The high I’d been riding from the excitement of the day came crashing down, but I didn’t blame Sully. It was odd, actually, forme to go so many hours without thinking about pregnancy, about loss, and about the future. And while it wasn’t necessarily a thought I wastryingto push away, it had been nice to give my overprocessed brain a break because it exhausted me sometimes. So much so that I’d been thinking I should make an appointment to talk to someone.
Sully noticed my deflation.
“I’m not upset, Sawyer,” I said before he could spiral. Because Iwasn’t. We didn’t need to be each other’s only support systems. “They’re your brothers. I want you to have people you can talk to.”
“I should have asked you if you were okay with it first, though,” he said, readjusting his grip on the steering wheel. “But Noah asked how we were doing, and…”
“And you told them what was on your mind,” I finished for him. “I’mgladyou talked to them, Sawyer. I know how you bottle things up sometimes.” It was actually comforting—knowing that he’d been able to let down his guard and confide in his brothers. “Was it a good conversation?”
He nodded. Hesitated. And then admitted, “Blake did caution me that vasectomies were not generally recommended for people who thought they might want to have kids one day.”
My insides tightened. It wasn’t news to me, but I wondered if it was for him. We hadn’t talked about it more since that morning in bed. “And how did you feel about that?”
“Unsurprised, but…” He pursed his lips. “I just wish there were more options.”
I sighed, knowing he badly wanted to be able tofixandsolveandrelievethe pressure of everything, especially surrounding birth control and the future. Sometimes, though, as much as I hated to admit it, that wasn’t life. Sometimes perfect solutions didn’t exist, no matter how much we wanted them to. Sully longed to solve this, but with reproductive health, unfortunately, the onus had always been placed on the one with the uterus, despite the whole two-to-tango aspect of it all. It was an unfair,uphill battle against the patriarchy, but it wasn’t something that he deserved to carry completely on his shoulders.
“There might not be a lot of men’s birth control options, but thereareoptions, Sul,” I said softly as he parked on Maple Street. The porch light twinkled, welcoming us home. “It’s something I wish I could have wrapped my head around when I was younger, and maybe things would have been different. But I didn’t know what I was doing. Didn’t know how to accept that there are options to have a family that don’t involve me being pregnant. Or that there are options that do, but maybe they look different. Medicine is amazing and terrifying. It’s all scary, and it’s a lot, but I don’t think we have to make any decisions right now.”
They would still be there, whenever we were ready.
I wasn’t as afraid of the choices anymore, the ones that used to suffocate me because I was worried I’d make the wrong one. I felt like the entirety of the last several months, ever since I found myself in an elevator with Sully, had been the universe’s way of proving to me that I couldn’t control everything, no matter how hard I tried. I had to let go of that a little—the concept that I could manipulate every outcome to be the one that caused the least amount of harm to everyone involved. That was what I’d thought I was doing when I told Sully I wanted to move to Boston, and look what had happened as a result. I might have caused themostharm, and it was so hard to forgive myself for it.
Especially because, after all that, I became pregnant anyway. And yes, it had been the result of a choice—if I hadn’t slept with Sully, none of it would have happened, butthisnever would have happened, either. Us, together. Today. All of it.
Did perfect outcomes exist? Perfect choices?
Or were there only perfect chances and possibilities that I could dream about but never really be able to control? Maybe that was okay, though; maybe that was the better reality. Because in some ways, it was debilitating and exhausting to prescribe yourself to a philosophy that your brain had more power than the rest of your body and everything that moved around it.
All I could do was my best. My best to move every day toward the future that I wanted, even if that future wasn’t perfectly clear. And while that was hard—God,sohard sometimes—I remained unbelievably grateful to be getting a second chance to do it with Sullivan London.
“I feel comfortable without making any decisions right now.” I wanted to clarify that before he went too far, because maybe it was different for him. “I feel comfortable learning more about my body, my cycles, and maybe being smart with timing and using condoms—carefully—to prevent pregnancy while we sort out our options and feelings, but if that’s not something you’re interested in, we can talk about it more. And I know using condoms means it’s maybe not as good for you?—”
“Not as good?” Sully, who’d been sort of staring off into the distance as he absorbed my words, turned abruptly to look at me. “Eleanor, there is no universe where being inside you isn’t a fucking dream come true—condom or no. Got that?”
I could feel my cheeks burning as though I were a teenager and not talking to a man who I’d been intimate with more times than I could ever count.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Why don’t you just think about it, though. How you’d feel about that plan. You were pretty apprehensive before, and I want you to feel comfortable, too.”
“You know it’s just because I love you, right?” He was looking at me in a way that made all the worry of the world vanish. What a gift he had, to be able to give that to me. “And I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you? It has nothing to do with the future I want with you.”
My throat squeezed, and I choked, “I know.”
“I love you,” he reiterated, more firmly. “I love you, Eleanor, and I’m so grateful for today. That I got to have you there with my family.”
“I love you, and I’m so grateful, too,” I said, giving him my best wobbly smile. I didn’t really want to cry after such a good day with my favorite people.
I could see the way my words affected him, from the smoothing of the lines around his eyes to the softness in the blue of them. He gave a little nod before returning my smile and reaching for the door handle to get out of the car. I mimicked him, shivering as the cool autumn air wrapped around me while I stepped toward the curb. My brain lingered on our conversation as I heard the echo of Sully’s car door closing, the jingle of the keys in his hand, the ones that would unlock the house we grew up in.
And something about it all made me announce, “I would have wanted them to be a London, you know.”
I glanced up in time to see Sully freeze on the sidewalk. His gaze found mine again, and the rotation of the Earth slowed, just a little bit. The wind chimes softened, the crickets stopped chirping, and the hiss of the sprinkler Sully had fixed faded into the background.
“What?” he breathed.
“Their last name,” I clarified, taking a careful step toward him. “I think I would have wanted it to be London.”
Sully’s mouth opened, but no words came out. He turned fully to face me, his expression unreadable.
