Composer 4.5

~Tanner~

Married life was not what I expected at all, of course I guess it helps when you actually know the person you are marrying. Don't get me wrong, Emily is great, it's just, well I thought getting married and her moving in would make things easier, guess I was wrong.

It wasn't all bad, not at first anyway. We would spend our free time taking silly pictures, and just enjoying our time together. I would go to work, and she would take care of the apartment, she did a great job of it too, but as the months progressed, and it got later into the pregnancy, things changed. I don't know if it was hormones or just her personality coming out, but we ended up fighting all the time. We fought over the smallest things, I'm late getting home, fight, she burned dinner, fight. When we weren't fighting you couldn't keep us apart, those times were fewer and fewer.

After one particularly bad screaming match, I went into the kitchen to cool down where I ran into Berlin, she asked me about the fight, and I told her the basics, I was supposed to meet up with Emily at the DR's, but had to work instead, which was the truth, well mostly anyway. I left out the part that I volunteered to work, I just needed a break from everything.

"Berlin! We're leaving now, be back later!" I called to Berlin as Emily and I headed out. I knew our fighting was getting on Berlin's nerves, and I needed to try and fix things with Emily, so we went out for the evening. It started out great, we got all dressed up, and went out to a nice dinner. Emily was seven and a half months pregnant, but she was still just as Beautiful as the day I met her. After dinner we went dancing, which was great, we stayed for a few hours, till her feet started to hurt and we left.

"We should go see a movie" Emily said as we got in the car. "Sure, what do you want to see?" I asked. "I don't know, lemme see your phone, I'll look up and see what's playing." I gave her the phone and headed towards the theater. "Whose Katie?" She asked out of the blue. "What?" I asked not sure what she was talking about. "Katie. You have like a million texts from her. Who is she?" Sensing a fight starting, I tried to avoid it. "She's just bartender I work with." That didn't help. "Had a nice time, let's do it again soon?" She started reading my messages back to me. "Look. She's no one, just a girl I work with. I stayed late to help train her one night, that's what the text was about."  "Yea right Tanner. You expect me to believe you?." Believe what you want, I know what's true. I can't believe you would think I would actually cheat on you."  "Did you?" I couldn't believe she was accusing me of cheating, sure we didn't know each other all that well, but surely I hadn't given any reason for her to think  that. I was so angry I could barely concentrate on driving. "Tanner!" she yelled just as I missed the red light and our car sailed through the intersection. Metal scraping, glass shattering, Emily screaming. Then everything went black. 

Composer 4.3

~Tanner~

I didn't expect Berlin to go off on me like that, but I guess I deserved it. After she walked off and I heard the office door close, I called Emily. I told her I wanted to be there for her and the baby as much as shed let me. We ended up talking for almost an hour, getting to know each other a bit. Guess I should have done that to start with. By the time I hung up, Berlin had come out of her office to get something to eat, so I apologised for yelling at her earlier. She asked if I had told mom, yea I told her, can't say she was too happy. She chewed me out worse than Berlin had, though she did offer to come back which I turned down. I wouldn't be responsible for messing up her plans as well.

Emily and I talked every week, she lived on the other side of the city so we didn't see each other often, but we made sure we went out at least once a week. I hadn't known her very long, but I knew I cared for her, even without her being pregnant.

One day she called and asked me if we could meet up, we needed to talk. We met up at the diner once we were seated I asked her what's up? "I lost my job yesterday, and I don't have enough money to pay the rent, so I'm planning to move back to my hometown." She lived clear across the country. While it's true that I wasn't thrilled to find out I was going to be a dad, the idea had grown on me and now I couldn't imagine not seeing my kid. "You can't move back, what about me being a part of this?" "Sorry Tanner, I have to what's best for me and the baby. Back home I have some family that can help, you can visit if you want, but I have to go, I have no other options here." I didn't have a plan, but I had to come up with something. "When are you going?" I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer. "At the end of the month when I lease is up." Good that gave me sometime to figure out a plan. She left first and I sat there thinking for a while. 

I ended up going back home not too long after that, still not having a plan. I got home and Berlin was still at work, she worked long hours, many nights putting in overtime, so usually I had the house to myself for a while before I had to go to work. I went into the office intending to look up something on the computer, when I hit me, I called her up and told her my plan. "I have it all figured out where you don't have to move back home." "What's your plan?" she asked me a bit skeptically. "Marry me."

I know it was a snap decision, but I couldn't think of anything else. 

Composer 4.2

~Berlin~

I was steadily progressing at work, life for me was pretty routine, get up, clean the house, feed the dogs, go to work, come  home put in a few additional hours online, the bed.

I worked hard, Tanner partied hard. After working  for only a year there was an audition with the orchestra, I didn't get in to the full orchestra, but I did get in with a quartet, which was a start. I was so excited to tell Tanner the good news, but when I got home he was sitting on the couch staring into space. I could tell something was wrong, so I walked over and sat down next to him.

"Spill." I said. He looked at he and I could tell it was serious. "I messed up. I messed big time." Thinking he was in trouble with the law, I told him "Don't worry, we'll fix it. How much do you need? " He just stared at me for a minute, coming to the same conclusion that I had. "What? No, not that kind of trouble. I wish it was that kind of trouble." Confused I asked "Then what kind-" I didn't get to finish as Tanner blurted out "I got a girl pregnant, I was careless, we were drunk. It was just once." I was speechless, I knew Tanner was having 'fun' but I thought he was smarter than that. "What am I going to do?" He asked. A million comments swirled around in my head, both good and bad when I finally said, "Suck it up." "What?" He asked shocked at my comment. "Suck it up, be a man. You knocked her up? Well that was stupid, now you have to live with it, so man up. Fun's over, time to be responsible." I think my statement surprised both of us. "It's not that easy, Berlin! We haven't been dating that long , what do you expect me to do, marry the girl?"

Tanner was off the couch yelling at me now, so I yelled back. "Do you want your kid to grow up without a father like you did? Cause that's what will happen. You need to talk to her, and figure things out." I walked off too mad to hear his response. I still had so many more questions for him, but now was not the time. I went to my office and started working on a new piece for the piano I was working on. Several hours passed, and I went into the kitchen to get a snack, where I ran into Tanner. He apologized for yelling at me, and I asked him the questions I still had. What was her name, had he told mom yet, when did I get to meet her? Her name was Emily, and yes he told mom, who was even madder than I was,  offering to move back and help him figure things out. Fortunately he told her no, I would have smacked him if he had said yes, mom was finally living her dream after years of sacrifices for our sake.