“You…are you…do you want to tell her?”

Matty jumped a little. He took his time thinking about it. After a while he said: “No. No, I fucking don’t.”

He pressed his hand down on Lily’s stomach a little harder. Protecting her. Protecting them. For now. For good. Forever. Lily put a hand on his face and directed his head in her direction so that she could kiss him on the cheek. 

“Just…just promise me something, Matty. Please.”

“Anything”, he said, not hesitating for as much as a second, “anything you want, my love, just tell me.”

Lily cleared her throat. After a little pause she said: “Promise that if…you…should ever feel…not ok about this, any of this, about parenting, I mean, or about us,  in any way whatsoever…promise to tell me, alright? Promise to tell me before you let your mind convince you of something that is just not true. We’ll find a way, whatever it is. I promise you, my love. We’ll find a solution. We’ll always find a solution.”

In the beginning of their relationship he would have told her not to worry about it, that something like that would never happen anyway because there was no scenario where he could ever feel anything else than unconditional love for their baby. He knew better now. 

“I promise Lily. I swear on everything that is of value to me.”

She whispered “Good” and leaned into him again. Letting him hold her. Hold them. Trusting him not only with her safety, but also with becoming the father of her children. Unreal. Absolutely fucking unreal. Still. 

They would spent the entire night talking and she would answer every single one of the questions that came spilling out of his mouth before. He would barely let go of her for the entire time He would rest his hand on her stomach when he fell asleep.

„Good things happen to you, Matty. You deserve good things happening to you. Let them”, Lily would whisper in his ear before she fell asleep in his arms. And he was inclined to believe her. This day, the knowledge that she was pregnant, made him believe her. The nightmares, however, would come soon enough.