Chapter Two
1141 Words
Clara POV
"Nora, I need your help with something," I say, my voice cracking on the last word.
There's a pause on the line, and then her tone shifts completely, all the easy warmth replaced by concern. "What happened? Are you okay?"
I tell her everything in a rush. The doctor's appointment. The scan. The words months, not years. And then, because I can't stop myself, I tell her about Jason too, about the bedroom door and the woman's laugh and the calm, cold thing that settled over me while I watched him get dressed.
Nora doesn't say anything for a long moment. When she finally speaks, her voice is low and furious. "I am going to kill him."
"Get in line," I say, and it comes out almost like a laugh, except it isn't funny at all.
"Okay. Okay, Clara, breathe. Where are you right now?"
"Home. Alone, I guess. Officially alone."
"I'm coming over."
She's at my door twenty minutes later, still in her scrubs from work, and she doesn't say a single word before pulling me into a hug so tight it almost hurts. We sit on the couch together, the same couch Jason and I picked out, and I finally let myself cry, ugly and loud, while Nora rubs slow circles on my back.
"You don't have to figure everything out tonight," she says once I've quieted down.
"I don't have time not to figure it out," I tell her. "That's the whole problem. My eggs aren't waiting around for me to heal from a broken heart."
Nora is quiet for a second, chewing her lip the way she always does when she's thinking hard about something. "Come to the clinic," she finally says. "Talk to one of our counselors. See your options for real, instead of guessing at two in the morning on your phone."
"You mean the sperm bank."
"I mean the fertility clinic where I happen to work," she says, bumping my shoulder with hers. "Come on, Clara. You've wanted to be a mom since we were kids playing house in my backyard. You don't need Jason for that. You never did."
Her words settle into me slowly, like warmth spreading through cold hands. She's right. I've wanted this longer than I've wanted anything else in my life, longer than I wanted Jason, if I'm honest with myself. Maybe it's time I stopped waiting for permission from a man who never deserved to give it.
"Okay," I say. "I'll come in."
Nora squeezes my shoulder before she leaves, and I sit alone in my kitchen for a long while after she's gone, staring at the cold tea in front of me. Part of me still can't believe how quickly my life has folded in on itself. Yesterday I had a fiancé, a job, and a future I thought was settled. Tonight I have none of those things, only a decision I've made for myself, on my own terms, for the first time in longer than I can remember.
I think about calling my mother, then remember there's no one to call. She passed when I was seventeen, before any of this, before Jason, before Nora and I grew from girls sharing a bunk bed into women trying to build lives out of the pieces we were given. Nora has been the closest thing to family I've had since then, and something in me settles knowing she'll be beside me through whatever comes next.
The days that follow are some of the hardest of my life, though not for the reasons I expect. Jason, it turns out, has been telling people at work that I'm the one who cheated, that I threw him out over nothing, that I'm unstable and vindictive. It shouldn't matter what he says. It shouldn't be able to touch my job, my reputation, anything real. But small towns and small offices don't work that way.
My manager calls me in on a Tuesday, her face carefully blank in the way that always means bad news. "We're letting you go, Clara. It's not personal."
"It's completely personal," I say, my voice shaking. "You're firing me because of rumors my ex-fiancé is spreading."
"We need people our clients trust," she says, like that answers anything, like that isn't exactly what I just said. I don't have the energy to argue further. I gather my things from my desk under the pitying stares of coworkers who, a month ago, invited me to their baby showers and asked when I'd finally set a wedding date.
I walk out of that office with a cardboard box in my arms and absolutely nothing left to lose.
That night, I sit across from Nora at her kitchen table, an untouched cup of tea going cold in front of me. "I lost my job," I tell her. "Because of him. Because of his lies."
"Clara." She reaches across the table and grips my hand. "I am so sorry."
"I don't even care anymore," I say, and it's mostly true. "I care about one thing. I want a baby, Nora. I want to build a family that's actually mine, that no one can take away or lie about. I have some savings. Not much, but enough, maybe, for one try."
Nora studies me for a long moment, something serious settling over her usually easy expression. "One try is what you get with our program too, if you want it to count. It's not cheap, and it's not easy. But Clara, if this is what you want, I will walk you through every single step of it myself."
"I want it," I say, and for the first time since I opened that bedroom door, I actually believe something good might come out of all this wreckage. "I want a baby who is only mine. No pack politics, no complicated family drama. Just a simple, quiet, happy life."
Nora almost smiles at that, though something flickers behind her eyes that I don't understand yet. "Simple and quiet," she repeats softly. "I'll do everything I can to make sure of it."
I don't know, sitting there with my cold tea and my empty savings account and my broken heart slowly stitching itself back together, that "simple and quiet" is the last thing my life is about to become. I don't know that somewhere across town, in an estate of stone and glass I've never seen, a man named Logan Vance is making his own private donation to that very same clinic, sealed and confidential, meant for no one but himself.
All I know is that for the first time in weeks, I feel something like hope.
"When can I come in?" I ask.
Nora squeezes my hand. "Tomorrow, if you're ready."
I nod, and for once, I don't let myself hesitate. "I'm ready."
- Writer
