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Was doing so too much? “Not make me watch a horrible movie and let me eat all the chocolate chip cookies I can stuff in my face”
“Done” Daphne picked up the chocolate chip cookie plate and handed it over “So what are you going to do? Do you want kids?”
“I didn’t think so but…” She rubbed her pal her even if it didn’t lessen any of the uncertainty in her life right noyer didn’t want to marry her, not really He just wanted to force the unexpected event to fit into the plan he already had worked out for his life “It’s hard to explain”
“Try,” Daphne said
Clover took in a deep breath and tried to organize the thoughts whirling around in her head The truth of it was she hadn’t tried to put everything into words before All she kneas that everything hurt and she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why So she started with the point she was
“I love my mom, but that’s not the life I ever wanted for h she hates it and that’s just one example of how she stuffs ahat she wants for soo anywhere Sparksville andwith Bobby and me, of course I didn’t want that I wanted to live I wanted to experience every new thing out there I didn’t want to le experience when she missed out on a million because she was tied down by her faainst her ribs and she took a second to s past the e her throat “But now I look around and realize that I’er than a few lobe, and I’ like I have it all than I hen I was inin my diary that I’d never end up likein the dark shadows of her head, the ones she never bothered to shine a light on—not until she answered that ad for a personal buffer “Then Iwith hi and fun and a little bit scary, but in a good way” Her pulse sped up as all sorts of things she’d been afraid to consider started clicking into place “I was still trying new things and new experiences—it was just a pineapple shake at a diner instead of a drink most people couldn’t pronounce in a country I’d never been to before And when the condom broke, I freaked out but not all the way Part of me was…hopeful and excited about the possibility of a baby and of having a life with Sawyer” The realization was freeing even as she acknowledged the bittersweet futility of it all “But when he askedall the things I didn’t even realize I was starting to want get blown out of the water”
“Oh God,” Daphne said with a soft groan as she leaned forward and gave Clover a sy “You fell in love”
“I think I did” And there went the orks with the very glamorous addition of a runny nose because this hat her formerly very happy life had come to
Her best friend grabbed a napkin from the stack next to the popcorn bowl and handed it to her “It’s not the worst thing to have happen, Clover”
Her hands shaky and her breath coasps, Clover wiped her cheeks dry and blew her nose and yanked back control over her tear ducts “I won’t marry him because he feels responsible for a baby that may not even exist, but I can’t seem to walk away from him, either”
“So you wait and see if you’re pregnant”
Clover stuffed half a cookie in her mouth because if these weren’t the kind of emotions that needed to be eaten away, she didn’t knohat kind were “And then?”
“Then I’ll be here for you like I’ve always been, and I’ll support you in whatever you choose,” Daphne said and held out her pinky “Promise”
Barely htened out her pinkie finger and touched it to Daphne’s A pinky proht about now and she knew it, but soht now it had to be because she was still fake engaged to a man she loved for real who didn’t love her back
…