She snorted. “I’m hormonal and stubborn. Brave is what you did. Coming home.”
The baby kicked hard enough to make Madison groan andreach for her side.
“She’s gonna be a soccer player,” she muttered.
“Or a kickboxer.”
She laughed, then winced again and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse. A moment passed before she spoke again, voice quieter this time. “Do you remember that one summer… I basically lived at your place?”
I smiled. “You mean the summer you came over once and just never left?”
“Yeah. That one.”
We both laughed, but the sound held a little more weight than humor. I remembered it too well, long days in the sun, grilled cheese sandwiches on the stovetop, movie marathons that stretched until dawn. Madison had stayed for three weeks straight that summer. My mom always said it was fine, that we were just “inseparable.” But we both knew why she hadn’t gone home.
“Your house always felt so safe,” Madison said softly.
I turned toward her. She wasn’t looking at me, just at the half painted wall of the nursery.
“My dad was drinking a lot back then,” she continued. “And my mom, she just… checked out. It felt like I didn’t exist half the time. But at your place, your mom made waffles and asked me how school was and made me feel like I mattered.”
I swallowed, suddenly fighting off the sting behind my eyes. “You do matter.”
Madison shrugged. “It wasn’t your job to take care of me. But you did. You always found ways to make things feel normal, like letting me rearrange your bookshelves, or playing musicloud enough to drown out the silence.”
I nudged her shoulder. “You were the sister I picked. You belonged there as much as I did.”
She smiled, but it was wobbly. “I never told you how much that meant. That house, those nights, you… I think they saved me.”
My throat tightened. “You saved me too, you know. In your own way.”
We sat in the quiet for a while, the thunder softening into a steady hum.
“Promise me something?” she said.
“Anything.”
“When this baby’s old enough, if she ever needs a place to run to, I want her to have a house that feels like yours did.”
I reached over and linked our pinkies, just like we used to when we were fifteen. “She will. Because she has you.”
And in that moment, with rain tapping the roof and the past folding gently into the present, I realized our friendship hadn’t just survived the years. It had built something beautiful in spite of them.
I wake up the next morning to beeping and something burning. I ran downstairs, the air inside Madison’s kitchen smelled like cinnamon and something burnt. I find out the smell was toast she’d forgotten in the oven while trying to balance a prenatal vitamin, a phone call, and whatever urgent email had just popped up on her laptop.
“Don’t judge me,” she said, fanning the smoke alarm with a dish towel. “I swear I can usually feed myself without setting the house on fire.”
I laughed, settling onto the barstool by the counter. “It’s kind of comforting. You used to be the one who color-coded her closet. Now you’re one broken toaster away from calling for backup.”
“I’m calling it character development.”
She tossed the charred bread into the garbage and joined me at the counter, a hand resting instinctively over the slight swell of her belly.
“I made cider,” she said after a beat. “The good kind. No caffeine. I double-checked.”
“Look at you, being all responsible.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
