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“Yeah.” I hung my head.
“But how’s that your fault?” Juni asked.
“Oh God.” I sighed. “There’s so much I haven’t told you.”
“Tell us now.”
After I’d explained about Frank looking for Murphy and about how it had been bringing things up from Frank’s past, and then how I didn’t call him when I should have, I told them about tonight, when Frank told me he loved me and we’d had sex.
“Wait, so you had sex in the stacks?” Juni squealed. “That is so freaking hot. I’m putting that in a book.”
My laugh was weak. “That’s all you got out of everything I just told you?”
“Of course not, Sam.” She squeezed my hand and held it. “I was trying to cheer you up.”
I squeezed back, soaking up the warmth from her skin. My parents really did suck, but I had found another family here. Juni, Carly, Theo, and Brady had all become my family. Frank was my family. “Thanks.”
“Babe,” Carly said, “it ain’t your fault. That poor kid’s been dealt a crap hand. You were tryin’ to help him.”
“What if he dies?”
She held my other hand, looking in my eyes. “He won’t.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Juni cocked her head. “What’s going on, Sam? Besides the boy. Something’s going on. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I don’t know. I’m scared, I guess. Confused. I told Frank tonight I can’t have children. He barely had enough time to react before we went looking for Murphy, but he didn’t freak out. Didn’t tell me I was ruining his plans for a family. He said it didn’t change anything, which was when I realized it’s not Frank’s reaction I’m so afraid of.” I took a deep breath, ready to admit the truth to myself. “It’s mine. All this time, I’ve been thinking I’d be ruining someone’s life if they shackled themselves to me. I’d be taking away Frank’s opportunities.”
Scooting away from them, I stood. I needed to move. “It’s the same feeling I’ve had all my life. It’s the way my parents always made me feel. Like I was in the way. Like them having to drag me around from job to job was a pain in the ass. I always felt like a burden. The only time I didn’t feel like that was when I was here in Wisper with my grandparents.”
And finally, after years of beating myself up for something I’d had no control over, everything became clear.
I ticked the reasons why I wasn’t burden off on my fingers. “But first of all, my parents chose to have me. I didn’t ask to be born, so that’s on them. I didn’t deserve to be dragged halfway around the world and ignored at the same time. And second, I didn’t ask to have endometriosis. I didn’t ask to miscarry the only child I’ll ever get to be pregnant with. I didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t my fault. So why the fuck do I feel guilty about it? Why am I always telling myself I’m worthless? That my body’s worthless? It’s not. I’m not a burden.
“And I’m thinking… Maybe I’m thinking all of this was meant to happen. Maybe I was meant to do something else. Maybe Frank was, too, and that’s why we met and fell in love now. I mean, it’s not like the two of us make sense together, the grumpy, stoic deputy and the weird librarian nineteen years younger?” I snorted. “It makes no sense. We’re all wrong for each other, but it works. I love him.”
“Aw,” Carly said. “Yeah. Y’all were meant to be.”
I looked at my friends. “I’m sorry I yelled at you guys at book club. You were just being good friends, and I was rude to you.”
“I told you, Sam,” Juni said. “It’s okay.”
Carly nodded in agreement. “What’re friends for if you can’t freak out on ’em every once in a while?”
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s just that I thought if I heard the phrase ‘just adopt’ one more time, I’d scream. I don’t know why. I’ve been so angry at my own body, I didn’t even bother to really look into it. Maybe I could adopt someday.”
“We should research it,” Juni added as I began to pace in front of them.
“You should see their faces,” I said. “Maybe it’s because I was so young when it happened, but whenever someone finds out I can’t have kids, they say that—‘don’t worry, you can always adopt.’ The pity on their faces makes me so angry.
“And I guess I built it up in my head that if I couldn’t have my own kids, I’d never have any kids. And that made me feel like a burden, too, you know? Like it would be a burden to anyone I was in a relationship with, but you know what? It should be their burden if they love me. If he loves me the way he says he does, Frank will love me through infertility.”
Stopping on a dime, I turned back to them still sitting on the floor, watching me work this out in real time. “Right?”
They were nodding. “I bet he already does,” Carly said.
“Yeah, I think he does,” I agreed. “And you know what else?”
