reaching up to tickle Katie’s belly. Katie giggles the way babies do, the kind that makes you smile even though you feel dead inside. Which is exactly how I feel as I watch them. I could’ve had this—I think, just for a second—but I wouldn’t have been coming home from work. I’d be coming home from high school, and then college…
I haven’t said a word, but she knows me. Besides Mia, she knows me better than anyone. After giving Katie a quick kiss, she’s on her feet and moving toward me. Her hand grasps mine, her neck craned to look up at me, and I stare down at her, my big little sister. She’s so much like my mother; it hurts. “I…” I can’t even get the words out.
Her chest rises with her inhale, and she lets it out through her nose, nodding once. And then she takes my hand, and I’m back outside, and she’s rubbing my back, saying, “Breathe, Leelee. Just breathe.”
I hadn’t realized I wasn’t, so I inhale as much air as my lungs can handle while she leads me to the bench seat underneath the oak tree in her front yard. It’s dark out, the only light coming from the house and the moon. I hear the sounds of Cameron cooing and Katie laughing, and my jaw tightens. I crack my knuckles, one by one, and look down at the ground. Lucy never stops rubbing my back. She doesn’t speak. She just waits. And I know that she’d wait all night and all day if that’s what it takes. I realize now that all the practice I did in the car was pointless, because all the words were jumbled, and at no point did I decide how to start. I try to crack my knuckles again, but nothing comes. A ragged breath falls out of me, filling the silence between us, and her hand just keeps moving, up and down, up and down. I wish I could check out of this moment—for just a minute, so I can focus on what I need to say, to reveal, but I can’t. “Mia has a son,” I blurt out.
Lucy’s hand stills on my back momentarily before moving again. “Oh?” It’s a question. Like, why am I even telling her this? I look over at her, and whatever she sees in my eyes—the pain, hurt, longing, agony, confusion—has her repeating, “Oh.” Except this time, it’s a statement, an understanding.
“He’s four.”
She removes her hand from my back and reaches for my hand, her face shifting forward, looking at the blank space in front of us. “So… you would’ve been…?”
“Eighteen,” I say, watching her. “She was seventeen. It was right before senior year. I stayed on her grandpa’s farm, and she was there...”
“So, it was, like, a summer fling?”
“No,” I’m quick to respond. “God, no, Lucy.” For some reason, it hurts that she thinks that. Like, it takes away everything that Mia and I were, and I hate it. “I’ve loved her since I was thirteen.”
“Oh, Leo,” she sighs, the romantic in her looking at me with those pitiful eyes, and I don’t know what I hate more.
“We only did it twice.” It’s a stupid thing to say, but it’s been on my mind ever since the bomb was dropped on my lap. “We used protection both times.”
“It only takes one time, and no protection is a hundred—”
“I know, Luce,” I cut in, and it comes out harsher than I intended. Obviously, I know, and I don’t mean to be frustrated with her. I’m just… I don’t know how the fuck to feel right now.
“Why didn’t she tell you? I mean, she didn’t tell you, right?”
I shake my head. “I found out last night.”
“Jeez, Leo. It just…”
“Just what?” I ask, facing her.
“It just doesn’t make sense, I guess,” she says, her voice low. “If you loved her and I assume she felt the same, why couldn’t you...”
I try to pick my next words carefully. Try to find a way to arrange them so I can defend my actions, but the truth is… I can’t. “I found out she was sick, and I got scared and ran away. I blocked her number and everyone associated with her, and I… I broke all contact.” I pause a beat, knowing how bad this makes me sound. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Lucy takes a moment to process all this, and when she