#sans-regrets

ficlet for @the-bark-is-worse | @sans-regrets | @kennyfuckingackerman

“Marie do we need to move your seat again?”

Eight year old Marie Ackerman looked up at her teacher, then to the student her desk abutted in the two by two rows of the classroom. 

“No…” she said quietly, scooting back over to her own personal space.

Not six seconds after the class resumed did she lean over again. 

“I really like your erasers. Can I see one? I like the cat. I like cats. Pink ones too.”

The girl next to her looked over and scowled, scooping up her brightly colored animal erasers and fitting them back into the plastic netted bag they came in, stuffing it onto her lap, away from the prying eyes of the blonde. 

“Did you want to play with me at recess? I think we can bring the jump ropes out today.”

“Marie stop,” the girl hissed, using her elbow to push her away, “you’re gonna get me in trouble.”

“I’m just asking—“

“No—stop—and your hair stinks, move over.”

“MARIE.”

Frozen in her seat, Marie looked up this time only with her eyes.

“Here,” demanded her instructor, tapping the empty desk next to Levi, “up here next to your brother, where I can see you.”

The class exploded into a buzz of tiny whispers, most of them having wondered which one of the Ackertwins would be the first to get in trouble today. Marie had won by a landslide, as Levi had sat so far the entire morning, alone and undisturbed. 

She sat obediently, pushing her hair from her face and lowering her chin to the arms she crossed atop the desk, a signal of defeat. She couldn’t help it. Her mouth wanted to talk; she didn’t know how to make the words stop.

“Another sound from you and your father gets a phone call.”

Marie opened her mouth to protest that Kenny was her uncle, not her father, but for once, thought better of it, and settled back down, not bothering to open up the social studies book they were all learning from. It’s not like she could read it anyway. 

For about twelve minutes she listened to the class unscolded, bobbing her head back and forth slowly until finally she couldn’t handle it anymore and lifted herself up, leaning over towards Levi. 

“Levi what did you bring for a snack today?”

Her brother was faster than their teacher and, annoyed that he was trying to listen, turned and gripped his sister by her shoulders, shoving her off her chair and onto the floor where her little legs went up over her head as she backwards summersaulted into the art table, her hair catching on the screws that held the legs in place and she exploded into wailing sobs.

Levi returned to his textbook with a frown, his cheek resting in his open palm.

Their teacher grit her teeth. 

Book in her hands, Petra shifted in her seat on the couch for the umpteenth time since she sat down, still attempting to find a comfortable position. She turned the page of her book, starting onto a new chapter with a slight frown on her lips as she noticed the tortoiseshell cat out of the corner of her eye, bypassing her and jumping right up onto Levi’s chest. 

His words, of course, did nothing to help; and while he may have been kidding, the joke was completely lost to the young mother to be. 

Petra huffed annoyed through her nose, shifting again on the couch, this time attempting to tuck her legs up under herself. 

Marie could feel her throat swelling with the urge to cry and she bit it back with the grinding of her teeth.

“Why are you angry with me,” she demanded, “it’s not like I kept it from you, or even knew.”

She paused, taking a deep breath and praying his outburst wouldn’t invite Erwin into the room to politely, but quite firmly, escort her out of the apartment.

Seven year old Marie didn’t even wait for the smell of her brother’s gas to reach her nose before shoving him off the couch, not even caring if he whacked his head on the coffee table.

“I’m telling Uncle Kenny!” she cried, scrambling off the back of the couch, grabbing the soft minky arm of Levi’s stuffed bunny in the process.

She stood at the threshold, where the living room met the kitchen and stuck out her bottom, dangling his precious toy behind her, right in the line of fire for her own flatulence.

When it came down to it, her meeting with Levi (or her baby-daddy, as her friend Auruo would constantly refer to him as,) went better than she had expected. Truth be told, her expectations had not been high, especially not after all Detective Dawk had informed her of as he discretely passed onto her a numerous papers filled manila envelope detailing the man’s arrest record. 

But she had given him a chance, and was pleasantly surprised to find he had no intentions of shirking his newfound responsibilities, and even going so far as to join her for her next doctor’s appointment. 

For the most part the meet up had gone well, save for the slight abrasiveness he took with the radiologist for the ultrasound jelly being cold. Petra had insisted it was fine, a bit of embarrassment coming over her as she gave the radiologist a look of apology. But he meant well, and she supposed that’s all that really mattered. 

A girl, the technician informed them. They were to have a baby girl. 

It was hard for Petra to contain her excitement. As long as the baby was healthy, she was content, but to have a baby girl? It was something she always dreamed of, if in different circumstances of course. 

Her excitement lasted through the rest of the afternoon, the two opting to visit a small cafe by the clinic and talking a bit more. 

But it was her return home to her apartment that managed to quash her elation.

She was greeted by her roommates with a two weeks notice to pack up and move out, a drastic change from the remainder months of her pregnancy she had originally been given to find a new place.

Petra had no intentions to drag the process along; had it been up to her she’d have moved as quickly as possible, but that was just it- finding a new place she could afford was impossible.

Sure, she had a cushion of money she had been planning to use for college (and subsequently changing it to an unofficial baby fund upon finding out she was expecting,) but everything she had come across was more than she expected she could afford. 

She tried to push it, telling them she still had not found a new place, but it did not matter; they had already found a new person who was coming in two weeks.

‘Ya found ya baby-daddy, didnja? Move in wit ‘im,’ was the advice one of them had passed on, officially wiping her hands of the situation. 

Petra stewed on it for a few days. 

Sure, he had offered her a place to stay, and yet she found it next to impossible to even imagine herself asking him. 

She did not want to become a burden, she did not want to push herself into his life than she already had. 

If only she had looked harder, if only she had better roommates, if only she had been more careful...

But time was ticking, and she could not put it off any longer. 

She had to ask.

She needed to ask.

And as she stood at his door, knocking for entrance, she wondered how she could even find the words...

He had been quiet since she broke the news. In all honesty, his silence had unsettled her a bit, but it was not as if she did not come prepared for the worst. She had already assumed since she found out herself she may be in this alone, and that idea ever so slowly seemed to become a reality as it seemed that she would never find him. But it was the bits of information she had learned from Detective Dawk that certainly helped her to approach this with low, or rather no, expectations. 

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, fingers holding onto the strap of her purse at her shoulder. 

ur grounded