by Lara Swann
She shakes her head and I can see the frustration in her tear-bright eyes.
“I don’t—it’s not like I resent it—I want it for you, really I do. I’ve always thought you deserved better than you’ve had. But—but just because I’m happy that you got it all, doesn’t mean it doesn’t change things, and it doesn’t stop me from wondering where on earth I went wrong. I’ve got a job I don’t like, that I always thought was good enough because at least I could pay the bills and live a life I enjoyed, but that I can’t stand the idea of doing for the rest of my life. I’m about as far away from having a baby as I could ever possibly—”
“But…you’ve never wanted a baby.” I interrupt, unable to help myself. I’ve never heard Vicki talk about wanting anything like that - ever.
“I didn’t. And I don’t. I think. But you being pregnant…it just makes me think about everything I don’t have. And if I did want a baby - what chance do I have? I’ve dated dozens of guys from clubs and bars and nothing has happened. None of it’s worked out for me. And I always figured I was having fun and something would come along, but…you meet one guy…one…and you get it all! He’s perfect and you’re dating him and you’re going to have a baby together and—I just—what’s wrong with me?!”
It bursts out of her and she grits her teeth, staring hard at the other end of the apartment to keep from crying, breathing hard as her fists clench and unclench. That’s one of the reasons I don’t see her cry - whereas I can’t control my emotions in the slightest, Vicki has never let them get the better of her. Not the negative ones, anyway.
“Nothing is wrong with you.” I say immediately.
“Yeah?” Her head spins around to me, suddenly angry. “Then why does nothing I do work? Why don’t I have a boyfriend or a future or—or—anything—?!”
“Vicki…” I’m sitting there stunned. I know I should be saying something, helping in some way, but I just can’t believe it.
I’ve never seen or heard any of this. The only times Vicki has ever talked about guys has been dismissive - all her advice has ever been is to have a little fun and not take anything too seriously.
“I didn’t know you wanted any of that.”
“I don’t know what I want!” She says, letting it all out in one breath. “But I don’t want you to disappear now you’ve got everything. We were meant to figure it out together, Ava, and now—now—I don’t know—”
“Vicki…” I say again, and pull her closer to me. I don’t care if she’s angry-upset and fights it, right now that’s what she needs. “I’m not going to disappear. And—”
“Yeah? Then where have you been for the last week?” Her gaze narrows at me. “You said you’d still come over, but I’ve barely heard anything from you. You haven’t even text me.”
I get a flush of guilt and my eyes slide away from hers as I think about it. It’s not like I didn’t want to come see her - but with sorting out the new apartment, meeting Damien’s sister, telling my parents…it just feels like a lot’s been going on. And…yeah, maybe now that I think about it, a decent amount of my messaging time goes into flirty exchanges with Damien.
All those comments she made about coming round and seeing her, about not disappearing, I thought she’d just made them flippantly - just our usual teasing - but now…
Shit. I’m an idiot.
“I’m sorry.” I say. “It’s been a crazy week, but…well…that’s no excuse. I didn’t mean to let it all distract me, Vicki, really. I was always going to come see you.”
Every other crazy week I’ve had, she’s been the first person to know all about. I can suddenly see what she means - why she’s so upset about all this.
“Look, you’re right.” I finally sigh. “Things probably have changed a bit - there are some differences now - but, you know, they’ve changed at other times too, and it hasn’t always been a bad thing. I think they always would have. It doesn’t change that you’re still my best friend, though, Vicki, or how important that is to me. And it’s not like I’ve got everything figured out - I’ve just got different things to figure out now. I have to work out how to make sure this relationship doesn’t disintegrate the same way as my last one - and I have a baby to work out. As exciting as it is, that terrifies me too. I don’t want to try and do it without you around to be there for me.”
I pause to see her looking at me, actually listening to what I’m saying, and it gives me a small amount of hope that this is going to be alright.
“And, well, I want to be there for you too. I want to help you figure your stuff out and - hey - by the time you get to babies and boyfriends, maybe you’ll know what you’re doing after helping me with it all, huh?”
She purses her lips and I can see her thinking it over. I know she wants to take the peace offering I’m suggesting, but I also understand for the first time how hard this is for her. And I never meant to make it harder by being thoughtless about the whole thing.
“Hey, it would make me feel better if I could help you a little for once, you know.” I add, giving her a small smile. “I always thought you were perfect - I always kind of wanted to be you, Vicks - it’s only fair if you let me be there for you for a bit, let me feel like I can help you out too.”
After a long moment, she sighs, and she finally leans into me the way I’ve been hoping she would.
“Okay.” She says, in a grudging tone I know she doesn’t really mean. It’s just hard to let go of so many intense emotions. “Okay, maybe we can do that.”
I smile, hugging her closer - before stealing the spoon from the tub of ice cream she’s still holding and taking a bite.
“Hey.” She says half-heartedly.
“I need it.” I point out. “Having you mad at me was one of the most distressing things I’ve been through recently.”
She grunts, but there’s a smile behind it, and I think she’s slowly starting to get over that storm of emotions. Probably out of exhaustion as well, if nothing else.
After a few minutes, she speaks again.
“I always liked being the strong one, Ava.” She admits. “I kind of liked it that you relied on me but I didn’t need anybody—I didn’t think I needed anybody.”
“Yeah, I think I knew that.” I laugh slightly, then nudge her. “But you’ll still be exactly who you were. Wanting to change a few things about life doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you, you know. You’re Vicki - no doubt you’ll do the life-changing with the same enthusiastic bubbliness you always have.”
I see the smile start at the corner of her mouth, until it grows into something real.
“You think?”
“Yeah. Course.” I take another bite of the ice cream, regretting how much of it she seems to have eaten already. “You could’ve saved some of this for me, you know.”
I glance meaningfully at it and she follows the direction of my gaze.
“We could get some more.” She suggests, and something inside me finally relaxes.
“Things are okay, then?” I ask, just to make sure.
I’m not good at unspoken things - unless it’s right out there, my mind is just going to worry over it.
“Yeah.” She nods. “Things are okay.”
“Good.”
“I’m sorry about everything I said.” She adds. “And getting mad at you. I didn’t really mean it, I was just…upset.”
I nod. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I will be now, I promise.”
She nods, smiling almost shyly at me for a moment. It’s weird, this. We never fight - so I don’t really know what to do now. It all feels a little more fragile between us, a little tenuous.
Then some of the spark comes back into Vicki’s expression and she gives me an almost sly look, an echo of that familiar wicked smile on her face.
“So…does Damien have any hot billionaire friends?”
I laugh, suddenly grinning again. I didn’t realize just how much the change in Vicki’s attitude had affected me. It’s always been
the one stable thing in my life.
“I don’t know…” I say slowly. “I guess I could always ask him to make some?”
“Yes.” She nods. “Do that.”
I toss the empty tub of ice cream back onto the table and look at her.
“Shall we go to the store and find some more ice cream before we start plotting ways to find you your next victim—I mean, boyfriend.”
She grins at me. “Yes, let’s do that. Though maybe not ice cream. I think I feel a little bit sick.”
“I’m still getting ice cream.”
“Fine. I’ll get chocolate.”
“That won’t help.”
“Sure it will. And chips.”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe we can find a new movie - you know, Damien doesn’t even like romantic comedies.”
“What?!”
“I know. Apparently, his thing is more sci fi.”
Vicki shudders. “Okay, definitely a movie. You’re going to need some serious girl time if that’s what you’re dealing with.”
I grin, everything finally feeling like it’s slotting back into place, until it’s hard to believe just how stressed and miserable I was only an hour earlier.
“Always.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ava
The next month passes faster than I can believe.
I actually pay attention to finding a good balance between spending time with Damien, Vicki and my parents - as well as frantically trying to work out what I need to do to prepare for the baby that’s coming.
I’m not going to lie, I think it’s the best time of my life - I finally feel like an adult, like I know what I’m doing with my life, and like it’s right - but it’s still damn scary.
The moment I have my first scan, though, I know I’m goner. I don’t know how it’s possible to love someone that’s just a speck on a screen quite so much, but I do. I also know immediately that there’s no way I ever could have given this up - and all my stress and anxiety over it suddenly seems stupid.
It doesn’t matter if I had nothing else - I’d want this baby. And I’d damn well find a way to make it work, whatever I had to give up for it. I finally understand the depth of Damien’s reaction and how he could be so certain, so quickly.
I guess raising Emily meant he understood that a whole lot earlier than me.
I couldn’t believe he almost didn’t want to know the sex, either, but I firmly overruled him on that. I wasn’t calling our baby ‘it’ a moment longer. He freaked out the moment he heard we’re going to have a boy, too - apparently, all that time with Emily left him with absolutely no idea how to raise a boy. It doesn’t seem to occur to him that he was once a boy, so at least he has that, but I don’t mind. I don’t have any idea how to raise a boy either, so at least we’re on the same level now.
Mom and Dad are thrilled enough that I’m starting to suspect they’d wanted me to be a boy, but really, I’m just pleased to have everyone I care about as excited as I am about all of this.
I couldn’t ask for anything more.
The only thing that brings it down is feeling like we still have to keep this a secret.
Not among any of the people closest to us - except Katy, who I feel increasingly bad about - but even so. I still don’t feel comfortable enough to walk around Fresno with Damien, or go out casually to one of the restaurants he wants to take me to.
And it’s so difficult at work. Seeing him there out of the corner of my eye, having him come into the project room to talk to Tina or the team as a whole…and being unable to react. Having my mind stray to just how good it felt to be under him the night before, what he looks like naked and the beautiful baby boy we have growing inside me…and acting like I’m feeling nothing at all.
It’s impossible.
We avoid each other, but that’s almost just as hard. Being so close to him all day and unable to do anything about it. Fantasizing about what might happen when I get home - stopping myself from messaging him because I just know it will make the day unbearable.
Ugh.
I can tell it’s wearing on both of us and every day, I wonder whether we’re really going to be able to keep it up until the end of this project. It’s so close now, and we’ve lasted so long, but…the longer it goes on, the more done with the secrecy I feel. Even though I’ve worked so hard for years to get this far and it would be stupid to throw it all away, part of me wants to anyway.
I still love my work, but it’s hard to care so much about it when I have a baby on the way. I just want everyone to know - and I want to be with Damien properly. I want to be the family we keep talking about.
When Tina asks to talk to me privately, though, I still freeze up in total panic. Just because I keep fantasizing about suddenly revealing it to everyone, doesn’t mean I’m ready for it to happen - and I know that I’m starting to show now, too.
It would be impossible not to, the way Damien keeps rubbing his hands over my stomach, the way he keeps grinning at it and kissing it and kissing me and…yeah, all of that.
I do too. I wake up in the morning and look in the full-length mirror opposite my bed, rubbing my stomach and imagining how it’s getting bigger…and then I panic and try to work out the best clothes to cover it with.
Ugh.
Those conflicting emotions are the thing that’s really driving me crazy, I think.
I’m still not very big, I’m only just past three months along - the very start of my second trimester - but…it’s there. I can see it. And it feels like the whole world must know.
The moment the door closes behind Tina and she comes around to talk to me, I’m sure she knows.
“Ava. There were a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about.”
I nod nervously, trying to smile and act like this is perfectly normal. Never mind that she’s never requested to speak to me privately before.
“The first is…well, I know you haven’t said anything, and you’re not obliged to in any way - but I wanted to let you know that if there’s anything going on that we could help or support with, I would be more than happy to make any accommodations you need. Your work has been very good, but if there’s anything that would make it easier for you…at the moment…I hope you’d let me know.”
The way she holds my gaze tells me exactly what she means, even if she isn’t coming out and saying it.
She knows. She knows, she knows, she knows.
I’m semi-frozen as I stand there and it takes everything I have not to raise a hand to my stomach.
“You don’t need to say anything, but I wanted you to know.” She glances down to my stomach anyway and gives me a soft smile. “My first was a total pain to carry and…well, it would have helped if some of the people around me had understood just a little bit of that.”
“Oh.” I say, feeling like I need to say anything, but so surprised by that unexpected announcement that nothing comes out of me at all.
“I know this project will be coming to a close within the next few weeks, so it might be irrelevant, but I wanted to let you know anyway. I would have said earlier, but I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to unless I was.”
“Is it…is it that obvious?” I ask, feeling like I’m holding my breath slightly.
She gives me a sympathetic look.
“Yes, I’m sorry if you didn’t want anyone to know, but it is.”
Ohh…
I thought Damien and my family and Vicki had just been exclaiming over how great I looked because they knew. I still thought I was quite small…
“But you don’t need to worry about what it means for working here, on this project - especially as a contractor.”
Right. Yes. A contractor.
“About that.” I say, startling myself as it comes out of me. I’ve been looking for the right moment to suggest this for the last month, and while this doesn’t really feel like the right moment - not with me rooted to the ground in shock and semi-awkwardness - it does at least feel like a momen
t. “I wanted to ask…”
I trail off, trying to build the courage that’s failed me for weeks now - but with Tina there, looking at me sympathetically and seeming to understand…it’s not as hard as I think. And I wonder whether everything that’s happening to me might be starting to give me a little more confidence.
I mean, if I can bring a child into this world…I can ask about a job…right?
“I’ve really enjoyed working with you, and the whole team at Two-Bit Designs.” I start, taking a breath. “It’s exactly the sort of work I’ve always wanted to do - and I know I’m on their contractor list, but…well…I wanted to ask whether there might be a more permanent position available, and if something does become available, whether I’d be able to put myself forward?”
She looks at me for a long moment, nodding slowly.
“I was thinking of recommending something similar.” She finally says, and I feel like my heart might leap right out of my chest. “Your work has been on par with the rest of the team, you’re obviously committed and you’ve got experience with the way we work now. I don’t know that there’s anything available at the moment - but I’m also thinking you might not mind if you have to wait, say…fifteen months or so?”
I nod, my breath caught in my throat as I can’t believe how this might be working out. I’ve always admired Tina, but I think my estimation just jumped up a dozen notches.
I was terrified of her finding out I’m pregnant, but now…it’s impossible to believe how well that might work out for me.
I can’t even say anything as I stare at her, amazed and incredulous and wanting it so much that I think I might ruin it all if I open my mouth again.
Luckily, she doesn’t seem to need me to, nodding to herself a moment later.
“Okay. Well, I’ll look out for something, Ava. I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you.” I breathe, and for one stupid moment I think I’m going to cry.
Damn pregnancy hormones. I can blame that on hormones, right? And not being utterly pathetic at the very real possibility of finally getting my dream job?
