Got her. Taking her home with me.
Me:
Is she okay?
Webber:
She will be. I’m sending someone for the baby.
I scrubbed my hand over my face, thankful that at least something had gone right tonight.
Two
Leave the toxic relationship before it makes you a motivational speaker.
—Roosevelt to Baker
BAKER
Life was supposed to be perfect.
Only, it hadn’t been perfect in so long that I didn’t know what perfect might look like anymore.
I wished I could call my parents.
I wished I could call my brothers and sisters.
But I knew what they would say.
They’d call me stupid for taking Joey back.
They’d point out that I’d made my bed, and I needed to lie in it.
I loved my family.
I loved them so much that it hurt.
But sometimes they couldn’t see the bigger picture.
And that bigger picture was me struggling to find a balance between wanting my baby to have his father in his life, and me being happy.
I’d tried.
I’d given it every single ounce of effort a woman could give.
I was tired.
I was overwhelmed.
I was hanging on by a thread.
“Joey,” I said carefully. “Please, please, can you take him for a minute so I can go shower? I have to go to my doctor’s appointment today.”
When I was pushing Holt out, I’d suffered a grade four tear.
I’d torn from my clit to my asshole, and had so many issues since that it was a wonder I could poop like a normal person.
Luckily, most of that was healed in the months since I’d given birth to him.
