She shrugs, then reaches out and takes another deep sip of her drink. Something about her silence, her lack of pushing, has me confessing things I haven’t told my family for fear they won’t understand or that they’ll find ways to work around it when I’m not looking.
I can barely keep Emma happy enough so that the guilt doesn’t eat me alive, and that’s supposed to be something I’m inherently good at. I can’t, in good conscience, keep another person happy, even if I’m supposed to. Silence comes from the other side of the couch, and when I turn my head, I see her staring at me, confused.
“You know that’s not your job, right?” Hallie says quietly, finally breaking her silence. “It’s not your job to keep people happy. It’s not your responsibility.”
“In a relationship, it is,” I counter, and she shrugs. Silence looms between us, and I think she’s moving past it, but then realizes she was just trying to find the right words to reframe her thoughts.
“You’re right, but you’re also wrong. In a relationship, there’s a balance. It’s part of your job, but also the other person’s job. If there’s no communication to sayhey, I’m unhappy about this,orhey, I need more or else of this, you can’t really know. You can do your best, read between the lines, but when you add in being young parents, trying to keep a whole human alive, no one can expect you just to know,you know?”
In that moment, I wonder if maybe she knows more about Kim and why she left than she lets on, or maybe if it’s just Hallie’s way—her innate ability to read me and know me, for better or worse.
But the truth is, I’ve never told anyone the full details of Emma’s mom leaving. My family knows I came home after a day on the farm to Emma crying in her crib and Kim telling me her things were loaded in the car and she was leaving. But they don’t know the rest.
No one knows she left because I wasn’t there for her, that I was too caught up in trying to create some idealistic family for Emma, to create what I had growing up for my daughter, to realize she was slowly dying inside, and it was all my fault.
“You plugged me into the lifeyouwanted, making me play house in a family I never asked for. You never asked me what I wanted. You stole my dreams and expected me just to live yours,”she shouted at me when I asked her what was going on and where she was going.
And she was right: the truth of the matter is, from the moment I found out she was pregnant, I pushed Kim into a corner until she couldn’t do it anymore and left for good.
That day, I begged her to stay, to talk to me, to give me a month or two of trying a new system where she’d have more time to herself, more time to chase whatever dreams she felt she’d given up. I begged her to try therapy or a new schedule oranythingother than just giving up, and I watched her taillights drive off not long after.
As I held a crying Emma, I was also trying to keep it together, not because I missed Kim—who had been a one-night standturned into more than either of us bargained for—but because I felt so lost and terrified. That’s when I vowed I’d never put either of us in this situation again.
The closest I’d gotten since the day Kim left was the night in Vermont. The first time in eight years I’d felt willing to throw the promises I’d made to myself away, to give something more a try.
And look at how that turned out.
But I won’t be telling Hallie any of that, so instead I shrug and explain what I can. “There are a lot of things I can’t control, especially in the situation Emma and I are in, where there’s a second parent whom I genuinely have no control over. But I can control who I bring into her life, so that’s what I do. I can date when she’s out of my house and figure out what the rest of my life will look like then, but she’s my number one responsibility. I won’t bring in a revolving door of women, exposing her to relationships she may or may not get attached to, but I don’t know if they will actually last. She has enough instability in her life.”
Silence lands between us after I speak, and even though I stand by my decisions, for some reason, her opinion matters to me. I’ve told my parents and my sister, and even Madden, about this choice, and none of them understand. All of them tell me I should date, should have “me” time. My mom has even told me it would be good for Emma, but I’ve always stood firm.
I wait for the disappointment to wash over me when Hallie reacts similarly.
But, as always seems to be her way, she surprises me.
“No one’s going to tell you this, but I think you’re doing the right thing.”
I look at her with utter confusion, since she’s right: no one hasevertold me that.
“I am?” I ask, and she smiles wide before I shake my head, running a hand through my hair. “I mean, I know I am, but you think I am?”
She nods. “My dad had a few girlfriends when Colt and I were kids, and I hated all of them—the way they changed our family dynamic and our ways, even if it was just in small ways—but somehow, I hated them even more when they left. It was a lose-lose situation for me. I don’t know if there is a right answer, but I get it. I get what you’re going for.”
It’s another piece of evidence I don’t need to confirm just how much I like Hallie Young, even if she never will be mine. I sit back, letting her words sink in, spreading warmth to every part of me before I decide to change the subject, to shift the spotlight.
“What about you?”
“Me?”
I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t think of a better, more appropriate time to finally quell my intrigue, to appease this crush I seem to have on her.
“Yeah. Why don’t you have a man?” She looks at me like she’s trying to decide where to start, how to answer, or maybe even whether she should answer. But eventually, I get too impatient and speak again. “Is it because of Madden?” Silence hangs between us, this time different, this time weighed down with my anticipation of her answer. When I look at her face, I expect to see nerves or embarrassment or even shyness written across her face, but I don’t. Instead, I see genuine confusion.
“Madden?” she asks, her voice rising with the single word.
“Well, yeah. You two are always very…close. I always thought you would…you know.”
A beat passes, and her mouth opens and closes a few times, her head tipping to the side and hair falling with it, draping over her shoulder as her brows furrow together. It’s like she’s trying to decode me and can’t quite do it.
