Page 90 of Family Like This

“Is Chelsea pregnant?” I ask.

He smirks over his beer and shrugs. “Yeah, if you don’t want your girls pregnant, maybe don’t drink the water.”

“Wow. Congrats,” Joel says.

“Were you planning it?” Jesse asks.

Trev chuckles. “Uh… not exactly. It wasn’t an accident, though.”

“I’m confused,” I say.

“Not to get to into the, uh, specifics… but Chels hasn’t been on birth control because she kept trying different ones and none made her feel good. Anyway, we usually use condoms or I pull out—not the safest method, I know, but we weren’t being anal about preventing. Obviously. We sort of decided to purposely not try and prevent it about halfway through sex one time. Probably not the best time to make the decision, but I do not regret it. I’m really fucking excited.”

He looks over at Aaron again, who seems to have already known.

“We’re good, man. I told you that last week,” Aaron says, extending his fist to Trevor.

Trev nods and bumps his fist back. “I know. I just… my heart still breaks for you guys. How are you doing? And don’t just say you’re okay. We’ve been through enough shit together now that there’s no place for lying about that.”

Aaron laughs. “Yeah, no kidding. I don’t know. I really am okay, and I mean that in the truest sense of the word. I’m not good—at least not about what happened—but I’m not in a bad place either. We’ve dealt with a lot of the heavy emotions around it, and while it sucks, we’re trying to be both realistic and optimistic about trying again—which we’re still waiting to do until October. I’m sure it’ll bring up more complex feelings again when we do, but for now, I’m okay. We’re okay. We’ve been through so much worse, and I think that’s why we can handle this. And it brings us both a lot of joy to see you guys happy. At least I’m assuming you are since neither of you can stop smiling.”

“I’m fucking thrilled,” Trev says. “Like I loved the hell out of her before, but this is next level. Can’t fucking wait to see her with a giant bump.”

“How far along is she?” I ask.

“Almost twelve weeks. We’re in the telling everyone stage right now. She’s telling the rest of the girls tonight. Amelia’s how far along?”

“Almost twenty-four weeks. We’re getting to the fun but alsooh shitstage.” I pause for a moment, laughing. “Well, I guess the secondoh shitstage. First is oh shit we’re going to have a baby. Second is oh shit the baby’s almost here.”

“How’s Amelia doing?” Jesse asks. Since she and Dani are so close, he’s gotten to know Amelia pretty well.

That might be the one topic of conversation that can steal a bit of my joy, but it might help to talk about it.

“I’m not completely sure. She’s been inI’m finemode a lot lately and hasn’t wanted to talk. I’m trying to balance encouraging her to talk to me with giving her space, but I keep second-guessing myself.”

“Communication is by far the hardest part of a relationship,” Aaron says. “Obviously. It’s this weird thing where it takes communication to learn how to communicate, but if you don’t know how to communicate, then what do you do? In my case? Fuck up a lot.”

Joel raises his hand. “Same. I had to learn how to say things instead of keeping them inside and pretending I was fine.” Aaron looks at Joel, holding back a laugh. “Yeah, I know. I’m Rae. Shut up.”

“I think the point they’re making,” Jesse says, “is that we’ve been there, and in some ways still are. Dani and I make an active point to sit down once a month and just talk about our relationship. No judgment, just honest feelings said calmly. We actually went to couples’ therapy for a few months last summer to learn effective ways to communicate and about each other’s love languages. It helped us, and our therapist led us through the first few monthly talks. It made a big difference for us.”

“I hadn’t thought about love languages. I remember my mom mentioning it on occasion, but sometimes I tuned out the therapy talk. Maybe I should’ve been listening.”

“Teenagers are great at that,” Trev says with a laugh.

“Never too late to learn,” Aaron says. “They’re not a science, but when you understand your partner’s love language, it’s easier to understand them.”

“Makes sense,” I say, even though this seems like another thing I have to learn that only complicates things more. I blow out a hard breath. “I’m ready to not pass the Bechdel test anymore.”

“You mean… talk about unimportant shit?” Jesse asks with a laugh.

“Exactly.”

Though it’s not unimportant, we switch topics to careers as Trevor goes on a tangent about announcing. Joel’s been enjoying his master’s program, and Aaron is excited for the school year to begin.

I let them talk, happy for their success. My job comes naturally, so it’s a place of low stress in my life. Which is good because even though I love Amelia and I’m happy and excited about the baby and our future together… love is fucking complicated.

Amelia

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