Scriptic Prompt Exchange: "She Said She Said"

[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, FlamingNyx gave me this prompt: "Why are you having trouble sleeping?" I gave kgwaite this prompt: " 'Words add up, too, but not meaningfully unless you think they should. They won't line up like bricks do, creating a strength of wall due to their essential shape and integrity. Words each have a hundred shapes and natures, and you have to see, almost like God, what's going to come of it before you even begin.' -Michael Atkinson "]




"Why are you having trouble sleeping?," she said.

"Who said I'm having trouble sleeping?"

"I did. I'm the one who wakes up every time you toss and turn," she said.

"Oh. Sorry."

"You don't have to be sorry. I know you can't help it. But I know why I'm not sleeping. Why aren't you?," she said.

"I am sleeping."

"Not very well, you're not," she said.

"Right."

"So.....why?," she said.

"I don't know."

"Come on. You can do better than that. I have 8 pounds of baby pressing against my organs. That's why I can't sleep. What's your excuse?," she said.

"I don't have one as good as that."

"I know you don't. So give me the one you have," she said.

"I'm worried."

"I know you are, babe. I'm worried too. But you've been worried since about 14 seconds after I told you. So that can't be it. I'm not discounting how you feel. I'm just saying, that's nothing new," she said.

"True."

"What are you worried about? Specifically? I mean, we're both heading into unknown territory here, I get that," she said.

"You more than me."

"In a manner of speaking, sure. But seriously. You've been worried for 8 months and 3 weeks. What is it? Specifically," she said.

"It's us."

"Us? What about us?," she said.

"I'm afraid we're going to change."

"Of course we're going to change, hun. Remember what my mother said, that you're ready to have kids when you're tired of sleeping and having sex? All kinds of things are going to change. We're different people than when we met, right?," she said.

"Certainly."

"So change with me. We will change together. We will make it work. It will be OK," she said.

"But what if I can't change? What if I'm not enough? What if I can't do this?"

"Listen," she said. "I trust you. I trust us. I picked you. Out of all the men I've ever known, every idiot I ever dated, I selected you. I found you. I fell in love with you. You haven't believed it for a minute, but I have never doubted you. I have never doubted that you're the only one for me. I believe in you. I believe enough for both of us. OK? Now would you please try to relax? Is there anything else I can do to help you calm down?"

"There is one thing," he said.

"Shut up," she said.