"Kenney, I wanted to tell you that I named her..."

Kenney put his hand up to stop me. I could see in his eyes that I was making whatever he was there for harder than it had to be. I silently wondered if he had my stuff in the car and was there to drop it off at the hospital.

"Natasha...I'm leaving on business for like a month, so..." He faltered a little when my face fell, but he kept his steady gaze directly on my eyes and continued. "So, listen, you have your key with you?" I nodded. "Cool. So, uh...I'm out. Take your time and everything. Like I said, mi casa es su casa. Don't bring that fool in my house, of course." He looked at me and waited for my verbal agreement.

"Of course," was all I could get out.

"...and if you're still there when I get back, then I'll know..." I shook my head and broke his gaze. He was ripping my heart in two, but it had to be done. "Well, I hope you and the baby are still there, but if you're not, it's cool. I'll understand."

I knew it wasn't cool, I knew he didn't understand, and I had heard him take on that nonchalant tone when discussing things that were too painful to think about more times than I could count. Again, I wanted to kill myself for putting him through this. All he ever wanted to do was be a good friend to me.

"So..." he was still watching me closely when I looked back his way. "Guess I'll see you around then. Do you need anything? Like...anything?" I shook my head no. "And your parents, they're staying for a while to help out, right?" I nodded yes. "Cool, cool." He looked slightly more at ease knowing that they were in town now. "Aunt Jasmine's here, too, if you need her. You can call her for anything at all. Anything..." I nodded again. "Well, then, your parents are more than welcome to stay at the crib, too... Just not that damn fool." Kenney couldn't even say his name.

"Ok," I fought tears, but they came anyway.

Kenney looked like he wasn't affected one way or the other by the very things that were ripping me all the way apart, but his hand was shaking when he ran it gently over my hair one last time and softly kissed my forehead. Then he looked down at my still slightly round belly and said "Try to get him to walk with you." I nodded and felt suddenly like I was falling into a very dark hole.

"Kenney..." He looked at me for the longest time, and I knew that he knew I was having an anxiety attack. He waited and waited. But he had never been the type to impose his help on anyone, so when I didn't ask for it and finally looked away, he kissed my forehead one more time and stood up.

"Aight then, darlin'. I'm out."

And with that he walked out of the door without another word.

When we left the hospital, my parents helped me get my stuff from Kenney's. They never asked me what it was doing there, and as far as I know, they never said anything about it to Collin either. They probably figured that it was some love triangle mess that they didn't want any part of. And in a way, they were right.

Collin was on his absolute best behavior for the rest of the time that my parents were in town, and even a few weeks later when Shayna came to visit. Of course, Drama didn't come with her, and I didn't ask why. Shayna also didn't mention Drama, or Kenney, the whole time she was there, and was actually very cordial to Collin. I would catch her sometimes, though, watching him like a hawk. She also hawked the way that Collin and I interacted with each other, and the way Collin acted around the baby. I couldn't help but wonder if Drama hadn't sent her down there to scope us out and see if a special opts mission needed to occur.

I missed Kenney so much the first few months of my baby's life. Especially after Shayna left. Collin rarely came over to see us, which left just me and baby kickin' it with each other. All for the best, I guess. Collin was right. I did need my own space to get my mind together and to figure out how, exactly, to move forward now with the both of them. Him and a baby. He called me a lot, as usual, but I think he stayed away just to give me space. I hoped that he wasn't staying away because he was trying not to kill us.

No reason why I thought that, really. Sometimes I just got that...feeling. Like I didn't really know who I was messing with.

As time went on, Collin started coming over to the apartment more and more, and eventually we went back to functioning as usual. I told him one day, toward the end of the summer, that I was thinking about going back to teaching in the fall, and that I had already been on several interviews.

"Who's going to take care of her?" He jerked his thumb indifferently toward the baby.

Collin was weird like that. Sometimes it seemed like he couldn't get enough of us, like all he wanted to do was love on us and hug us and squeeze us all day, and sometimes he acted like we were his caged pets that he had to remind himself to come by and feed on a regular basis.

"I can take her to daycare." Since I didn't have anything to do but take care of the baby all day, I had done hours of research on every daycare and school within a twenty mile radius.

"No. You need to keep your ass home and watch her."

And that was all he said.

And that was all he needed to say.

I did what I was told when it came to Collin, and I hoped that the baby would grow up to do the same. Yes, he loved her. But I don't think he liked her very much. The way that he always referred to the baby as "her," but never really said her name used to grate on my nerves. Of course I never said anything about it.

I tried to call Kenney a few months after Collin and I moved in together, just to let him know that everything was still ok and to see how he was doing, but he never took my calls and he never called me back. I just left the "we're ok" message for him on his voicemail and kept it moving.

It seemed like time started flying by so fast after the baby was born. Before I knew it she was six months old, and then almost a year. Collin started acting a little weird around the two month mark. Like he was super jealous of the baby taking up all my time or something. After he finally convinced me to give up the apartment and come move in with him because "I'm not paying for all this shit Natasha," he would do more and more passive aggressive things to the baby.

Like he would snatch her toys or her pacifier away and snap "Mine!" and then sit back, thoroughly amused, and watch her cry. I wanted to slap the shit out of him, but of course, I didn't. He would do crazy things to me, too. Like around the time the baby turned four months old, he started glaring at us every time I nursed her, and would stare hungrily at me like she was in his way. As soon as the baby would finish, he would take her and lay her in the crib and then look back at me super creepy-like, as if to say "my turn." Then he would get all rough with me and we would have the scariest sex ever. I hated it. Kenney was right. Collin was crazy as shit and there was no way a baby should be around him. I never left her alone with him, and I never let him give her a bath, afraid that he might drown her and say that it was an accident. He never actually did anything to her, other than snatch her toys away. Like I said, it was just a really bad feeling that I had.

By the time she was five months old, I just stopped breast feeding altogether and switched her to a bottle. It was too traumatic for both of us to keep going like that. Besides, Collin had my breasts so sore that any time I nursed the baby it felt like she was lighting a match on my raw skin. After I stopped, he eased up on the baby a little and actually started treating her...kindly. I know it's weird to say, but Collin truly acted like he and the baby had beef from way back for the first few months of her life. He may have still been pissed about the way Kenney stepped to him at the hospital, like he was her father instead of Collin.

My suspicions were confirmed when one day I told Collin to stop snatching the baby's bottle away and he immediately spun around and slapped me. Just like that. He hadn't hit me since the day that he had almost killed the baby and suddenly I realized what a damn fool I was. This guy had almost killed our unborn child, and here I was giving him the chance to try to do it again.

"Natasha," he stood over my chair like he was about to shove me to the ground. "Don't ever tell me what the fuck to do with my child. Do you understand me?" I nodded. "She is mine, right?"

I looked at him confused. "Who else..." then it dawned on me. Did he think all this time that I had cheated on him and gotten pregnant by Kenney? My eyes widened in terror. If that's what he thought then...

I guess he thought my eyes got wide from guilt, because he slapped me again and snatched me out of the seat that I had been sitting in, feeding the baby. She was in the high chair next to my chair and threw her bottle at Collin. Direct hit to the temple. Then she started screaming at the top of her lungs. I wondered if she knew what was going on to react like that. I mean, she was just a baby.

Here's the weird thing. Instead of getting even more pissed, Collin's face softened. I guess either he saw himself in her, or he thought about how he'd felt watching his dad beat on his mom. Then he picked the baby up.

"It's ok, sweet pea," he whispered tenderly and then bounced her up and down until she calmed down. "Mommy and daddy are just talking." He smiled at her and she smiled back. Without looking over at me, he repeated the question. "She's mine, right?"

I answered quickly this time and stood back up, reaching for the baby. "Yes Collin, she's yours."

"Good." He smiled into the baby's eyes and walked away with her, ignoring the fact that I was trying to take her back from him.

The next day I woke up to a punch in the face. I started crying before I even opened my eyes.

There was no explanation for that one whatsoever, and later that night he started screaming "Shut up!" at the baby when she wouldn't stop crying. Then he jump up and said "I need to start going back to my shrink, or I'm going to kill both of you motherfuckers."

Then he stormed out of the house and slammed the door behind him.