Page 13 of Beautiful When He Breaks

“You’re here,” he says, closing the clean diaper with practiced hands. “She’s here. It’s morning. That’s all we’re handling right this second.”

My throat burns. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“No one does at first.”

“You do.”

He shakes his head. “I know how to change a diaper and make a bottle,” he says, snapping the baby’s sleeper closed again with only a slightly murderous glare at the ducks. “That’s not the same as knowing how to raise a whole human.”

“But you’re not scared.”

He huffs once, and it’s low and humorless. “I’m fucking terrified.”

That shuts me up.

Julian discards the dirty diaper into the trash, lifts her from the changing pad, and settles her against his shoulder while he reaches for one of the premade bottles on my nightstand.

“I’m just useful when I’m scared,” he adds, checking the bottle with a little shake. “You get frozen, I get bossy. Same panic, different outfit.”

I watch him tuck the bottle to her mouth. She latches onto it instantly, greedy and furious, her cries cutting off into hard little sucks. The silence that follows is almost worse, but my ears ring with it. Julian keeps her angled in his arms, supporting her head while she drinks.

“You see how I’m holding her? Not flat on her back. A little upright. Helps keep her from choking and makes burping easier after.”

“Burping,” I repeat, as if I’ve never heard the word.

“Yeah. Babies swallow air, and it hurts their stomachs, so they scream while you wonder what demon possessed them. Then they burp and act as if nothing happened.” He glances at me. “You’ll learn her sounds.”

I stare at her tiny mouth working around the teat. “She has sounds?”

“She’ll have different cries. Hungry cry, wet cry, tired cry, pissed-off-because-life cry.”

“They all sound like screaming.”

“For now.” His mouth twitches. “You’ll get it.”

I don’t know how he can say that so easily. You’ll get it. As if there’s some future version of me who can wake up to that screaming and know what to do.

Now it’s morning, and sleep didn’t make me better; it just delayed the terror.

Julian pulls the bottle away for a second. “Slow down, little monster,” he murmurs. “You’re gonna puke on both of us, and honestly, I respect the chaos, but not before coffee.”

My chest tightens at the tenderness in his voice. I forgot how good he was at taking care of babies. When he was thirteen and his mother passed away a week after giving birth to Jess, he stepped in more than anyone else did. Julian has always been good at taking care of people while pretending he doesn’t need anyone to take care of him. He did it when we were kids, did it with his sisters, and did it with me, even when I didn’t deserve it.

The baby makes a soft choking sound around the bottle, and all my attention snaps back to her so fast my stomach drops.

“What was that?” I ask, stepping forward.

“She’s okay.” Julian lifts the bottle away and shifts her higher against his shoulder. “This is where we burp her. She got excited and swallowed air.”

He pats her back gently, not hard, just a steady little rhythm between her shoulder blades. Her face is turned toward me now, cheeks flushed, eyes still closed, mouth searching even though the bottle is gone.

“She looks pissed,” I whisper.

“She is. You’d be pissed too if someone interrupted breakfast to slap your back.”

“You’re not slapping her.”

“She doesn’t appreciate nuance yet.”