And I’m glad for it, because there was a time when she wasn’t comfortable in her own skin, and the memory of that still lives somewhere in the back of my chest.
“How’s your dad?” Victoria asks, reaching for a lemon bar like she hasn’t eaten in days.
Something crosses Millie’s face, fast and contained, gone before most people would catch it.
ButIcatch it.
“Good,” she says, her voice steady, warm, completely unimpeachable. “Busy. He’s still working away, always getting shit organized, you know him.”
Victoria nods, already reaching for another lemon bar because, apparently, pregnancy has turned eating into a competitive sport.
“That’s good,” she says. “Your dad is one of the hardest working people I know.”
Millie smiles faintly. “Yeah. Dad’s always been… particular about preparation.”
She reaches forward to pour coffee from the pot on the coffee table. Her hands are steady, but I watch them.
I’ve learned to read Millie in the spaces between what she says. In the small tells she doesn’t know she has. The steadiness she wears like armor. The way she keeps her chin level when she’s managing something difficult. The slight, almost invisible tightening around her eyes when a question lands too close.
But sheismanagingsomething.
She has been managingsomethingfor weeks.
And I’m stuck here in thistwenty-one-day limbo watching her carry all of it by herself, and the frustration that comes with that has become part of my daily routine at this point.
Wake up… pick it up… carry it around all damn day. Repeat.
Twenty-one days, Will.
Twenty-onedays.
Victoria exhales heavily and shifts in her seat. “I swear this kid is trying to punch its way out,” she mutters, rubbing her stomach. “Also, nobody tells you about the… fluids.”
I curl up my nose while Millie blinks in confusion. “Fluids?”
“Oh my God,” Victoria says, lighting up in the way people do when they realize they have a captive audience. “There aresomany fluids. Things I didnotsign up for. Things that should require warning labels.”
Millie laughs, startled. “Victoria—”
“No, listen! Yesterday I sneezed, and something happened that I amnotemotionally equipped to discuss with grown men present.”
This is where I draw the line.
I push up from the seat, already turning toward the kitchen. “Right,” I mutter. “That’s my cue.”
Millie looks up. Not quickly, not dramatically, but just enough that I feel it before I see it. For a second, our eyes meet.
There’s a question there.
Or maybe an apology.
Or maybe just the shared awareness that we both know why I’m leaving.
I don’t hold it because if I do, I won’t leave. So I break the look first, and keep walking.
Behind me, Victoria is still talking about bodily fluids like she’s delivering a TED Talk.
I exhale hard and rake a hand through my hair as I force my feet to move away.
