Page 96 of The Wild Card

She stares at me for a long moment, and her eyes go glassy. Oh no. That’s not—I didn’t mean to—

“Sorry.” She swipes at her face with the sleeve of my hoodie. “Hormones. I cry at everything when I’m like this. I cried at a commercial yesterday. It was about paper towels.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s not.” I hesitate, then reach out and brush a strand of hair from her face. “You don’t have to be embarrassed around me.”

She lets out a watery laugh. “You say that now. Wait until I start crying about the paper towels.”

“Were they very absorbent?”

“So absorbent, Crew. They soaked up an entire juice spill in like two seconds. But that’s not why I cried. There was this really chubby, happy baby in the commercial; he’s the one who made the mess with the juice, and…” She draws a shaky breath. “And then I started thinking about how I want that someday. A chubby baby making messes in my kitchen. A family. And then I started thinking about how I’m twenty-seven and single—”

She pulls the blanket tighter around herself. “And then I started thinking about how I can’t even keep a real boyfriend, and maybe there’s something wrong with me, and maybe I’m too much or not enough or—” Her voice cracks. “And then I was crying on the couch about paper towels and babies and my entire life trajectory, and I couldn’t stop. The thought just… took over. Hijacked my whole brain.”

Something in my chest tightens.

“I know what that’s like,” I say quietly. “When thoughts take over.”

She looks up at me, eyes wet. “You do?”

“My brain does it all the time. Spirals. Takes one small thing and turns it into a catastrophe.” I pause, trying to find the right words. “It’s exhausting.”

“Yeah.” She sniffles. “It really is.”

We’re quiet for a moment. Murphy meows from somewhere in the apartment, offended that the bedroom door is still closed.

“I just always thought I’d have it figured out by now, you know?” Emmie says. “My parents were married at twenty-three. My mom was pregnant with Gavin at twenty-five. And here I am, almost twenty-eight, and the closest thing I have to a relationship is a contractual obligation with subsections.”

“The subsections are very thorough.”

She laughs, wet and surprised. “They really are.” Another silence. She’s picking at a thread on the blanket, not looking at me. “Crew?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever want that? Kids. A wife. A family.”

The question lands in my chest like a punch.

Do I want kids? I’ve never let myself think about it. Kids require stability. Patience. The ability to be present and gentle and emotionally available. Kids require not flinching when someone touches you unexpectedly, not needing to check the locks four times before bed, not spiraling into worst-case scenarios every time something deviates from the plan.

Kids require being the kind of person I’ve never believed I could be. And a wife? Yeah, maybe. Maybe someday but I’m nowhere near ready to be someone’s husband.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I never thought I’d be any good at it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m—” I gesture vaguely at myself. “Me. I’m not exactly built for domestic life.”

She tilts her head, studying me. “You found my heating pad in under two minutes. You made me tea without being asked. You’re sitting in my bed voluntarily, even though I know this is probably making your brain itch because there’s no protocol for it.”

“There’s definitely no protocol for this.”

“And yet here you are.” She reaches out and touches my hand, gentle.

The words hit somewhere deep, somewhere I don’t let people access. I think about my own childhood—the parade of foster homes, the instability, the never knowing where I’d be or who I’d be with. I think about how fiercely I would protect any child from ever feeling that way.