My hand was shaking, I was softly crying, and then her hand covered mine. "Give me the gun Jay," Rachel said. Her voice was so soft and warm, I let my hand fall. "What were you thinking? Were you just going to leave me? Leave Annie?"

"I don't know, I don't know. It just hurts, and I can't think straight anymore." I cried.

"Why Jamie, why would you want to harm yourself like this?" she begged me to answer her, but truthfully I had no real answer.

"She's my baby, I love her more than anything. I would give her the world if I could. But I didn't chose to conceive her," I looked at my hands that I clutched together in my lap. "He forced himself on me and I never told anyone. He could hurt someone else and it would be my fault. I couldn't talk about it, not then, but I'm ready now. I needed to take away the pain, you didn't want me. No one did, except Annie and what kind of life could I give her. A lousy one."

"Jamie I…" Rachel started to say.

"I didn't tell anyone before, because when I first saw her I loved her. And now I'm in love with you." I couldn't meet her eyes, I refused to.

"I love you too Jay. Just I don't understand why you would do this, why would you want to?" She asked me, I could her the tears in her voice and I knew she was crying.

"Annie doesn't need me, she'd be better off with you." I told her, "You'll both be better off with out me in your lives to muck things up."

"But Annie does need her mother in her life, her real mother. She needs you, and frankly so do I." Rachel whispered the last part, a bit of desperation in her voice.

Looking up at her new tears formed in my eyes, because I was sorry, because I was happy, because finally I had the family I always wanted. Or maybe it was because I was in love and now in that very moment I knew I had what most people spend all their lives searching for, and some aren't lucky enough to find. I had in that moment found in myself a certain perfection.