have to pick up the boys from school. But can I ask you to consider this from a different angle? What if you and Chloe were married and were trying to start a family. If you found out then that you weren’t able to conceive naturally, would you leave her?”
“Fuck. No, Daisy. I’m not that kind of man. I wouldn’t—”
I wouldn’t leave her.
Never.
Fuck.
Yet the minute I find out we can’t have kids, I walked out on her. Shit. Shit. Shit. As if she hasn’t lost enough . . . and I walk away.
Maybe she was right to shut us down all those years ago. Because look at how I handled this. And I’m not a fucking kid anymore. I hang my head. Ashamed.
The kindness in Daisy’s eyes suddenly feels like a punch in the face. I’m not sure I deserve it, but she offers it anyway. “But I’m here if you need me, okay? Always.”
I nod.
She wraps her arms around me and squeezes tightly. “You’ve got this. Whatever you decide to do, you’ve got this. I believe in you.”
“Thanks.” The word barely makes it past my scratchy throat, but I mean it. Daisy has always loved to take care of me. Me being four years younger didn’t often make us ideal partners for playing, but she was still a protective older sister, always there when I needed her, especially when our parents weren’t.
After one more squeeze to my arm, she heads toward the door where she talks to Hunter, but I’m already zoned out again. My thoughts go back to Chloe, wondering what she’s doing right now?
Is she still working, or already done for today? Has she gotten any further in the competition? Has she been taking good care of herself? Getting some good sleep? That’s what kills me the most. I don’t just want her for the grand future I had always envisioned for us. I want her for the little things, the everyday stuff, and everything in between.
With this woman, I want it all.
And that’s exactly what I can’t have.
So, the question is, will what I can have be enough?
Or maybe more importantly, would I be able to live without having her in my life at all?
I pick up my phone and pull up her contact, looking at the photo I took of her when she thought I wasn’t watching. We were outside, catching the last sun rays of the day, when Chloe tilted her head toward the sky with a serene smile on her face. So damn beautiful.
Would I be able to live my life without her, to move on and chase my perfect future the way I had envisioned it without knowing if that would ever become reality?
But if it wasn’t with Chloe, would it be perfect? She nearly died . . . without me. She lost her grandfather . . . without me. Fuck, she even lost her dad. Again . . . without me. All because she loved me so much that she sacrificed her own happiness, her own planned-out perfect future, for me. Doesn’t that mean that the question is, what can I . . . what will I sacrifice for her?
Because is there really a guarantee for anything in life?
Thirty-Three
Chloe
“How you’re doing, Scribbles?”
I peek at Cody when he sits down next to me on my mom’s porch swing. She loved mine so much that she bought one too. Apparently, she also thought I needed a babysitter while she’s running some errands. Not that I’d ever be mad about seeing one of my favorite people.
Without replying, I lean my head on his shoulder, and close my eyes. His arm envelops me into a side hug, and I sink into the embrace. In my current emotional state, being held can go two ways. Either I cherish the contact and feel marginally better, or I break down like a baby.
Weirdly enough, I feel like both right now.
Neither one of us says a word as Cody gently pushes us back and forth.
“You were still pretty young when I came out of the closet. Back then, things weren’t as well accepted as they are now, not that it’s always perfect today . . . I was scared shitless. Absolutely shitless. I thought I’d fooled everyone, especially my family, and that this will come as the biggest shock in their lives.”
I’d heard pieces of this story before, but we never sat down and talked about it like this.
“My parents grinned like lunatics when I told them. They were