Page 111 of Never After Us
What if this isn’t another heartbreak waiting to happen?
What if it’s real—and I ruin it by being too afraid to try?
I don’t look at him.I can’t.
Because if I do, I might say yes to things I’ve spent years pretending I don’t need.
And I don’t know what’s more terrifying—letting him go ...or letting him stay.
ChapterThirty-Four
Mara
Things can’t possibly get worse, right?
I mean, sure, I’ve made questionable choices.Like falling half in love with my neighbor who kissed my nose like it meant something.Or letting him hold my hand without combusting.Or maybe just existing in this moment where my life feels like a tragic musical staged on a tight budget.
But fate?Oh, fate is a bitch with a flair for public humiliation.
Because my daughter—my unapologetically brilliant, socially unpredictable daughter—barrels out of the school doors like she’s on a mission.
“Cyndy’s mom brought her baby sister today,” she announces with zero regard for personal space or emotional landmines.“And I’ve decided I really, really want one.”
I blink.I try to process.I fail.I could probably interrupt her and ask if the name of her friend wasn’t ...there was another name, I’m sure of that.I just ...this is too much.
I don’t act fast, and then she turns to Alec.
To Alec.
To the man who, five minutes ago, practically whispered that he’s falling for me, like it was just a casual update sandwiched between conversation and an elevator door.
And with the same breezy confidence she uses when asking for chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream and “just a tiny bit of syrup, not the gross kind,” she says:
“Would you like to be the dad?”
Oxygen.Where is the oxygen?
I don’t breathe.I can’t.
My body freezes.
I think my soul leaves my body and floats three feet above the pavement just to protect itself from what’s about to happen next.
There’s no earthquake.No divine thunderclap or tragicomedy score swelling in the background.The sidewalk does not crack beneath me and swallow me whole.
I am here.I am awake.And I am being publicly propositioned into additional parenthood by her eight-year-old, in front of the man who just told me he’s falling in love with me.
This is my life.
I chose this life.
Kind of.Maybe.Accidentally.
And Alec?
He doesn’t run.
Doesn’t stutter.Doesn’t freeze.Doesn’t fling himself into traffic.
