Page 91 of Family Like This

“Thanks for agreeing to start the night here,” I say to Dani as she sits down on the couch with me.

“No problem.” We sit in silence for a minute, then she asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“What?”

“Whatever it is that’s making you shut down.”

I turn to her, tears welling in my eyes. I’ve been trying so hard not to break, but from the first time we met, Dani has been able to see through my bullshit.

She crawls over to me and wraps an arm around my back as she reaches for my hand with her other. I rest my head on her shoulder as I cry.

“I miss my mom. Going through all this without her kills me. The worst part is that I can’t even grieve her. I have to go to a nursing home and see her—but it’s also not her. It’s confusing and gut wrenching. I thought losing my dad at seventeen prepared me for pretty much anything—but it didn’t prepare me for this. This hurts. Everything hurts.” Dani wraps her arm tighter around me. “Now that I know I’m having a girl, all I can think about is what if history repeats itself? What if I leave my little girl with a fate like this someday? What if one day I don’t recognize her or… Miles?”

“Have you talked to Miles about any of this?”

I lift my head and look at her for a moment, then shake my head. “He always wants to fix things or heal me, and he can’t. He’s kind and wonderful, but he will try to control my healing and force it to happen, and I can’t handle that right now. It’s too much.”He’s too much. Sometimes.How fucking selfish am I? He gives me everything I could want and more. Most women would kill for a partner like him, and I’m here thinking he’s too much? “I’m a mess,” I mutter.

“You’re not a mess,” Dani whispers. Again I look up at her, and she laughs lightly. “Okay, maybe you’re a mess, but you’reallowedto be one. You’ve been through a lot, and…”

“What?”

She bites her lip, then meets my gaze. “I don’t think you’ve dealt with a lot of it.”

I swallow at her words, my instincts scream at me to argue and deny that, but I think she might be right. “I thought I had,” I say instead. I thought I had healed from my dad’s death, at least. Now it feels raw, like it just happened or I’m living it again. I’ve missed him more in the last few months than I have in years. The memories of him and who my mother used to be twist with the emptiness I feel now, the fear of loving so deeply again and having it all ripped away. Then my hand drops to my stomach, and I recognize yet again that I don’t have a choice. I already love this baby unconditionally. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I’m a wreck.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Ames.”

“It’s supposed to be girls’ night. Having fun.”

“You’re right, it is girls’ night, but that doesn’t mean it always has to be fun.” She picks up her phone and types out a text.

“What are you doing?”

“Bringing girls’ night here,” she whispers, then she wraps her other arm around me and pulls me into a hug.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“You don’t have to thank me. This is what real friendship is, and I want you to know you don’t only have this with me.”

I sniff again, overwhelmed as usual by the amount of support I’m being given. It’s like the universe decided to make up for years of hardly any or no support system all at once. As nice as it is, it scares me, too. Because what will I do if it’s ripped away as suddenly as I got it?

“Thanks for bringing everything down here,” I say, feeling more than a little ridiculous—and still kind of awful.

“It’s no problem,” Mackenzie says with a gentle smile.

“Yeah, we were just a couple of blocks away, but even if we weren’t, we still would’ve done it,” Rae adds.

In addition to them, Sarah, Amanda, Chelsea, and Hyla are all here. It’s the first time Hyla’s been here for a girls’ night in a while, which is part of why we’re doing it.

“I appreciate it, even if I feel a little ridiculous.”

“Why do you feel ridiculous?” Sarah asks.

“Because I’m a mess, and the rest of you… aren’t.”

A hush falls over the room as the girls all look at each other, and then there’s a tiny laugh that breaks the dam, and suddenly they’re all laughing.

My cheeks heat, and I feel even more ridiculous until Hyla grabs my hand and says, “I’m sorry. We’re not laughing at you. It’s just… maybe we need to have sharing time if you think you’re the only messy girl in this room. Our stories aren’t the same, but we all have our struggles, and just because we may not actively be battling them, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

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