Page 107 of Can't Always Get What You Want

I said it.

Nova blinks, startled—not because it’s a bad question, but because it came out of nowhere. One second we’re talking about emotional and invisible pain…the next, I’m asking about future children she may or may not want to exist.

“I like the idea of family. Of warmth. Of being someone’s safe place. But kids?” She shrugs. “I do—and then I don’t. What if…What if something terrible happens to me and I suddenly abandon them, the way my parents did when they died?”

She says the words with trembling fear. Brutal honesty. Vulnerably and the quiet panic of someone who’s carried that question in the back of her mind for a long time and never had a place to put it.

She won’t meet my eyes. “My parents dying was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it didn’t make them bad people. It didn’t make them wrong for having kids. They wereincredible.” Her voice cracks with emotion. “They gave us love and safety and memories I will always carry with me. I would take one more day with them over a lifetime with anyone else.”

Nova’s lashes flutter, dampening.

“I’m sorry.”

I didn’t mean to…

I swallow back regret, having asked, watching as she sinks deeper into the water until just her eyes peek over the surface, like she’s retreating into her own private cave of embarrassment.

She comes back up.

“Don’t be sorry you asked. Ilovemy parents. I…” she pauses. “I do want to be a mom.” She clears the lump out of her throat. “I think I always have. Even when I said I didn’t. Even when I tried to convince myself that I wouldn’t be any good at it.”

“I think you’d be incredible.”

She huffs, a little laugh pulled from somewhere uncertain. “You don’t know that.”

“I do know,” I say quietly. “I know you’d love hard and protect fiercely. You’d give some tiny person the same kind of safe place you never stop trying to give yourself.”

“I’ve never said that out loud before,” she admits.

“Then I’m glad I asked.”

The silence that follows isn’t heavy anymore.

“What about you?” she finally asks. “Do you want kids?”

I nod. “Yes.”

Like, five of them.

I keep my mouth shut, not wanting to scare the shit out of her. I’ve always wanted a family.

I love holidays and Christmas and have always wanted a back screen door that slams too loudly because someone is coming in from the backyard…running in to grab a popsicle. I want to scold and say shit like, “We’re not feeding the whole damn neighborhood!” and complain about every single light being on.

“I’ve always wanted to be a dad,” I say modestly.

“God,” she breathes. “You’re one of the good ones.”

“You think so?”

“I never told anyone that before,” I admit. “Not even my closest friends. I don’t know, it always felt... embarrassing.”

Nova’s eyebrows knit. “Why?”

“Because guys don’t always talk about this stuff. Wanting kids, and domestic things. You start feeling like you’re soft, or desperate, or worse—delusional.”

She rolls her eyes. “Guys are such idiots sometimes. Honest to God, why is being vulnerable such a bad thing.” She snorts. “Like—get over yourselves.”

I laugh. “Tell me how you really feel.”

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