Page 69 of Hush, Little Baby

“It isn’t—” I try again, voice gentler. “I know it’s a lot. It’s supposed to be.” Christ. I’m not good with this, not when my own vulnerability is involved. “I started building it before I even knew you. Years. Years waiting… I thought maybe I’d die with it empty.”

A thin, reedy noise escapes him. His head bows, and tears begin to fall. Not the ugly, wracking kind—these are silent, slow, as if he’s run out of energy to hold them in.

“Shh, shh, hey—” I shift closer, bracing both hands on his knees. “Charlie, look at me.”

He shakes his head. I feel a fresh wave of panic slosh through him; I can see the effort of holding himself upright, of not simply collapsing backward and sobbing until he disappears.

I stay steady, one hand over each of Charlie’s knees, thumb moving in slow circles through the fabric of his pants.

“Here, baby,” I murmur, and ease him gently backward, guiding his shoulders down so he’s lying on the mattress, not upright and fighting to hold himself together. He curls instinctively onto his side, arms hugged around his blanket still, hair falling over his forehead. I settle beside him on the floor, head level with his, and reach up to stroke the side of his face with my thumb.

After a few minutes of silence, he inhales sharply, nostrils flaring, and whispers, “I think I’m dead.” The words are so small I might’ve missed them, but he says it again, a little stronger, his voice the thinnest possible filament. “I think you killed me that night. I think… I’m dead. Because this isn’t real. None of this is real.”

I drop my chin to the edge of the crib and stare at him, at the way his body has gone rigid and trembling. “Charlie—”

He squeezes his eyes shut, voice fracturing as he says, “This can’t happen. Not to me. Nothing like this ever happens to me.”

I realize what he’s actually afraid of. Not of me—well, not right now anyway—not of the room, not even of the loss of his old life—what he’s afraid of is that the universe has made a clerical error and granted him the thing he wanted most, and that it will be snatched away again any second.

“You’re alive. You’re right here, sweetheart, with me. I promise you, this is real.”

He shakes his head, muttering into the blanket, “No. No. I go from one bullshit remote job to the next because no one wants to keep me when I’m always calling out or—or keeping weird hours. My apartment smells like mold and my insurance is about to run out and my own mother doesn’t even answer my calls half the time. I have flabby arms and stretch marks and—and I don’t get—” His voice stutters out, caught between a gasp and a whimper. “I don’t, I don’t get to have any of this. I don’t even get to keep a damn doctor. I don’t get to have—” Another hiccup, so wet I half-expect him to cough up the next word. “—a Daddy. Not really. Nobody sticks around. Nobody wants to. Nobody wants me. I’m just—fuck, I’m just—” His hand fists his blanket, knuckles a pale white. “You don’t have to pretend.”

God. I’m going to kill whoever or whatever put those ugly thoughts in his head.

“I’m not pretending, sweetheart.”

He lifts his head a little, peering at me with waterlogged eyes. “Why? Why me? I’m nothing. I’m not even… cute. I’m tired all the time. My brain is broken. My body is…” He gestures down at himself, helpless. “Nobody wants this.”

“I do,” I tell him, fierce enough that I hear the edge in my own voice. “I want every fucking part of you, Charlie. Even the parts you hate. Especially those. I want to be the one who makes it better, who makes it easier. I want to take care of you,” I say, and I’m so fucking raw it hurts to try and make my face pleasant, my tone gentle, when all I want to do is grab him and squeeze until the self-doubt is physically gone. “I want to take care of you every day, every way, for as long as you’ll let me. I want you, exactly the way you are. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

He closes his eyes. His hands shake so badly that I think for a second he’s going to cry harder, but then it ebbs. He draws a slow, careful breath as if learning how to use his lungs again.

There’s a beat of silence, and then he laughs. Not a real laugh, more like the sharp exhale of someone being told the punchline to the cruelest joke. “I… I always wanted something like this to happen,” he says, voice cracking. “During the worst nights, I prayed to every god I could think of that—that someone would come get me and just make everything better.” He wipes at his eyes, sniffling. “I’m not even religious.”

“Someone must have answered your prayer then, baby,” I murmur, reaching my hand out to cup his cheek.

He opens his watery eyes and looks at me, searching for something. “I don’t believe that yet. I can’t trust you…”

I nod, letting the words settle between us, not outrunning them with empty comfort.

“That’s alright,” I say, voice so quiet it barely moves the air. “You don’t have to trust me right now. You just have to let me try to earn it. That’s all I need from you. Let me try.”

Charlie stares at the cloud-painted ceiling, jaw clamped tight as he battles the next wave of feeling. I wait, just breathing with him, letting the tiny shudders in his frame find their own way out.

Finally, in a threadbare voice, he asks, “Do I have to… do anything?”

“No. No, baby, you don’t.” The answer comes so fast and strong it almost tastes like blood. “You don’t owe me anything for this, not a word, not a smile. If you want to just—” I gesture wide, indicating the crib, the room, the very air that cushions him. “If you want to just rest, I’ll take care of the world for you. That’s enough. That’s all I ever wanted.”

He lies motionless, the fine grains of hurt and longing in his eyes swirling, then settling to silt. “I’m so tired,” he croaks out.

“I know you are,” I say, brushing the hair off his forehead. “Why don’t you take a nap, and we can talk more when you wake up?”

He nods, and his eyes are already fluttering, the aftermath of his cry wringing out the last dregs of adrenaline.

I sit on the floor for a few minutes, then once his breathing evens out, I ease myself up, knees protesting. I pull the rail up on the crib gently, not wanting to startle him back awake, and step over to the bin that holds the majority of the stuffed animals in here.

I take my time going through them until my hand lands on the perfect one. What makes it perfect? Honestly, I’m not sure myself. All I know is that it feels right.