Chapter 22 (1/2)

With a hollow ringing in my ears I say, “I have this feeling, just this gut feeling, that I won’t be able to get pregnant. The moment the doctor mentioned infertility, it was like it just clicked.”

Kimberly grabs my hand on the table. “You don’t know that for sure. And not to be a downer, but Hardin doesn’t want kids anyway, right?”

Even with the small knife twisting into my chest from her words, I feel better now that I have told someone about my worries. “No. He doesn’t. He doesn’t want children or marriage with me.”

“Were you hoping he would change his mind?” She gives me a little squeeze.

“Yes, sadly I was. I was almost sure he would. Not right now of course but years from now. I thought maybe if he was older and we both were finished with college, he would eventually change his mind. But now that seems even more delusional than before.” I feel my cheeks flush in embarrassment. I can’t believe I’m actually saying these things aloud. “I know I sound ridiculous worrying over children at my age, but being a mother was always something I wanted since I can remember. I don’t know if it’s because my mother and father weren’t the best parents, but I have always felt this urge, this need, to be a mother. Not just a mother, but a really good one—a mother that would love her children unconditionally. I would never judge them or belittle them. I would never pressure them or humiliate them. I wouldn’t try to mold them into a better version of myself.”

At first, talking about this, I felt insane. But Kimberly is nodding along to everything I’m saying, making me feel like maybe I’m not the only one who feels this way. “I think I would be a good mother, if I was ever given the chance, and the idea of a little brown-haired, gray-eyed little girl running into Hardin’s arms brings my heart to my throat. I imagine it sometimes. I know it’s stupid, but sometimes I picture them sitting there, both of them with unruly wavy hair.” I laugh at the ludicrous vision, one that I have imagined far more times than could possibly be considered normal. “He would read to her and carry her on his shoulders, and she would have him wrapped around her finger.”

I force a smile, trying to erase the sweet image from my head. “But he doesn’t want that, and now that he has learned about Christian being his father, I know he never, ever will.”

Tucking my hair behind my ears, I’m surprised, and more than a little proud of myself, that I made it through all that without a single tear.

Chapter ten

HARDIN

I wish you could stay with me forever.”