(Source: pigsgorawrr)

“Alex, this is my son James but we call him Matty because his middle name is Matthew and this is Emily. We call her Milly for short. Babies, this is my friend Alexander.” She picked up the little girl Emily and put her in her lap and grabbed her little hand, waved it and said, “Milly say ‘Hi Alex’”. James went around the table, set down his plate of food, and sat to my left between Beth and I. He extended his hand out for a handshake and said, “Hi.” I was so confused. How did she have kids? I thought she was married to a girl. I couldn’t contain my facial expression and Beth noticed.

She started feeding Emily from the plate that James had carried from inside the restaurant. She picked around the rest of the food and only gave the little girl orange chicken. I observed them for a moment then asked why she didn’t give the little girl any of the vegetables or noodles. She replied with a simple, “because I only like the orange chicken.” I knew this already but to me it didn’t make much sense so I just laughed. She hadn’t changed much since I last knew her.

We talked for quite a while. When I say we talked I meant she told me about her kids. I found out that James aka Matty is in fact, 6 going on 7 in a week and his little sister Emily is 3. Eventually she explained to me that she and Paige had gotten married about 8 years ago; right after she had published her first and only fictional novel. (She has written and published 5 best-selling children’s novels though) Beth and Paige hired a sperm donor and that’s how Beth managed to conceive both Matty and Milly as she calls them. They really are cute kids though; very well raised. There were about 4 or 5 other kids in the area hollering, running around, and hitting each other and others but not once did Matt get up to run around or interrupt his mom. Emily didn’t cry much. And when she did Matt cheered her up real fast. I noticed he was protective of his little sister.

Beth kept stealing little bites of food and as she chewed Matt would tell me some random fact about himself or his sister. He’s in karate. Beth always talked about how she wanted to have a son in karate classes. Matt had told me that he was helping his sister learn how to swim the day before. He really likes The Power Rangers, I grew up watching The Power Rangers so we sort of bonded over that. Without noticing we had spent about 2 hours catching up with each other and making conversation with the kids. Finally Beth announced she had to leave because Paige was going to get out of work soon and she wanted to have dinner ready for when Paige gets home. So we said our goodbyes and I watched them as they walked away. I noticed the little girl Emily stopped and turned to wave goodbye to me. She kissed her hand then flung her hand in the air as if to blow me a kiss. I chuckled and waved goodbye to her. Then she turned and continued to follow her mom and brother.

It’s somewhat of a shock that Beth has kids but at the same time I always told her she was going to make a wonderful mother someday. Beth has always loved kids. When we were younger we’d lay in the grass at the park, hand in hand and we’d imagine our lives together. She always had kids in the picture but I always told her I didn’t want kids. Deep down inside I knew that if I ever did have kids I would want Beth to have my children. I couldn’t help but replay the whole scene from lunch today, in my mind over and over again. I knew I fucked up big time. I could have had a whole family if I had begged her to stay or even gone with her. Those kids could have been mine. They could have had my last name. I’ve never regretted anything except losing Beth but I regretted it even more after I had a chance to meet those gorgeous kids of hers. Beth invited me to go with her and the kids to the zoo the next day. She’s doing the whole full time mom thing like she always wanted. I have to admit I was intrigued by those kids. I wanted to know what I was missing out on. I decided I would go.

(Source: gh0stofjealousy)