Jonah and I had matching expressions on our faces as we stood in front of Mr. Herberg's desk.
It was about three weeks after we'd started recording videos of us hanging out togetherâwe didn't really hang out all that much, truthfully. Usually, I just hung around to annoy him with my camera at the diner, and he would somehow find a way to record me while I was in the most embarrassing moments. He still didn't smile or laugh all that much around meâI guess it was just his personality to rarely show positive expressionsâbut I could tell that he had slowly grown to enjoy my presence around. It was tough, and it still would be long until we become real friends or something else, but it was good progress.
Meanwhile, during the class, we'd been learning about what we should expect when we were expecting a baby, including how to cope with all the financial issuesâpreparing the room for the baby, the medical check-up fees, how much it would cost to take care of the baby, blah blah blahâand the stress it could bring both parties when the baby delivery was getting closer. We'd basically learned everything about family planning, responsibilities of pregnancy, the development of the baby from the pregnancy until it was born, including the birth process itself, which was gross to learn but I guess it was pretty important.
Mr. Herberg kind of told us what he had learned in his life so far, as he was currently expecting a baby as well, so it was kind of a fun lesson because he got to share his experience and it was more like storytelling than actual learning.
And now, finally, came the moment that I'd been dreading since the first time Mr. Herberg announced the project.
"Yep. So here's your baby girl," our teacher said, handing out the baby to me and holding it carefully as if it was a real baby. The baby was fully clothed, and a thin, patterned blanket was wrapped around its body. He handed a small bag to Jonah that apparently was filled with its fake feeding bottle, some baby clothes, and fake diapers. "Please hold her carefully."
Before I took the baby, I glanced at Jonah. He looked at me too, and he had a wide-eyed look in his face. I finally let Mr. Herberg put the baby into my arms and went back to my desk, with Jonah following me. Our teacher then called the next couple to deliver their babies.
Once I was at my desk, I turned my attention back to the front of the room, finding out that it was Spencer's turn to receive his babies. Babies! Twins! Mr. Herberg really did give two babies, one for Spencer and one for Tracey. It was already freaking me out to hold one doll that would suddenly scream out crying, let alone two.
I sent Spencer a sympathetic look, which he replied with a weak smile. Then I turned to Jonah, who was already staring at the doll. So I asked in an unsure tone, "Do you want to... hold itâher, whatever?"
He blinked, and then he cringed. "No... no thank you."
"Right." I looked down to the baby in my lap, studying it and trying not to feel creeped out. It looked so lifelike, the only things that confirmed its fakeness were just the fact that it was stiff and its eyes were open, unblinking and its lips parted into a childlike smile. Other than that, it looked almost realâthe hair, the eyes, everything.
Itâshe, whateverâlooked to be about a few months old. Her hair was short and it was dark blonde, and there was a small pink bow on her head, and her eyes were blue. I repeat, the eyes looked so lifelikeâthe color was exactly the real color on people's eyes, not the kind of blue you would see in a Barbie doll's eyes or something.
Sure, the doll was creepy to me because it looked like it was alive while it was definitely not, but it honestly didn't look scary like I'd thought it would be. It looked just like a baby, and I felt like I was holding a baby.
I turned to Jonah and pursed my lips slightly. "So what should we name her?"
He curled his lips into his mouth as he thought it over. "Should we look up for baby names or should we just randomly name her?"
"I don't know, does it really matter?" I asked him. "The name is just so we won't be referring it as it and so we can, I don't know, have a more real-life-like experience of having a baby?"
He snorted. "Alright. Let me think of some names."
"I have a few," I said. "Olivia, Chloe, Willowâ"
"I don't like nature-based names," he cut off. I rolled my eyes. "No Summer, Autumn, Winter, Palm Tree, whatever."
"Palm Tree?" I choked on my laughter. "Only you, Jonah. Alright, alright. Do you have any suggestions?"
"I like Olivia," he said. "But uh, what about Charlotte, Lucy... Uh, anything else?"
"Is flower-themed names too nature-based for you? I like Lily. Poppy? Daisy"
"Daisy sounds nice. It's not Rainbow or anything weird like that."
"Alright, that's too many names. Let's list them down."
After arguing for a while, we finally came down to Olivia, Lucy and Daisy.
"Olivia is too mouthful," he said. "Olivia. O-li-vi-ah. No."
I scoffed at him, but still, I crossed Olivia out of the list. "Lucy and Daisy, then."
We were quiet for a while, letting the sound of everyone's chatters around us buzz by our ears. I love both names. Lucy sounds very cute, and Daisy just sounds so innocent to me. Both names sounded like the names I would love to give to my baby. Or maybe a cat.
And then Jonah finally said, "I say Daisy."
I raised an eyebrow at him as I brushed the baby's hair lightly. "Why Daisy?"
He avoided my eyes, his cheeks flushing pink. "Aren't daisies your favorite flowers?"
I felt like my heart was about to soar so high into the sky, and I felt my own face warming at his words. He remembered. He remembered. It had almost been a month since the proposal and he still remembered.
I glanced at the engagement ring I still wore on my right hand, and finally said, "Yeah, they are."
[]
The first week was my turn to take care of the baby.
When I got home, Mom was already there preparing for dinner. She knew that I was taking the baby home today, so once she heard my footsteps echoing through the living room, she immediately turned off the stove and basically ran up to me. She was definitely more excited than I was about the baby project.
"Oh, geez," she murmured, taking the baby into her arms. "It looks so real. That's freaky."
"I know," I said. "She's gonna cry anytime soon."
"She?" she asked, her head snapping up to me.
"Yeah... it's a baby girl. Jonah and I named her Daisy."
"Aw, that's so cute," she gushed, and I looked at her flatly. "But promise me that once you give birth to my granddaughter, she would look cuter than this thing."
"Mom!" My face was warm. "Let's just not, okay?"
She shrugged, and handed Daisy back to me. "I'm gonna continue cooking, alright?"
"Sure, Mama," I said. "It smells good what you're cooking!" I called out once she had disappeared into the kitchen.
I ran upstairs to get to my room and locked the door. I carefully put Daisy in the baby crib I had placed inside my room that used to belong to Cole when he was a baby. Apparently, the doll could sense any movement, so I would instantly get a mark if I held her recklessly. I didn't understand the technical things of how the fake baby actually worked, but I tried to be as careful as possible with it as if I was holding a real, alive baby.
I was in the middle of taking off my braâI never wore it around the house, oopsâwhen suddenly, a high-pitched shriek surprised the shit out of me, making me nearly fall to the ground.
"Oh, dammit," I muttered, throwing my bra to the floor and slipping into a random shirt before running toward the crib. Her expression was the sameâeyes and mouth open, body stiffâbut there was a little speaker somewhere that projected the loudest and the most annoying sound of a baby cry I had ever heard in my entire life.
There were a few possibilities of why she was crying: 1. She was hungry, 2. She needs to get her diaper changed, 3. She felt lonely and she wanted me to rock her or something like that.
First, I checked her feet. Mr. Herberg told us that we would know if the baby needed to change its diaper, because there would be a small blinking light on the palm of the baby's foot that signaled if it had just supposedly pooped in its diaper, and it would be turned off once we changed the diaper.
When I saw that there was no blinking light, I tried rocking her around in my arms, gently swaying her back and forth as I soothed her softly (I don't know if she actually could sense soothing voices, but I tried anyway).
"Ssh, Daisy," I desperately whispered to her. "Shut up, please shut up. Ssh, it's okay please just stop crying I'm begging you."
Five minutes passed and there was still no change, so I resorted to the feeding bottle. I reached into the bag Jonah had given me before I went home, and immediately gave the bottle to Daisy, letting her "suck" on her milk while still gently rocking her in my arms.
After about two minutes, the crying finally stopped, and I sighed out loud in relief. I put her back into the crib, still breathing heavily as my ears tried to return back to normal after listening to the screaming.
"You and I, buddy," I told her, "we're gonna have one hell of a week."
[]
Tuesday morning came and I was a mess.
The baby kept me up all night. I fed her, I changed her diaper even though the light wasn't blinking, and I rocked her until I felt like my arms were about to fall off. Thankfully, none of my family seemed to have been disturbed by the noseâthey were heavy sleepers unlike me.
But I was so sleepy and tired, and my head felt like it was about to explode. I gave the baby at Mr. Herberg first thing in the morning so he could turn on the daycare mode, and then he told me that I could put her inside the locker during school so that was what I did. He said that the daycare mode would automatically turned off when we got out of school, so I didn't need to come back to him later.
To my surprise, as I put Daisy inside my locker, Jonah appeared next to me, leaning against the locker next to mine.
He noticed my state of distress, because he instantly cringed.
"She cries like an animal," I told him as I closed my locker and banged my forehead against the door. "She's not human, so she does. Not. Get. Tired. Of crying." I kept banging my head as I continued on, "Iâ" bang "âdid notâ" bang "âcatch even aâ" bang "âwinkâ" bang "âof sleep!" Bang bang bang bang. "I'm so freaking tired I cannot even."
He held out his palm on the exact spot on the locker where I was banging my head on, preventing me from giving myself a concussion. Then he gently pushed my forehead back, away from the locker. "Don't kill yourself or I'll have to take care of Daisy alone and I do not want that to happen."
I gave him the dirtiest look I could muster. "Do you think I want this to happen, to not get any sleep last night trying not to lose my temper and throw the baby against the wall? Because I almost lost it, Gibbs. Hannah Taylors never loses her shit, and she almost did last night!"
He tsked airily. "Oh, poor Hannah Taylors," he mocked. "Just get to your class."
I almost growled at his back as he walked away with ease. "Oh, Jonah Gibbs, you're not gonna be the one laughing next week when you have your hands on that stupid baby!"
author's note: you're gonna be seeing some inconsistencies in the fake baby's name in the following chapters as i'm going through editing. sorry!