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And I realize there’s more going on here than who I’m sleeping with.

“What’s wrong?” I rub her back.

She covers her face with her hands, shaking her head. “I got my period today.”

“You’ve been trying to get pregnant?”

She nods.

“For how long?”

“Seven years,” she says with a sob.

Seven years!

It took eleven painfully long months for Ethan and me to conceive Chase. I can’t imagine going through that torture for years. We’d been not preventing for the last three years and that was a hell of an emotional roller coaster too.

“I’m so sorry, Avery. Why didn’t you say anything? I always assumed you were done having children.”

She shrugs a shoulder. “I guess I didn’t want to sound greedy. Or ungrateful. I know how lucky we are to have three healthy girls. I didn’t want people to think that they weren’t enough. Because they are, they are everything to us. But there’s just a part of me that feels like we have room for more. You know? There is room in my heart for more. It doesn’t take away from the love I have for my girls to say that, does it?”

“No. Of course not!”

“I just feel so guilty sometimes. I mean, I know Scarlett wants more kids too, but her husband died. Surely, I have no right to complain, you know?”

Guilt lumps in my throat.

“No. Avery, you can always talk to me about anything that upsets you. Even if it’s just… a pimple on your nose. I’m here for you.”

She giggles.

I’ve been a bad friend too if Avery felt that she couldn’t talk to me about this for seven years.

“I’m just so tired, you know.” She wipes the tears off her face. “We’ve been doing fertility treatments. It’s too much. I don’t know how much longer I can do it. But I don’t want to disappoint Garrett.”

A laugh escapes my throat, and I quickly cover my mouth with my hands.

“Sorry,” I say as Avery narrows her eyes at me. “It sounds awful, really, and it sounds like you have a lot to think about and decide what you want to do. But one thing you never have to worry about is Garrett.”

“He really wants this too,” she says, her eyebrows scrunching together. “I hate to disappoint him.”

“Yeah, I get that. But that’s my point. You could never disappoint him. Infertility is not your fault. And I know with certainty that Garrett’s priority is you. He wants you to be happy. So don’t worry about disappointing him and just tell him what you need to be happy.”

“I know… I guess. I just keep thinking about what you said. That Ethan completely blindsided you. That you had no idea he wanted to leave. It’s been eating at me. I know Garrett isn’t Ethan. And Garrett hates it when I compare our relationship to yours, but… it’s always in the back of my mind that nothing is certain.”

I wrap my arms around her shoulders and hug her tight.

It baffles me, because I know deep inside that Avery has nothing to worry about. Garrett is not going anywhere, I know it with certainty. But was I equally certain about Ethan?

No.

It feels like a betrayal to everything I believe in to admit this. But it’s true.

“I don’t think I was being entirely truthful with myself when I said Ethan blindsided me. I wasn’t lying. I really couldn’t believe that he would break his promise to me. That he would ever put Chase in this situation. That he would rip our life apart. But it wasn’t because I thought that Ethan loved me unconditionally.”

I need to breathe in deep before continuing.

“In fact, I’d been questioning his love for me for years. And mine for him. We never got along, you know?”