Page 121 of Staying Selfless

“Holy hell.” I stop in my tracks, standing on the roof as I look up to the night sky, the vast space speckled with countless stars. “This is beautiful.”

The only artificial light around is the small amount at the end of the lane, coming from the ceremony space. Besides that, the sky is solely lit by the moon and stars.

“Damn, this is amazing,” Eli adds, both of us craning our necks upward. “Come here.” He takes a seat in the middle of the roof, draping the blanket on his lap and opening it for me. “Come sit with me.”

I snuggle my body close to his, needing to steal some warmth as he tucks the blanket around. Even though it’s chilly outside, this view is definitely worth it.

“First of all,” Eli begins as he pops the cork to the champagne bottle. “I need you to know how much I love you. Nothing could change that.”

“I know.” I offer a nervous nod as he takes a chug from the bottle before handing it to me. I’m aware of where this conversation is headed, and I think it’s time we had it.

“Something I think we do really well is communicate with each other. Don’t you think?”

I nod in agreement, taking a sip of the bubbles before handing them back to my boyfriend.

“I’m not going to sit here and try to change your mind, necessarily,” Eli says. “But I need to know exactly why you don’t want to have kids. I need to try and understand because this decision doesn’t just affect your future. It affects mine too.”

“There are a lot of reasons.”

“Well, start listing them. We’ve got all night.”

I take a moment to gather my thoughts. This has been weighing on me since yesterday afternoon when Eli told me he wanted me to be the mother of his children. Honestly, it’s been weighing on my mind for months, and now that the time is here, I want to articulate my reasoning as best I can.

Before I can begin, Eli adds one more thing.

“If this is your choice because it’s truly how you feel and what you want, I can accept that. But if this is because you’re scared or some shit like that, I’m not going to let that fly. I’m not going to let you make huge life decisions based on fear. I want to support you, Logan. I do. But I don’t know how to support you when I don’t understand. So, please. Just help me understand.”

I take a deep breath and start from the beginning. “I used to want kids.”

Eli nods, already knowing this information.

“Things changed when my mom got sick.” I take a long swig from the bottle of bubbles. “Everything changed.”

Eli wraps his arm around me, pulling me into his body as close as possible, and kissing the side of my head. Even though I know he’s frustrated with my choice, he still loves me through all of it.

“I guess the biggest thing that changed was my confidence in myself to be able to care for another person. I always thought I was the care-giving type, but after what happened to my mom, I don’t believe that’s true anymore.”

“Are you serious? Logan, you are one of the most caring people I know, if not the most. Anyone that has you looking out for them is lucky.”

I don’t know what to say in response, so I stay silent.

Even though his words are true to him, it doesn’t necessarily make them true to me. I wish his opinion of me could change my own, but it hasn’t yet. I still feel like somewhat of a failure, and I don’t know if that will ever go away.

“Logan, you know that wasn’t your fault. You did everything you could’ve done for your mom.”

“I love you for thinking so highly of me. But that doesn’t change the fact that I couldn’t save her. What happens if I have a baby and they get sick, and I can’t do anything? I can’t handle that feeling again, Eli.” My voice cracks. I didn’t think this was going to get me emotional, but here we are.

“Baby, you can’t live in fear that something is going to go wrong at any time,” Eli softly says. “Unfortunately, that’s life. Terrible things happen, but way more often, amazing things happen. And being able to create a family together would be amazing.”

“Eli, I’ve spent almost my entire adult life so far taking responsibility for someone else. I can’t even begin to think about doing that again.”

“Logan, you do that every day.” He shakes his head. “You take care of me every day. You take care of Marc. You’re constantly looking out for those you love. You might not realize it, but you already feel responsible for those around you. I can see it. And I’m not asking you to think about kids anytime soon. I just don’t want the terrible things that have happened to you the last couple of years to keep you from living the rest of your life.

“And because I’m on a roll,” he continues. “It would be different with your own kids. With our kids. You were never supposed to be responsible for your mom. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. Having our own family wouldn’t be a burden. It’d be a blessing. We’d get to help form them into who they are meant to be.”

“And what if something happens to me?” I swipe at a fallen tear. “I refuse to put that burden on my children the way it was put on me.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you, Logan. I already told you that you and I are going to live to be old as fuck,” Eli says, making me chuckle as he tries to steer this conversation in a way that will keep me from becoming upset.

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