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“I think I might be falling in love with you.”
Sophie’s body suddenly stiffened beneath mine. I could feel it like I could feel the wind on my back, except the wind was pleasurable, and whatever reservations had tensed her body were most certainly not. She sucked in a breath, looked at me with an unrecognizable expression on her face, and before I knew it, she was wriggling out from under me.
“Are you being serious right now, Alex?” she asked once she had pushed herself up on her feet.
“Yes,” I said plainly.
“And you’re not just saying that because youhaveto, because it will be easier for us to be together when the babies arrive?”
“Of course not,” I said, rising up on my knees. “Why would you even think that?”
She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and glanced down at the grass. Above her, the sun was setting, the sky turning to twilight. The deck lamp flickered to life and cast a soft halo of light around Sophie. She looked like an angel. An angry angel.
“Because, Alex. It’s too soon for you to be in love with me. It . . . It just feels tooconvenient, don’t you think? What if I never got pregnant? What then? Do you really think we would’ve giveneach other a chance after that seminar? Met up, chatted, and fell in love?”
“Yes.”
“You’re wrong,” she huffed. “And I know that becauseIhad no intention of seeing you again, Alex. Whatever happened back then was just a mistake. Nothing more. So, this”—Sophie threw her hands up in the air, and I assumed she was referring to us—“can’t be anything more, alright? Because it was never going to be anything if it hadn’t been for these babies.”
Feeling the ache of a heartbreaking all over again, I stood up and walked toward her.
But Sophie stepped back, continuing until her ankle hit the deck step. “I have to go.” She spun on the spot and raced into the house, the door slamming shut a few brief moments later.
CHAPTER 21
Sophie
“He said that?” Becks gasped, smacking her palms to her cheeks. She resembled none other than Van Gogh’sScream, minus the bald head and sickly white complexion. “Really?”
I nodded, remembering how I had wriggled out from under Alex, leaped up like some crazed animal, and argued with him. How I’d told him that his feelings weren’t real, that he couldn’t possibly be in love with me—not so soon—, and that his feelings grew out of his sense of responsibility more than anything else.
Which was all extremely ironic since I had theexactsamefeelings for him. I was in love with Alex. I could easily imagine a life with him, where spontaneous picnics on the grass outside became a summer ritual, where lazy afternoons were spent tangled up in each other’s arms, talking about everything and nothing. Where we watched our future kids run amok, their giggles echoing in the house. Where we did everything together: have dinner, raise our children, go to sleep, wake up, laugh, fight, and everything in between. And not just as co-parents, but as two people who loved each other.
But instead of telling Alex all that, I turned him down, snuffing out even the smallest spark of what could have been.
“Yes,” I sighed, sinking onto the plinth. I folded over and sat with my head between my legs, staring at the linoleum floor—it needed a good sweep. “But it doesn’t matter because I fucked it up.”
“How?” asked Becks. There was a soft clatter followed by a faint squeak of wheels on the floor. When I looked up, Becks was rolling toward me in a wheelchair. “I thought you had feelings for him too. I saw it on your face at dinner the other night. The way you looked at him, the way he looked at you . . . It can’t get any more obvious, Soph. You two are meant for each other.”
I dragged my fingers down my cheeks and moaned. “You don’t know that.”
"I do," she said matter-of-factly. "It's as obvious as the fact that the wall is white. Call it fate. Serendipity. Maybe there was a reason Vicki got sick before the seminar, sent you, and you ended up sleeping with Mr. Heartthrob when you're not exactly the type of person who has one-night stands."
“Or there’s no such thing as fate,” I said, resting my chin on my fisted hands. “And this whole pregnancy was just bad luck. Like, walking-under-a-ladder kind of bad luck.”
I tried to think deeply for something that could back my theory. Spotting a black cat perhaps, or stepping on a few too many cracks, or even accidentally spilling some salt, but nothing came to mind. Maybe the whole fender bender was the start of a chain of calamities. Or maybe Becks was right, and that first encounter was the very beginning of a story that had to happen, two paths entwined by fate’s naughty hand.
“Nope, not the case. You two were meant to find each other,” she said, wheeling herself back and forth. “For the last six months, you’ve been glowing, Soph, and it’s not just the hormones. It’s that blissful look of love in your eyes. It’s so glaringly obvious even a blind person could see it.”
I smoothed my palms, which were weirdly clammy, over my thighs and took a breath in.
On the exhale, I spoke from the heart. “But what if Alex only feels this way because hethinkshe should? Because it’s the right thing? What if we’re like those parents who just stay together for the sake of their children . . . What if we end up resenting each other?”
My heart was racing. Becks' blank face didn’t help the angst growing in my chest. I suddenly remembered something my dad had said to me when I was ten and in the midst of a two-day-long silent treatment of Danny. “Resentment is like a thorn in your heart, Soph,” he had said. “It grows sharper every day until it finally tears you apart.” Ten-year-old Sophie had taken it quite literally and made up with Danny before her poor heart was torn into pieces.
“Do you really believe that?” Becks asked, now doing a wheelie, the chair balancing on its rear, teetering slightly. She managed four seconds before the front wheels thudded against the floor.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I said resignedly. I leaned back on my outstretched arms and gazed down at my belly. The babies had grown from the size of a small bell pepper to roughly the size of an ear of corn. Since I was carrying two, my bump was just above average-sized. I ran my hand along the curve, a daily habit that had become almost automatic. “Alex didn’t even text back this morning when I told him about the prenatal class next week.”
