Just Jump

Taylor bit her lip. She'd said it. She even believed it for most of her life, although in recent years that had started to change. Still, she might never have actually had kids if bad judgment and fate hadn't combined forces to corral her into a sharp left turn.

"I was sure," she told him, but she couldn't meet his eyes. "I never, ever wanted to either put kids through what Mom and Dad did to us, or to be so bound to someone that I put them through what Mom and Dad did -- do -- to each other."

"I was sure, too."

That was all he said. She looked at him, trying to figure out what that meant, and why he didn't say more, under the circumstances. An impeccably uniformed bus boy came by to fill her water glass. She watched the flow of water sparkle in the light, as the glass slowly filled. She smiled at the boy, who barely acknowledged her before drifting away.

"That's a shame, because you'd make a great dad."

He stared straight into her eyes, looking too serious.

"Well, that was then. I've been thinking about it. This. I want to be a dad."

Taylor stared him down, daring him to be a little more specific, while doubting what he could possibly mean. This was Andy, after all. Finally she broke it off, laughing dismissively.

"Like what, we'll get married? You're going to do the honorable thing, and make an honest woman out of your sister?"

Andy looked around then to see who was listening, while Taylor smirked at his sudden sense of conscience.

"No, not like that," he said, too quickly. "Not quite. I certainly don't want to be Uncle Andy. Birthday presents and graduations, and nothing else."

"Well, I knew you'd get involved, at least as much as you could. And wanted."

"Which implies that I always have an out? That I can give just as much as I want, and bail when it gets tough, or annoying? I don't want that."

He was getting angry, and Taylor got angry in turn. These were all easy things for Andy to say. He could say anything. Taylor had to actually do it and live it, whether she said it or not.

"What do you want?"

"I want to be the baby's father."

"Fuck off, Andy."

That came out before she could stop it. It was her turn to look around, but no one had heard. She looked down, not knowing how she'd gotten so angry, so quickly. Maybe it was her hormones. Being pregnant was just weird.

When she at last looked back at him she had tried to quell her anger, but failed. He looked hurt, and sad, and vulnerable, which was a joke, because Andy had never been vulnerable a day in his life. Even when mom and dad fought, he just let it roll off of him as if he were the neighbor's kid, just in the house to visit and play.

"You need to listen to me, Taylor."

"Fine. I'm listening."

"This didn't change how I think, Taylor. But it changed what I think about. And how much I think about it."

Taylor raised her eyebrows in questioning dismissal.

"And I'm thinking more about you," he added.

She felt her eyebrows narrow with angered disbelief.

"You're going to make a great mom. I always thought you would. I felt so bad when you said you didn't want kids. You are going to make a great mom, Taylor. A great mom."

Okay, that made her feel uncomfortable. She looked around the room, at all of the quiet, sober, politely smiling couples. At the table nearest them was an elderly pair who looked like they'd been born married and been together for three quarters of a century without ever having shed a tear. It was an illusion, though, Taylor knew. That wasn't how things were when they got home, and the kids were all huddled upstairs, waiting for that night's explosions.

Maybe it wasn't that bad, really, but it could be, and it wasn't all dinners and smiles in any case.

"I'd be a shitty dad, I thought. I'd fuck it up, the way Mom says I always do, and Dad actually does. But you'll be a great mom, and you... and this... makes me want to be a great dad. And I think I could, as long as I was happy with the mom."

Taylor looked at him. She felt so bad. There was one thing that she wanted that she could never admit to. One horrible, evil future that was so far out of line that no one could ever know, not even Andy.

"But only one woman on earth could do that for me."

Her heart stopped, while her face froze. She couldn't let him see her thoughts, not this time. This wasn't real. This was just Andy looking out for her. Wasn't it? She wasn't even sure what he was really saying, or if she'd heard it right. It was too surreal. It was too far out of bounds. It was too wrong.

Andy didn't have any problems with wrong. He quite literally didn't care. So this was easy for him to just say, she realized.

"Andy, fuck off. This is silly."

"It doesn't feel silly to me."

He was a little angry now. Good. He should be. She should be. But she didn't want him too angry, not at her. She just didn't want him simply telling her what he thought she wanted to hear. He can't have thought this out. She certainly hadn't. She looked off across the room, trying to clear her thoughts.

"Taylor. Look at me."

She looked at him and melted a little, then steeled herself again.

"Andy. Stop. Now."

"No. Please. Taylor, you have to give me a chance."

She'd give him a thousand chances, if she could. But it was too wrong. Wasn't it? Was she doing the right thing by pushing him away?

"No, I don't. Andy, stop."

"Please listen."

She felt tears welling in her eyes again. She felt more conflicting emotions than she thought one brain could possibly contain. She felt like she was trapped inside her mind, screaming to get out, while someone else controlled the conversation and she just sat and helplessly watched.

"Andy, please fucking stop."

The words came out before she could contain them, and she knew she'd regret them for the rest of her life. The words came out, but they weren't at all what she wanted to say.

Andy barely flinched. He held her gaze as his hand came up from his lap holding a small box, a jewelry box. He opened it, to show her a beautiful diamond ring.

"It can't be an engagement ring, Taylor. But it means the same thing. It's a commitment. Look at me."

It sparkled in the lights, brighter and more complex and more beautiful than anything else in the room. She tore her eyes from it to look into his, which sparkled just as brightly, but were backed with a fear she had never, ever seen in him before.

"I want to make something work, Taylor. Something different and wonderful and special. I want... that night to happen again. I want to be a father. I want to do all of the wrong things in a way that makes it so right that no one can ever question us. Mom and Dad got it all wrong. We can do better. I want to try."

She stared in silence at the ring, unable to meet his eyes, as her heart screamed at her to accept while her head told her to escape his insanity, get up and storm out of the room.

"Call it an arrangement ring," he said.

She laughed nervously.

"How about a derangement ring," she said, again before she could stop herself.

She bit her lip as he seemed to deflate before her eyes. He looked ready to speak, but couldn't. He looked ready to cry, but never would. He looked around the room, maybe ready to just get up and leave himself because she was making it so hard to do anything but.

He started to speak, now with a look of anger on his face. If she let him say the wrong thing now he might ruin everything.

Just jump, she thought.

"Andy, shut up."

He started to protest, his mouth open and just short of speaking over her when she cut in quickly again, with her own voice calmly assertive.

"Just shut up. I've loved you since we were kids. I've loved you more and more since we became adults, and one day I started to do it in all the wrong ways. I kept it to myself, all bottled up, and I wandered through life as if everything else mattered more, and it was just a silly, messed up girl's silly, messed up thoughts."

He stared at her, ready to interrupt, so she quickly continued before he could make her regret this.

"The only thing that really changed that night, Thanksgiving, was that I finally admitted to myself that I wanted what I couldn't have, and that if I was ever going to be happy, I had to learn how to occasionally say yes when everyone else says no. I had to just take it, just once, no matter what anyone else said or thought, or how scared I was."

The next part was harder. She had to pause to get it out, while she hoped he'd just stay quiet and let her speak. She wasn't just saying it to him. She was saying it to herself.

"That led me... I realized... and when I found out about the baby, I knew even better something I had really known in my heart all along, which was that the only man who could ever, ever make me happy, and get past my fears, was you. No matter how wrong it is, it's you. It's always been you."

His eyes were wide now. She saw herself in his face, as if she were looking in a mirror. She saw in him exactly what she herself felt, and thought, and heard, and wanted to hear. Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe she was kidding herself.

She didn't care. Just jump, she thought.

"If I could do it then, that one night, and wind up here with you now, then why the hell would I ever be so stupid as to go back to living without you?"

She felt tears in her eyes. As she had so many times in her life, she wiped them away with the back of her hand, as if they'd never been there. She thought she saw a tear in Andy's eye, too, but that would never, ever happen.

She incongruously smiled and chuckled, looking away to hide the sudden burst of emotion, embarrassed at everything, at the tears, at what she'd said, and God knows at what she'd done to wind up here.

Andy got up. Faster than she could possibly have told him no, as if she ever would, he was at her side on his knees, holding her hand. Taylor looked around. The elderly couple beside them was smiling at her in stereo. She looked at the ring. She looked at them.

Oh, God, she thought. If they only knew.

"Congratulations, dear," the grinning old woman said to her, as Taylor felt like she was going to die.

"Put the ring on her, you young fool," the husband told Andy.

He did just that, but as quickly and as inconspicuously as he could, standing quickly once it was on, as if he'd just been bending down to pick up a fork she'd dropped. A few more people noticed, and smiled, but thankfully everyone was far too reserved and polite to applaud. Taylor wasn't sure she could have lived through that. Andy, too, she thought. He quickly kissed her, on the forehead only, before sitting down.

But it was done. Taylor was in shock, but she knew she was going to sleep better tonight than she had in months, and wake up tomorrow actually feeling happy.

"You're not sleeping with me tonight," she said to him.

He smiled back at her, hiding very well any twinge of shock or disappointment he might have felt.

"I never expected to. It would be so wrong in so many ways."

She stared at him with an artificial glare before letting a smile creep onto her face.

"We have a lot to talk about, before and even if we ever go there. A lot."

"Yes."

"Starting with what will be best for the baby."

"Yes."

"I love you."

The words came out before she could stop them, in a way she'd never said them, or even thought them in her head. She'd felt it. She'd imagined kissing him, and she'd done it. But she'd never, ever actually imagined saying those words.

It was amazing how easily and naturally they had come out. What was more amazing was the explosion of feeling it ignited inside of her, saying it, hearing herself say it, and knowing he'd heard it.

"I love you, too."

This was so wrong, Taylor thought, as she melted into a pool of warmth. It was so wrong to be happy about this, but she was actually doing it and nothing was going to stop her.

* * *

Now

They lay there, recovering, when Andy abruptly jumped out of bed.

"Where are you going?"

"Wait here. I have something for you."

She watched him disappear into the big walk-in closet that Taylor loved. She couldn't wait to fill it with her clothes. She'd never had anything like it in her numerous apartments and had always dreamed of not just having one, but filling it. Now, with Andy's help, and once she was working again, she would.

He came back holding a box, a present wrapped in shiny blue Christmas paper decorated with silver bells and silver holly leaves, with a glimmering silver ribbon and bow around it all. Andy had the dumbest, shyest smile on his face.

"I bought this for you for last Christmas, before I knew... about the baby. And then I couldn't give it to you. I was afraid then that I never could or would. But I saved it."

He stood before her holding it out. He'd already given her too much. She smiled like a silly school girl. He'd given her everything she could ever dream of having. She'd fucked up. She just jumped, and it almost cost her everything, and instead here she was, in his bed, full of his love in so many ways.

On the verge of June he was giving her a Christmas present.

"Merry Christmas?" she asked, smiling.

"Well. Ignore the paper and call it an anniversary present. And today is six months, to the day... since the attic."

She grinned at him gleefully. She knew that, too well, but she didn't think he had realized it.

"I actually bought it for you as soon as I got home from Thanksgiving."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I couldn't stop thinking about you then. I saw it, and it was all I could think about, so I bought it."

He was yammering. He did that when he got nervous around her. In fact, she'd only ever seen him yammer around her. She loved knowing that. She smiled as she opened the box, only half listening to what he was saying.

Inside was a beautiful, sheer, black baby doll, and a clearly expensive one at that. She held it up to the light, imagining herself in it. She'd never fit in it now, but she would have looked beautiful in it last Christmas, or Thanksgiving, and with a little effort she would again in a few months.

"It's beautiful, Andy. You bought this then? For me?"

"Yes."

"You were going to give it to me at Christmas?"

"Yes."

"You were going to give your little sister lingerie for Christmas? In front of Mom and Dad?"

"Yes."

"I would have killed you."

Andy grinned at her.

"I know."

"Even if I hadn't been pregnant, I would have killed you."

Andy grinned more broadly.

"I know."

She looked at him now with even more love than she'd felt just minutes ago.

"I wish you could have."

"I don't."

"No?"

"I like the way things have worked out."

She smiled at him. The lingerie slipped from her fingers as he kissed her. It could wait. They had lots and lots of time.