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“I want to be a yoga instructor,” I said.
Rosie paused, screwing up her nose. “Wait, haven’t you already done that?”
“No, that was a Pilates instructor,” Lucy cut in. “They’re different, right?”
“Yes they are different and no I haven’t already done it,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Rosie asked.
“Reasonably,” I replied.
“Hmmm okay,” she murmured, not sounding convinced.
“That’s great, Pol,” Lucy said, her voice only slightly more convincing than Rosie.
Slightly.
I sighed. “I know that I’ve had as many careers as I’ve had boyfriends, but this is something that feels right to me,” I said. “This is something I’ve put thought into. I love the idea of helping people find peace.”
“I thought it would mainly be about helping housewives finding ways to be more flexible to please their husbands who are already banging their secretaries anyway,” Rosie said, screwing up her nose.
I laughed when Lucy scowled at Rosie with somewhat of a smile in her eye. She was trying to be my protector but also Rosie’s best friend.
“I’m sure there will be some of that,” I agreed. “But once I’m certified, I want to open my own place. Have it be about something other than a social media image and a place to wear Lululemon leggings or whatever. “ I paused. “I just want to create…something that stands for calm. Even when my life stands for chaos. I’ll use Craig’s money.”
Rosie gave me a knowing look. “Or you could use it to hire a hitman. I’d give you the five-finger discount since I’d be the hitman. But you’d still have to pay me because I need a new car. I’m thinking a convertible.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not killing him.”
She pouted.
“No,” I said to the silent plea.
“Even after he accosted you in a bar?” Lucy asked. “And he ruined two margaritas.”
Obviously she didn’t know that he’d once ruined my face. Because Lucy would’ve actually killed him. I knew that.
“We aren’t talking about him,” I gritted out.
“Okay,” Lucy agreed.
That was too easy.
“We’re talking about Heath,” she amended.
I knew it.
She held her hand up as I opened my mouth. “Before you talk about not being ready or try to brush off what it is that the two of you have, you know that’s impossible now, right? There’s only so much patience we can have on the matter. Two years is our freaking limit. And we’re pregnant, you have to give us what we ask, right?” She looked to Rosie, who nodded.
“Yep, it’s like law or something.”
I raised my brow, my stomach curling in on itself at the knowledge that there was going to be no way to escape this one, because they were right, there was only so long I could keep silent. And I wasn’t certain they wouldn’t resort to waterboarding if I tried to keep them in the dark any longer.
“It’s law to get you pickles and ice cream if you’re craving them,” I tried to stall because I had to gather up the strength. “Not tell you details about my private life.”
Rosie waved her phone. “Um, welcome to the twenty-first century, hippy kid, there are apps for all of our pregnancy cravings. And husbands. So your job, as the aunt to these two, precious, precious children is to spill every sordid detail of your past with Heath. Including girth and tongue talent.”
“My job as an aunt to your precious, precious children is talking about girth and a man’s ability to perform oral sex?” I clarified.
Lucy nodded. “You’re catching on.”
I sighed, long and hard. I couldn’t say that there wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t itching to talk about this. To tell someone, anyone, what I’d kept inside for so long. And the two women in front of me knew me better than I knew myself. Plus, they’d been witness to my many stupid decisions over the years. They cleaned up my messes, and more often than not, made even bigger messes.
Keeping this large part of my life, my identity, from them felt like an ongoing and exhausting deception. And it wasn’t just that Heath was a large part of my identity, it’s what he made me learn about myself. How he taught me that I could be the ugly stepsister in the fairy tale.
How I could break hearts and ruin lives.
It was a heavy burden to carry alone. But this was one thing that my sisters couldn’t save me from.
“Okay,” I whispered, the word silencing Rosie and Lucy as they bickered over who I’d babysit for the most.
“Okay?” Lucy said, shocked. “You’re going to tell us?”
I nodded.
And I told them.
Everything.
* * *
“Holy. Fucking. Fuck,” Rosie breathed.
It was the first words she’d spoken it what felt like a lifetime.
I’d stopped speaking a full minute before she uttered them. I’d counted. Braced for their reaction. Their judgment.
They were shocked because I was sure that they didn’t expect the history of me and Heath to stretch back to when I was eighteen years old. Obviously we’d done a great job at convincing my family we were strangers.
