She looks back up at the sky, jaw set. “I hate that. The idea of never seeing a little you running around.”
“A little me would be a nightmare,” I say, trying to take the edge off it. “You’d regret that pretty quickly.”
She doesn’t smile.
“Maybe there’s another way,” she says after a moment. “People can do things differently. We don’t know what our options are yet. We shouldn’t make a decision that permanent when we don’t have all the information.”
Maybe she’s right. We left this world as children, and now we’re trying to figure it out through adult eyes.
“We don’t have to decide tonight,” I say. “We’ll use condoms for now and figure the rest out later.”
“Okay.”
Neither of us has answers. Not really.
The future used to be something we didn't think about. Survival took up all the space.
Now there are doctors and families and houses and choices.
An entire life waiting for us.
Chapter 29
Charlotte Gallagher
I’m just startingto cook the eggs when I hear Dane coming down the stairs. He walks into the kitchen looking like a man with nothing to do—and no idea what to do with that.
He leans against the doorframe and watches me. I can feel the restlessness in him straight away without him saying a word.
“Smells good, babe.”
“Toast is ready. Give me thirty seconds on the eggs.”
I glance at him and catch that look—the one he gets when his head’s somewhere else, working something over.
“Just say it, Dane.”
“Say what?”
“That you don’t know what to do with yourself.”
He exhales, a quiet give in it. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”
I flip the eggs. “I know.”
“I always had something to do on the island. Something to fix or build or check. Something that needed doing or we’d die. Nothing here needs fixing. The house is fine.Youare fine. I keep walking around looking for a problem, and there isn’t one.”
“You’re allowed to simply exist, Dane, and relax for a change.”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
I serve up breakfast and carry it to the table. He sits, and I take the seat opposite. For a minute, we just eat.
“This is good,” he says.
“It’s just eggs and toast.”
“Just eggs and toast is still good.”
