Page 55 of His Bittersweet Regret

Far. Far. Worse.

“Collectively, or just physically?”

“Any of it. All of it. You’re getting closer to the delivery date,” I suggested.

“I’m achy and tired all the time.”

“I guess that’s to be expected?” I asked because honestly, I didn’t know. I just figured it had to be draining and maybe a bit painful to grow a whole human in your body.

“Yep,” she mumbled.

I had the sudden urge to get away from Opal. Not because I wanted to be away from her, but because there was zero chance she would let me hold her. “Have to use the bathroom,” I mumbled as I slipped back toward the door that hid the space that was barely big enough for a stand-up shower, sink, and toilet. In fact, you could probably wash your hands while sitting on the toilet, everything was that tight. How my pregnant girlfriend – shit, ex-girlfriend – managed to shower in there was beyond me.

When I came back out, my eyes drifted to the room that would house my son once he arrived. There was a box lying on the floor with a picture of a crib on it. “What’s this?” I asked as my feet guided me the few steps across the narrow hall to the bedroom.

“The nursery?” She asked, not moving from the couch where she had parked her butt earlier.

“No, I mean, why is the crib still sitting in the box?”

“Because I haven’t had the energy, or the tools, to put it together yet.”

“Why didn’t they put it together when it was delivered?”

I stepped back out into the hall to look her way when she didn’t dignify that question with a response. When our eyes met, hers just stared at me, as if I was stupid. Maybe I was. No. I definitely was. She had been mine and this could all be going in a completely different direction, if only I hadn’t… No use dwelling on my mistakes or what could have been.

“Where are your tools?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Beth was going to borrow some of her mom’s this weekend. I don’t have any. The ones we used to have at the other apartment, you took with you.”

Son of a bitch. There were so many things that I never thought of when I left her. So many ways that she had been left with a giant ‘fuck you’ from me, and none of it had occurred to me because it didn’t affect me. It had all, always, been about me and never her. She was right to not want me back.

I was a selfish asshole. That knowledge stung something fierce too. The least I could do was to find every way possible to make her life easier, since I’d all done before was make it more difficult.

“I’ll make sure you have a set of tools to use when you need them.” It was my first response to make sure she had everything she needed to take care of herself and our son, since she wouldn’t move into the house I bought.

“No need. Beth and I will get it done in a few days, like we planned.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that I wouldn’t put the crib together. I’m getting you the tools for when you’re too stubborn to ask for help on other occasions. Beth is working the ER this weekend. She’s going to be too tired to put a crib together, and you’re in no condition to do it either, so I’m going to get it done for you.”

“Knock yourself out then,” she said with a lengthy sigh. I could have sworn that I heard her mutter a not-so-sarcastic, "Please," at the end. Couldn’t say as I blamed her. There had been many days, since the reality of the shitstorm I caused finally sunk in, when I wished that knocking myself out was a viable option.

I ran down to my truck and grabbed the tools I would need and then I got to work building a crib. You wouldn’t think the damn things would be that difficult. I laughed as I screwed it up, once again, and had to take the damn thing apart by three steps and flip the stupid piece upside down. It didn’t look right like that, but then again, according to the picture, that was how it was supposed to go.

Fucking crib! The fleeting question I asked her was, “Why didn’t they put it together, when it was delivered?” She hadn’t given me an answer, just stared at me like I was a moron. It was then I realized why. As I sat there, living through the headache of being the one trying to put a crib together without another set of able-bodied hands to help out, that I realized the only reason I was able to do it was because the walls were so close together and basically holding parts up for me. She rented this shithole of an apartment because she didn’t have a lot of money to spare. It stood to reason that she wouldn’t want to spend the extra on having people come in and put shit together for her.

There was no way I could have felt any smaller. It was like I kept opening my mouth and rubbing salt in a wound that was still very much raw for her. If we were together, the damn thing would have been assembled already – whether by me and my family or after I hired someone else to do it. The one that I had set up at the house that I bought for Opal was put together because I’d paid extra for assembly on delivery. Wasn’t that just a bite in the ass?

There I was, flaunting my money. Some of which, Opal didn’t even know existed yet. She didn’t understand that I had inherited a huge chunk of change from my mom’s parents when they died. I didn’t even know about it until a couple months after we broke up. Mom and Dad hadn’t told any of us about it until we were able to collect the money. She swore each older child to secrecy. We weren’t allowed to tell the next in line that they had money coming.

It was after learning about the inheritance, that I finally understood how the twins had been able to buy their condo. I always pissed them off by calling it an apartment, but in truth, they owned the space they lived in. Up until a few months ago, I thought they were renting and that they lived together because they couldn’t afford it separately. Turns out, they both wanted to get in on something cheap while they were living their best bachelor lives and save money for the future whenever they decided to settle down and start families.

That was still something I couldn’t imagine either of them ever doing, but then again, stranger things had happened. Look at me. I had trashed the best relationship I would ever have for the stupidest of reasons. If I could fuck up a good thing, surely my brothers would be able to hold onto one, once it presented itself.

I just finished tightening the last screw, and stuck my head out into the hallway to call Opal in to take a look at the crib, when I heard her groan.

“Opal?” I called out as I set my screwdriver down and made my way to the living room. She was bent, almost double – if that was possible for a woman who was in her eighth month of pregnancy. “Opal, are you okay?”

She shook her head. “Get my bag,” she hissed.

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