Page 84 of It's Always Sonny

Sienna’s eyes water. “So do you finally admit that you do need something else to be happy? That your mantra is wrong?”

I rub my misty eyes. “It’s not about being happy. It’s about being …”

“Whole,” my dad says.

“Whole,” I agree.

“Then you should tell her that,” Mom says.

“I have.”

“Then keep telling her,” Sienna says.

“But I don’t want to push her! She always said she couldn’t control herself around me, and I can’t take advantage of that.”

“Is that why you were acting so bizarre when we invited her to do stuff with us today?” Amber asks.

“Yes! I can’t be the one to push her into a lifetime with me!”

“Then don’t, dingus!” Sienna says. “Respect whatever boundary she needs to put up, but she can’t move forward without good information. You’re trying to let her figure out how much you’ve grown, but maybe she needs you to tell her flat out that you’re not going anywhere. I know you, Sonny. You’ll never forgive yourself if you let a second of that woman’s life pass by without her knowing that you love her.”

I drop my head, because she’s exactly right. “Why are you like this?”

“You mean brilliant and amazing? Because hope springs eternal, baby bro,” Sienna says. She lifts my face and squeezes my cheeks a bit too hard. “I take pills and hormone shots and eat special diets, all in the hopes of having a baby I may never get to have. Caring this much hurts. Wanting a baby is like crawling into the Octagon every night against a much tougher opponent. But it’s not like I can just stop wanting it. And I don’t want to stop wanting it. I don’t want to stop going after what I want most, even if it keeps hurting for a long time. I want to be a mom. I want Chris to be a dad. Maybe my body will stop betraying me. Maybe we’ll get a surrogate. Maybe we’ll try to adopt or foster. I don’t care how it happens; I care that it happens. And I know I have an army of people who’ll help me every step of the way. Not everyone is lucky enough to say that.”

I take her hand from my face as tears roll down her cheeks.

“I don’t want to get my heart broken again,” I admit. My mom puts her arm around my waist. My dad stands behind me with his hands on my shoulders.

“I know the feeling,” Sienna says, as Chris wraps his arms around her from behind. “But we have to take a shot. And we can’t be afraid of the sadness that awaits us for trying.”

Footsteps from outside the pavilion thunder toward us, and we all turn to see the teens running toward us.

“We can’t find Harry,” Noah says, breathless.

“What?” We all stand.

“We’re playing Sardines, you know the reverse hide and seek game?” We nod. “Harry wanted to play—”

“He’s nine! He should be asleep!” I say.

“He saw us running past the tent and he snuck out and wanted to play, so we let him,” Noah says. Some of the other teens at least have the good sense to look sheepish about this. “Anyway, he wanted to be the hider, and now no one can find him.”

“And it’s getting cold,” one of the other teens says, her breath puffing out in clouds.

My dad turns me around. “Go wake Parker and have her get some of the staff looking around. They know the place better than we do. We’ll wake the family.”

We all break.

I rush to PJ’s cabin as quickly as I can. I pull my hood over my head, trying to retain more warmth. It’s intensely cold out, and the frigid wind only intensifies it. The cold is making my knee even stiffer, and a familiar stab of resentment hits me. If not for my job, I would have full range of motion right now. If I hadn’t sacrificed my body for a catch no one else could make, I’d be able to run faster than anyone to find my little cousin.

I’m at the cabin—a sign reads “Orange Dreamsicle”— before my thoughts can get any darker.

I knock at the cabin door. I wait for twenty seconds. Thirty. I knock again, louder this time. I would worry about waking the other cabins, but we need all hands on deck. Besides, the wind is so loud, I doubt they can hear me. Maybe PJ can’t even. I round the tiny building and walk past a large set of windows that I assume would belong to the main room. I keep walking until I see a smaller window, one not high enough to belong to a bathroom window. I rap my fist on it.

“PJ!” I yell. “Parker!”

A few moments later, PJ opens the blinds and looks out. Her hair—

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