And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss her.
When she faces fully toward, giving me a clear view of her face, my heart skips a beat, and my mouth curves unbidden into a smile. God, she’s beautiful, always has been ever since I first saw her... but now she’s something else entirely.
She beat cancer. I knew that from overhearing my mom all those years ago. She doesn’t tell me anything about Sophie, not one thing, and that’s fine. I understand that’s a boundary that Sophie has probably set, or one that my mom has placed on herself. Either way, I don’t deserve to know.
But, fuck... she’s still so goddamn gorgeous it makes me ache.
Her hair was longer than it had ever been when we were together, falling to her lower back in dark brown waves. Herpale skin looks luminous, and her genuine smile makes her eyes sparkle.
Then my eyes drop lower, and everything in me stops.
She’s wearing a dark green sweater dress, fitted enough to show the unmistakable swell of her stomach.
I blink a couple of times to clear my vision, and then I finally register what I’m seeing.
Sophie’s left hand—fingers painted that soft, light pink she always loved, two rings glinting on a very deliberate finger—rests protectively over her very pregnant belly.
A complicated mix of feelings runs through me—jealousy, regret, bitterness, disappointment, hurt, and heartbreak—all swirling together until I feel dizzy. And I have no right to feel a single damn one of these things. I haven’t seen her in six years.
Of course, she’s grown an entire life inside that time.
Of course, she’s growing a life inside of her.
She’s living the future I once envisioned for us... the one I could have given her if I hadn’t destroyed everything. Little boys and girls with my eyes and her smile. We had plans—our wedding, maybe start trying for a baby on the honeymoon, then come back to buy a house here in Starling Cove.
We would start our life together.
Then I ruined it with my carelessness, with my cowardice. I made choices I will regret until I die.
Four years ago, I tried dating again, something my therapist had encouraged me to do. She said it would be good for me to get out there, at least meet new people, even if it ended up being disastrous. I couldn’t shut myself out forever. I was doing well at my job at City Hall, had just gotten a raise, and bought a condo to put down roots in Maybrook.
Dating was difficult. It felt odd to put myself out there, in a way it hadn’t been before. I was always confident in myself, in my looks, but things have changed.
Funny enough, or sad enough, depending on how you look at it, I had almost felt like I was cheating on Sophie by going out on a simple coffee date with someone more than I ever did when I fucked Elise behind her back.
How fucked up is that?
When I brought that up to my therapist, we worked together to unpack that and realized that it was because the affair was a conscious choice by me, guided by my avoidance issues. My brain could warp itself into justifications from that.
The dating thing was something an outside influence was pushing me to do. It was opening up to something real and vulnerable. My natural reaction was to resist and flee.
But I didn’t. I forced myself to go, and it was awful. She was also a beautiful, successful woman. A nurse at the local hospital who looked nothing like my ex-fiancée. And I spent every moment of the date wishing that it was Sophie sitting across from me. I unfairly compared everything she did to Sophie.
Sophie would snicker after I ordered my drink—Kentucky Mule—the same drink I always order because I don’t believe in fixing what’s not broken. She would go feral if tiramisu were on the menu and order two slices, one for here and one for home. She would reach across the table to lay her soft hand over mine, whispering about how much she loved me.
That pattern continued for a while, but like a muscle you have to work out, it got a little better. I haven’t found a genuine connection with anyone, so I usually just seek out women who are looking for casual hookups to scratch the itch that’s never fully gone.
I hope one day I can find someone to measure up to what I purposefully threw away. Maybe. Maybe not.
But as I look at Sophie, gorgeous and radiant and married and pregnant, the longing grows in my chest.
I don’t think anyone will ever compare.
And that’s just something I’ll have to deal with.
Sophie must sense me openly staring at her because she makes eye contact with me, and the smile drops a fraction when she recognizes me.
Feeling awkward, I lift my hand in a wave, and she gives me a tight smile, raising her hand to wave back before she walks—waddles—over to me. I jog to meet her halfway, not wanting to exert myself when she’s so far along—Jesus, she really does look ready to pop.
