Burning Heart // CL16

Twenty Nine

"Happy Valentine's Day," I say the sarcastic joke to the phone that is set up in its familiar place on my bathroom counter as I get ready to go out for dinner with my mum. I've wearing a patterned black and white wrapped dress which helps to kind of disguise the bump on my stomach - although it's too large to be totally hidden. I'd basically just sat at home for the last nine weeks, nesting and trying to get things ready for the arrival of my still unnamed baby. My mum, Laura had had enough of it and insisted I went out for dinner with her one last time, knowing that it wasn't too long until the baby came. "Or happy car launch day... I'm assuming that's your priority," I tell the phone with a wry smile as I put the mascara down and try to sort my hair out, fixing the fly always.

As always there's no response to my voice as I'm comfortable in what has become a regular occurrence as I take a final look at my reflection in the mirror, my even lighter brown hair offsetting my old persona nicely, my change and evolution continuing that would enable me to try and fly under the radar here. It was working so far I think.

"My app says the baby is as big as asparagus?... I think it means more than just one - honestly I don't know, I'm very confused by that. Maybe it's my baby brain making me dumb or I am just dumb?... either way it's just one more week until it would be safe to give birth. It would be early - but it would be safe, which is reassuring. In other news, I have finally started on the nursery and it's... actually I'll just show you." I decide with a smile as I pick up the phone, for the first time in weeks taking this insane habit of mine outside of the locked bathroom. It was crazy that I was doing this, that I was talking to him like he might one day see these videos but it was so reassuring in the moment and with very little to comfort me at the moment I would take it. Kiraz was so far away and with my usual social media vices gone, so this had become my past time when the silence got to be too loud for me to handle. I'd update him and I think it made me feel less guilty about it all.

I walk across the landing towards the room that is next to mine and walk in. "There's this whole theme going on at the moment of making babies rooms really bland and boring. Very aesthetic but it's not actually good for them and so maybe this is me rebelling from that aesthetic life or I am just listening to the science but here is her very colourful nursery. That's what the many books I've read on child development have told me to do, the pile of which is three times the size of my pregnancy books because I'm well aware that the taking care of the human is more important than the growing them..." I tell the phone as I pan it around the room for a few seconds before showing the piles of books I have. I then take a seat in the comfy chair in the corner, sighing with relief as I turn the camera back around to me. "This seat is the only time I'm comfortable now...baby seems to like to squeeze all my organs but she stops when I take a seat here and relax for a few minutes. So yeah... rainbow room, I love it though and as far as the tonnes of parenting books that I've consumed have told me - it's the right thing to do..."

Is this the right thing to be doing? Talking to my phone rather than to him? If I was honest with myself it was going to have to do because I was far too scared to tell him now. I didn't like to admit that I was driven by fear but I realised that sometimes I was allowed to be weak, especially when it came to this.

"I put plenty of red in here but it's actually not that good for them. Well, bold colours are great for development but it's meant to be an aggravating colour... I just think there's a chance that a love of red might be in their DNA, so I'm kind of placing a bet on it," I tell him with a smile on my face and in my voice as I show all the red accents in the room, the trim on the walls and skirting boards in a familiar Ferrari red and the blanket that was over the banister of the cot I'd put together the other day. "Blue is a much more calming colour so I did have to put some of that in... and maybe if red is aggravating her then I'll add some more in. Or not. I guess it doesn't matter," I say to no one, my heart sinking as the tears come back in my eyes and I have to blink rapidly to try and stop them from entering my eyes. Failing slightly as I take in a shaky breath. "I-I'm so sorry... I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, everyday I wonder and question if it's right and the answer is I just don't know. I want you to know her, I promise you that I do but I can't... I'm terrified of your reaction, your response if you see me as huge as a whale right now. It's easier for me to tell myself that you'll hate it, you'll hate me. It doesn't stop me from wishing that it won't be your response and I guess that's what this is. Me living in a reality that doesn't exist and trying to include you in a life that you made clear you had no interest in me being in."