“After everything I gave up for you, I won’t spend my last years sitting alone while everyone else has a family.”
David rubbed his forehead.
“You’re not alone.”
“I hope I still come first.”
“Not yet,” she whispered. “But one day I will be.”
It had always been that way. David’s father died when he was sixteen, and from that day on Brenda reminded him that they only had each other. Every birthday, every holiday, every major decision came with the same quiet reminder.
“After everything I’ve sacrificed for you,” she’d say, “I hope I still come first.”
Somewhere along the way, David stopped hearing it as guilt and started hearing it as love.
I closed my eyes. Sam whimpered, and I hushed him, smoothing damp hair off his temple.
“She’s just lonely, Rach.”
When David and I met in college, he used to leave sticky notes in my textbooks. Little drawings, terrible puns. He once drove three hours in a snowstorm to bring me soup.
