Jun:Fuck that.
Jun:I’d want to be there. I’d want to hold his hand if he wanted to… you know, end it… and I’d want to be there to take care of him and the baby if he didn’t. It’s just a hypothetical, but my hands were shaking thinking about it. About how fucking scared he’d be all alone, and me not knowing any better. It’s scary as shit to think about having a kid, but… idk. All I can think about is how I’d want to be there for him. How much it would kill me if I found out he had to do it on his own.
Jun:You should call him and let him make that decision for himself even if you’re not planning on keeping it. And if he doesn’t want to help you, fuck him. I’ll help you. I won’t be there to hold your hand, but I can pay for your appointments and furnish the nursery if you want to keep it. Start a college fund. Idk, hook you up with a lifetime supply of diapers? Whatever you need to make sure this kid never wants for anything despite one of his parents not being in his life. I know it’s not the same as having your guy there and making a family with him, but at the very least, it should take some of the weight off your shoulders. No repayment necessary. Yeah, I may not know you, but you’ve been so patient and understanding with me while I sort out my shit despite the fact that you have actual real problems. You don’t deserve to have to do this on your own.
Jun:There’s just one thing I need you to do before I do this, okay?
Jun:You have to call him first.
Miles didn’t text Jun for a full week after that, and Jun didn’t try to reach out either, which Miles didn’t know how to take, but in the scheme of things it didn’t really matter one way or another, so he didn’t dwell on it.
It wasn’t that he was too scared to text, exactly, at least not like he’d been before, but more like he was putting off the inevitable. Because he was now officially out of the denial phase and had been doing some serious thinking.
He was going to keep Jun’s baby.
There really hadn’t been any other choice in the first place, if he was being honest with himself, but now he could think it freely.
Now, though, his whole focus had to be on getting his life together. He booked extra sessions with his therapist for the weeks ahead, raided the library for every parenting book hecould find, and started following parenting blogs and streamers instead of video game ones. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.
But doing it right meant that he couldn’t keep playing this game with Jun. He was Icarus, Jun was the sun, and the anonymity of the internet was the dark space between them that was steadily decreasing in length as he threatened to fly too close, and it wasn’t sustainable. What was he going to do? Just text Jun for the rest of his life, talking about a child Jun had no idea they shared? It wasn’t just stupid, it was cruel.
He still couldn’t bring himself to force the responsibility onto his shoulders, either. Jun did tours. He worked odd hours. He had fans that Miles knew he cared about, and he knew it would devastate him if he ever let them down. Jun deserved to make a family on his own terms, with someone who had the courage to be the type of partner he needed.
As bad as he wanted his fairy-tale ending, he knew that he needed to just be content with caring for and loving his child. He’d always have that piece of Jun to carry with him, and that wasn’t nothing. In fact, it felt like a whole lot of something.
He was in his bed when he typed out his final message. The same bed where they’d had such a momentous night together. The same bed where Miles had read the results of the pregnancy test. The same bed where he’d sent that first DM.
It was fitting, then, that it was in this bed that he sent Jun a goodbye.
Miles:Sorry it took me so long to reply. I wasn’t ignoring you, I was just a little overwhelmed. Or, ig, a lot overwhelmed lol. Not just with your message, but witheverything. I’m a chronic overthinker at the best of times, so to say I’ve been being whipped around inside a panic hurricane that’s been progressively growing in strength as it moves through the ocean of my crippling anxiety would be putting it mildly. Poetic as shit, though. That was a pretty good metaphor, huh? At least I’ve got something going for me.
Miles:If you could see the way I’m facepalming rn. Panic hurricane. Jfc.
Miles:I’m stalling, I know I am. It’s just that I don’t know what to say. You are so so so kind to me, and you have no reason to be. I think the guy you spent the night with could have really fallen in love with you if he’d just had the courage to give you a call. But you deserve someone who has that courage. Someone who has their shit together enough to at least not be terrified to pick up the damn phone. You deserve someone who is strong enough to fight their own demons just for the chance to talk to you. You’ll find someone like that, no doubt about it, and eventually your feelings for him will fade, and it’ll be his loss. Biggest loss of his life, I’m willing to bet. I’m sorry that it’s hurt you this much, though.
Miles:As for your offers… It’s too much. Please don’t think I’m not appreciative, it’s just that you don’t owe me anything, and I’m the one who got myself into this situation in the first place. The guy I was with wanted to be careful, and I swore to him that it was safe, and like, I really did think it was, okay? I wasn’t trying to trap himor anything like that. I was just stupid about how my new birth control worked. So so so fucking stupid.
Miles:I think I know what I’m going to do about it, but I can’t ask him to give up his life to do it with me. We were supposed to be passing ships in the night, not fucking tied together forever. And he was a really good guy, so I know that if I called him he would do the “noble” thing, but I don’t want him to do it bc he feels like he has to. Mb it’s selfish, but I’m so scared that he’d come to resent me and the… baby. My baby. Ha. That’s the first time I’ve said that to someone else.
Miles:I should have never bothered you, Jun. You’ve been a really big comfort to me, more than you know, and I really, really hope you find someone who is worth your love, bc I think you have a lot to give.
Miles:I’m gonna… idek. Sit on my bed and watch the pigeons on my windowsill. One of them laid a couple eggs last week, funny enough. Guess I’ll take my advice from them until my copy of What to Expect arrives in the mail.
Miles:I’ll be ok, though. I know I’ll be ok. It’s just gonna take some time.
Miles:Take care of yourself, Jun. And thanks for everything. You have no idea what it’s meant to me. You have no idea.
Miles lay on his back with his hands clasped together over his slightly rounded belly and tried very hard not to dwell, but unfortunately, dwelling on things was one of his greatest strengths, much to the chagrin of his blood pressure.
He didn’t know what had gotten into him when he’d composed and sent that message to Jun, knowing full well that he was potentially exposing all his secrets and lies with a single sentence. The number of times he’d written and deleted the same words over and over was mortifying enough that he purposefully erased the amount from his mind, just so he’d have one less thing to chastise himself about.
But in the end, his wishy-washiness didn’t matter, because he had sent it, hadn’t he? It was over and done with now, and there was no sense dwelling on it. Worrying wouldn’t do anything but stress him out, and stress wasn’t good for the baby. For its sake,it was best he move on. It wasn’t like he could control what happened now, anyway.
If only his anxiety listened to reason.
Miles sucked in a deep breath through his nostrils, held it, and let it out slowly, but it didn’t help. He was just as anxious as before, his thoughts zipping through his head at a hundred miles an hour.
Maybe he had been too subtle, and Jun wouldn’t even realize that Miles had shown his hand. Their night together had been torrid and filled with frantic, heated passion, and it would be entirely reasonable if Jun didn’t remember him nervously rambling about pigeons eating stale croissants. Sure, the memory was seared into his mind as though he’d been branded with it, but that was because, even now, he occasionally thought about it and subsequently wanted to die from the astronomical levels of embarrassment the memory brought on, because why the fuck had he talked about pigeons to the guy he was trying to hook up with?
