It wasn’t Robin’s fault she had everything I wanted.
A loving, stable relationship with Vikram, the sweetheart of an admissions director she’d met on our first day at Barrington Academy. A baby girl after three years of steady, out-in-the-open dating. A fiancé who’d tearfully offered her a ring within twenty-four hours of finding out she was pregnant and immediately started planning their future together.
Meanwhile, I was still recovering from Mr. Good Time—and still a couple of thousand short of what I needed to undergo fertility treatments this summer.
I sighed and shook my head. “No, it’s not Mr. Good Time. I haven’t heard from him since I asked him to help me make a baby.”
“Asshole,” Robin muttered—not for the first time.
And, not for the first time, I defended him. “It’s my fault for thinking three years of hooking up meant anything close to real feelings on his part. I should’ve believed him when he said he wasn’t looking for anything serious.”
“Whatever. You’re a catch,” Robin said firmly. “I will never stop thinking he’s an idiot for ditching you.”
See?
Yet another reason I had no excuse to feel anything but happy for my twin.
Robin had always been on my side.
It wasn’t her fault she was blissfully happy, while I was heartbroken and alone. It wasn’t her fault she’d accidentally gotten pregnant with her steady boyfriend of three years, while I was scrimping and saving every Canadian loonie to afford a round of IVF with donor sperm. And it most definitely wasn’t her fault that I’d barely gotten the word “baby” out before Mr. Good Time practically vanished into the wind.
I hate myself for being like this.
Hate… that was a trigger word. We’d talked about “not believing” the intrusive thoughts that late diagnosee auties often found themselves saddled with for life after decades of invalidation, masking, and lots and lots of rejection.
Still, I couldn’t help but lambaste myself for wishing I had her life. Her meet-cute luck. Her ovaries.
Redirection. Redirection. Redirection.
“It was an email from Holly,” I told her, switching the subject.
Robin perked up. “The midwife who married the Barrington? And, like, two other hot guys—because, apparently, one billionaire smoke show wasn’t enough for her?”
“Yes, that Holly.”
I almost laughed. Robin had never been as good at masking her true feelings as I was.
“Apparently, they’re having a Joining Ceremony in late July, and she wants me to come.”
Robin snorted. “Yeah, right. I could’ve told her your answer to that would be no.”
I had been planning to say no, actually. But something about Robin’s snort made my forehead scrunch.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Robin shrugged and plopped down on the couch next to me. “The most adventurous thing you’ve ever done was hooking up with Mr. Good Time. And even that was only because you thought it was the practical choice while you finished your master’s.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Back then, like most women in their mid-twenties, I thought I had plenty of time to get my degree, find the right guy, settle down, and start a family. I’d been wrong about all three. I’d lost the guy. Dropped out of grad school. And now my every dollar, every decision, every hour was funneling into one fragile hope: having a baby before it was too late.
“But what does that have to do with Holly’s Joining Ceremony?” I asked.
“I love you, sis.” Robin tilted her head in that way she did when she was about to give it to me straight. “But you never do anything unless it fits into your plans.”
She wasn’t being mean. And even worse, she was totally right. I hated going off routine.
“You won’t even take a vacation without weighing every possible thing that could go wrong and taking out travel insurance—even though you’ve never actually had to use it.”
