Page 22 of Waiting to Love You

Thankfully, Audrey and Selina have taken to being aunties just as easily as Leia. The three of them take turns helping me take care of Rebekah, checking in on the two of us, and spoiling Rebekah rotten. The four of us can’t get together as much as we used to, but we try to get together for a girls’ day every few months. Selina is four months pregnant with her and Vance’s first baby. Although they had a rocky start, I’ve never known two people more in love than them. Audrey and Connor have been together for months now, living together in Connor’s house with their two teenage daughters. Everything differs from what I had imagined, but it’s exactly how it should be at the same time. All my friends are happy and in love, except Leia, but that’s her own fault.

A pang of jealousy flashes through me, but I push it down. I’m beyond happy for my friends, but there is a part of me that wishes that kind of happiness was in the cards for me. Now that I have Rebekah, it has become even harder to find someone to call my own. But it also might have something to do with my inability to forget about the man who gave me Rebekah—her father, Seth.

“Time to get dressed, little one.” I plaster a smile on my face as I grab an outfit for her and place it on the bed.

“The girls will be here any minute,” I mutter before lifting her out of her crib and placing her on my bed, then get to work changing her diaper and getting her dressed. I dress her in a special outfit to commemorate my first girls’ day in months, so she’s wearing one of my favorite outfits: a maroon jumper with ruffles along the bottom and a short-sleeved bodysuit with matching-colored roses underneath. I top her outfit off with a maroon headband with an enormous bow on the side of her head. Her small red curls peek out the sides.

“You are the cutest little girl in the world,” I squeal as I lean to my right and grab my phone off the end table, snapping a quick photo.

“Where’s my baby?” Leia’s voice echoes through the house before she barges into my bedroom, still unable to respect closed doors.

Leia is about two inches taller than me, her blonde hair hanging in loose curls down her back over the pastel pink sweater that says Favorite Auntie scrolled in an elegant script across the front. She’s wearing the gray Lululemon yoga pants we bought the last time we had a girls’ day. Her wire-frame glasses are perched on the end of her nose, and thick black eyelashes frame her crystal blue eyes, which are shining with excitement.

“Knock much?” I question as I pick Rebekah up and hand her to Leia.

“If you wanted any of us to knock, you wouldn’t have given us keys,” Selina chimes in as she steals Rebekah right out of Leia’s arms.

Selina is wearing the same sweatshirt as Leia, but instead of pink it’s a lavender color—her favorite—stretched across the curve of her swollen belly. The sleeves are pushed to her elbows as her lightly tanned skin is accentuated by her chocolate brown hair, which is pulled back in a tight bun, the typical hairstyle for a ballerina even with it being at the nape of her neck. It’s in drastic contrast to how she usually wears her hair, hanging loosely down her back.

Since Selina returned from New York because of her injury, we’ve been thick as thieves. Leia told me that she left to become a famous ballerina, but now that she’s back, it’s like we’ve been friends forever. with the addition of Leia and Audrey rounding out our friend group.

“Hey!” Leia shouts as she plops onto the bed to pout.

If I didn’t know these two loved each other and my daughter to death, I would be afraid a fight would break out.

“I haven’t seen this little one in almost a week. Damn morning sickness.”

All three of us laugh as I grab a shirt, a pair of underwear, and yoga pants to change into before heading toward the bathroom.

“Hurry and get dressed. I need coffee,” I hear Audrey grumble as she blows a piece of her unruly curly hair out of her face. She is also wearing a Favorite Auntie sweatshirt in green. I know her favorite color has been teal blue for most of her life, but it’s changed to green recently. I have a very sneaking suspicion I know why.

All my friends have been incredible since Rebekah was born, and I’d be lost without them, but there is still one more person I need to tell about my little girl: her father.

“I’m going, I’m going.” I shut the bathroom door and change.

I glimpse my reflection in the mirror. My red hair is dingy and slightly greasy, since I threw it on the top of my head in a messy bun after I took a quick shower in the middle of the night because Rebekah spit up all over me.

“I look like shit,” I say loud enough for my friends to hear.

“No, you look like a single mother who’s trying to do everything on her own!” Audrey shouts through the door.

I sigh. I wish I could let them help me more, but they all have other responsibilities. Audrey just moved in with Connor and is trying to get their combined families situated. Selina just got married to the man of her dreams and is now pregnant, and Leia is working on making sure her family business doesn’t fail. I can’t put any more on them than I already do.

Leia and Audrey both know about who Rebekah’s father is, but I haven’t told anyone else. I’m not ashamed of my daughter by any means, but it feels wrong to let people know who her father is before telling him myself. I know it’s silly, especially since I have no idea when I’m going to see him again. I’m sure I could get his cell phone number or email address from Brady or his parents, but telling someone they have a daughter is something that should be done in person. It also requires a lot of explaining on my part, explaining that I’m not entirely sure how to do.

Someone knocks softly on the door and eases it open.

“Wash your face, pull down your hair, and put on some makeup. You’re beautiful.” Audrey flashes me a smile as she steps into the bathroom. “Oh, and your phone rang, but we let it go to voice mail.”

I give her a tight smile in the mirror and sigh. If anyone understands what I’m going through, it’s Audrey. Having had Love at eighteen and having hippies for parents, she has had to figure out this mom thing all on her own.

“You’ve got this, Mama,” she whispers as she wraps her arms around my waist and squeezes. “Now, get a move on. I need coffee, stat. I barely got any sleep last night.”

“Not my fault you and Connor can’t keep your hands off each other.”

We both giggle as I quickly undress and put on clean clothes. Most people are too embarrassed to change in front of others, but since I exposed myself to a room of strangers while giving birth to my daughter, all sense of modesty has gone out the window. Audrey and I work together to get my hair to behave, and I throw on some tinted moisturizer, mascara, and lip gloss and call it good before striding out of the bathroom.

“Hey, Bristol,” Emersyn says as she bounces Rebekah on her lap.

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