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Friday
Istared down at the piece of toilet paper in my hand.
I’d woken to an alert on my phone from my period tracking app, a handy little reminder that my cycle should start today. It’s fine. It’ll probably just start later, or in a day or two. It wasn’t the most unusual thing in the world for me to be a day or so late. I would be able to track when I’d be ovulating once I eventually started and would reschedule my next appointment based on that.
I flushed the paper down the toilet as I stood. Yesterday had been awkward, to say the least. I’d gotten to Hudson’s a few minutes before I knew he needed to leave, trying to minimize the amount of time we had to spend in each other's presence, and then spent the majority of my day trying to correct Jamey when he asked questions about our engagement. It was exhausting, and the few times I’d had to hide in the bathroom to cry were because of my PMS. I’d been far too emotional around my period since I started trying to get pregnant, and I didn’t want to think about why that was and how it connected to the disappointment I felt every time I looked at the blood-smeared toilet paper.
I threw my hair up into a messy bun as I got dressed. In the hamper across from my bed, Hudson’s Harvard hoodie glared at me, daring me to do my laundry and bring it back to him. I ignored it and pulled on my comfiest trousers and a black T-shirt from my closet.
I got to Hudson’s as he was grabbing his keys to leave, a look of relief washing over him as I stepped through the door.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” he sighed.
“I would have texted you,” I mumbled, shutting the door behind me and throwing my keys onto the entryway table. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He looked down at me, his green eyes hiding far too much behind them as he studied me. “Jamey’s still upstairs. He was up and down all night, kept having nightmares. He should be up soon.”
“Okay.”
His gaze flicked between me and the door. Knowing that Jamey was still upstairs put me on edge. Yesterday, even during the most awkward few moments when Hudson and I were together, Jamey had been a buffer. But without him it just felt all too real, too emotionally taxing. “I’ll see you when I get home.”
I nodded, taking that as my signal that I was allowed to move, to get comfortable in a house that wasn’t my own, without a fiancé that wasn’t real. I walked toward the kitchen, aiming to get Jamey something for breakfast, and listened as the door opened then slammed shut.
————
“So, you’re not my new mommy?”
I sighed for the thousandth time as I placed a red Lego on top of all the other red Legos. He’d insisted on making a red-only Lego tower. “No, Jamey, I’m not.”
He pouted as he looked down at the bricks in his hand. “All of my friends have a mommy.”
His words hit me like a bullet to the chest. I inhaled, lifting my head to the ceiling so the burning behind my eyes would dissipate, and lowered it only when I felt in control. “You know, Jamey, not everyone has a mommy. Maybe one day your daddy will find a mommy for you, but it’s okay if he doesn’t. Some people just don’t have one. Some people have two daddies, some people lose their mommy when they’re little. Some mommies don’t get to have babies.” I fought the quivering in my lip as he looked up at me, his eyes wide. “Your daddy does what’s best for you even if it doesn’t feel like it. If he decides to get you a mommy, it’ll be someone even better than me, the best of the best. He wouldn’t settle for less for you.”
“But you’re the best of the best.”
I laughed as I pulled him into my lap. “I’m hardly the best, you little squirt,” I joked as he wrapped his little arms around my neck.
He really was such a sweet kid, even though he had so much of his father in him. If and when I eventually got pregnant, I hoped that whoever popped out would be at least half as funny, half as cute as Jamey. I could easily play with him forever, even when he asked me the same questions over and over, even when he got annoyed because I made him something he didn’t love for lunch, and even when he played the same episode of Peppa Pig three times in a row.
I was ready to be a parent. More than ready. It was almost crazy how much I wanted it, how much the need for it floated around inside me, always in the background no matter what I did or to whom I spoke. It was always there. A constant want, a constant need.
I took solace in the fact that once I became pregnant, Hudson and I could call off our fake engagement. We could pretend that we had broken up—the death idea had gone out the window once I realized our moms were friends—and that I was left with the baby, free to raise it on my own because it wouldn’t be his. We could part ways and never see each other again if that’s what we wanted.
That was the part that hurt. I wanted to say it was because I would lose out on hanging out with Jamey and watching him grow, but I knew that wasn’t the only reason. Annoyingly, I knew that Lisa was at least partly right; I’d gotten attached. Not massively, not like before, but a part of me liked being with Hudson, even though he didn’t want more kids and even though he wasn’t interested in anything more with me.
I pushed back the disappointment I knew would eventually hit me when we parted ways as Jamey wiggled out of our hug, Legos still in hand, and returned to his massive red-only Lego tower.
Chapter 21
Hudson
Saturday
Iglanced at the time on my dashboard as I sat in the thick traffic of central Boston, the sound of Jamey’s tablet playing one of his shows and the ringing coming from my phone the only things on which I could focus. I stared at the screen as it continued to ring, Sophie’s name front and center on the top as the seconds ticked by. Pick up. Please pick up.
“What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “What? Why do you think something’s wrong?”
