Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 520(@200wpm)___ 416(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
“Hey,” she says. The word lands like a snowflake on my shoulders.
I can’t trust my voice, so I nod and step aside, letting her pass. She peels off the coat, revealing a navy sweater, dark jeans, boots with salt stains still clinging to the toes. She hesitates, then drapes the coat over the arm of the chair, careful not to disturb the shape I’ve arranged it in.
“Thanks for having me,” she says, scanning the shelves, the neatness, the books lined up by theme and not by author. Her gaze lingers on the framed triptych above the mantel—an abstract of blue, gray, and a single thread of arterial red. “Your place always looks so elegant.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “I’m glad you’re here. I thought about ordering dinner, but I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry,” I say, ridiculous even to myself.
She shrugs, half smile. “I’m fine. I ate with Andie.”
She crosses to the couch and sits, not quite at the center, legs tucked up, hands gripping the arm of the sofa just slightly. She looks at me, waiting.
The next moment hangs, knife-edged. I stay standing, hands in pockets, as if the room might tip over if I move wrong.
“Simone,” I start, and already I can hear the apology leaking into my tone. “Thank you for coming.”
She sips, lips leaving a pink crescent on the rim. “Why did you want to see me?” she asks, direct as always.
I cross to the coffee table, plant myself on the ottoman so I’m not looming over her. “I owed you a conversation. A real one. Not on email, not in a classroom, not—” I gesture at the past, “—through intermediaries.”
She leans back, a glass balanced in her lap. “So talk.”
I nod. The words have been rehearsed, sharpened, revised, but now they jumble out in no order at all.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about everything that happened. About how I acted. About what I asked of you.” I look at her, trying to read her face, but she’s impassive, eyes locked on mine like a jury waiting for a confession. “I told myself it was about honesty, about being upfront. But it wasn’t. It was about control.” I can’t help the way my hands flex on my knees. “I thought if I could make everything contractual, clinical, then I could avoid the mess of conceiving a child. The risk. I could have what I wanted without—” I almost say ‘hurting you,’ but I stop.
She finishes the thought for me. “Without being vulnerable.”
I nod, ashamed at how easily she nails it.
She traces the stem of her glass with a thumbnail, the rhythm a slow metronome. “Why do you even want a kid, anyway?” There’s no accusation, just curiosity, like she’s finally gotten to the part of the story she cares about.
I stare at the pattern in the carpet, mouth dry. “I think about legacy. About not disappearing. I know that’s selfish. I know it’s fucked up.”
She shrugs. “Isn’t that what all parents want? To pass something on?”
“Maybe.” My voice is rough. “But I was so wrapped up in the idea of it being safe, planned, that I forgot people aren’t lab experiments.”
She considers this, eyes softening a degree. “So why did you pull back? After everything?”
I look at her, really look. The answer is simple, but so ugly it hurts to say. “Because I realized you deserved better than being a solution to my fears.”
She sets the glass down, hands now free, fingers steepled in front of her. “And if I wanted to be more than that?”
I shake my head. “I would ruin you. I almost did.” I see her flinch, the tremor in her jaw, and I want to take it back, but it’s too late.
We’re silent for a minute. The tick of the wall clock, the distant rumble of a truck outside.
She says, quietly: “You didn’t ruin me. You just made me doubt myself. For a while.”
I swallow, the taste of iron on my tongue. “You’re stronger than me.”
She half-smiles, all edges. “That’s not saying much.”
We sit, two islands in the blue of dusk. The air is so dense it’s almost liquid.
She breaks the surface first. “My doctor says I might actually be able to have kids. Eventually. If I want to.” She says it like she’s reading a weather report—surprising, but not urgent.
The words land and detonate. I stare at her, lips parted, not trusting myself to speak. The glass in my hand wobbles, sloshes a ring of red onto the coaster. For a second, the image of her swollen with my child, her mouth soft with sleep, is so vivid I can’t breathe.
She sees it, smiles small. “You look like you’re about to faint.”
“I’m not,” I say, but my voice is gone. I clear my throat. “That’s incredible. I’m happy for you. I mean it.”