18. Growing Pains #2
Something in my ribs shifts. I miss him too. But missing someone doesn’t fold laundry or soothe tantrums or refill the diaper bag.
He notices the exhaustion in my posture. “Bad day?”
I shrug. “Normal day.”
He studies me for a second, and I know he can tell I’m deflecting. But before he can push, someone knocks loudly on his dorm door.
“Hey!” a guy calls. “Group project—library?”
Reid glances over his shoulder. “Give me a minute!”
Liam stirs restlessly. I keep rubbing his back, trying to keep him asleep. Reid returns his focus to me… but only halfway.
“I should get going,” he says, guilt tugging at his voice. “We’ve gotta finish the presentation.”
Of course. Of course he does.
“It’s fine,” I say.
“We can talk later?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say—knowing we won’t, because by then I’ll be passed out with one leg hanging off the bed, clutching Liam’s baby monitor like a lifeline.
He hesitates. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say, meaning it, but also feeling a little frayed around the edges.
He logs off. Silence settles. It’s late when I finally get Liam down for the night.
The apartment is dark except for the glow from the kitchen, where I’m packing tomorrow’s stuff—tiny socks, sippy cup, backup outfit, sunscreen, the whole magic show.
Halfway through, I sit down at the table because my chest feels tight. Not painful—just… heavy. Weighted.
I scroll social media while waiting for my breathing to even out.
Mistake. My timeline is full of college friends posting from bars, concerts, study abroad trips.
The algorithm thinks I want to see all the carefree people in the world.
Smiling couples. Bottomless brunch. Someone celebrating “25 and child-free!”
I stare until my eyes blur. I’m not jealous.
I chose Liam. I love Liam. But I’m lonely.
Lonely in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with the number of people around me.
Lonely because I’m carrying more than my age should require, and every time I put something down, something else fills the space.
The next evening, Reid calls late. Later than usual. It’s almost ten, and Liam is finally asleep after a full meltdown about… honestly, I’m not sure what the final trigger was. Probably air.
“Hey,” Reid says, hair damp from a shower, looking tired but earnest. “Are you okay? You seemed… off yesterday.”
The concern is real. The timing is terrible.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m tired,” I admit.
“Tired of what?” he asks.
It’s an innocent question. There’s no good place to start. No neat summary. I still flinch.
“Just… everything,” I say. “Work. Daycare. Teething. Laundry. Life. All of it.”
He nods slowly. “Yeah. School’s killing me too. I had two exams and a lab report due today, and?—”
I close my eyes for a second, because I need him to hear me, not parallel me.
“I know you’re stressed,” I say softly. “But it’s not the same kind of tired.”
He blinks. “I didn’t say it was.”
“No. But sometimes it feels like we’re comparing whose life is harder.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“But that’s how it lands,” I say.
He exhales, frustrated. “I’m just trying to tell you I’m overwhelmed too.”
“I know you are,” I say. “But you get overwhelmed and still get to hand in your assignments. I get overwhelmed and still have to make sure a tiny human stays alive.”
There’s a beat—a long one. Not anger. Just… realization settling between us, neither of us sure what to do with it.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel alone,” he says quietly.
“I know,” I whisper. “But I do. Sometimes.”
He looks like I punched him. “I hate that. I hate that you’re doing so much without me there.”
“I hate it too,” I say, tears suddenly pricking. “Not because I want to punish you. Just because it’s hard.”
We don’t argue. Not really. But we don’t fix it either.
By the time the call ends, we’re both raw.
Not angry—just tapped out. Drained in different cities, in different ways.
I put my phone face down and sit on the couch, arms around my knees, listening to the apartment hum around me.
The fridge. The AC. The occasional car outside.
Everything feels still and loud at the same time. I love him. He loves me. We love Liam. But love doesn’t fold laundry. Love doesn’t pick up daycare early. Love doesn’t pay for groceries or exams or rent. Love doesn’t bridge hundreds of miles of exhaustion.
Liam cries out once in his sleep. I pause, holding my breath, waiting for the sound of his breathing to return to normal. It does. But mine doesn’t. The apartment is silent after I finish cleaning up the kitchen. Too silent. The kind of quiet that makes every thought feel louder.
Liam finally gave in and fell asleep an hour ago, face buried in the corner of his crib the way he does when he’s overtired. I checked on him twice, just to be sure—one of those pointless rituals parents do when everything else in their life feels unstable.
I end up in the living room, sitting on the floor because the couch feels too soft and too far away from the reality I’m carrying.
My back rests against the wall, knees pulled up, hands loose in my lap.
My phone is on the coffee table, screen down, like if I don’t look at it, I won’t have to see the unread text from
Reid: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. I wish I could fix this. I’m trying.
I know he’s trying. But trying from two different cities feels like threading a needle in the dark.
I stare at the blank wall and breathe slowly, letting the weight of the whole week settle.
The daycare issue. The argument. The loneliness humming under the surface.
The feeling that I’m juggling too many fragile things and somehow dropping all of them at once.
A little after ten, I hear the knock—soft, practiced. Mom’s knock.
I almost pretend I’m asleep, but she calls through the door quietly, “Amelia, mija? It’s me.”
I open it. She takes one look at my face and her expression softens. “Rough day?”
I step aside to let her in. “Rough week.”
She walks to the kitchen without asking, the way she always has, and fills two glasses of water. No commentary. No lectures. Just quiet presence. We sit at the table, and she waits. She always waits until I speak first.
“I’m tired,” I say finally.
She nods. “I know.”
“I feel like I’m failing at everything,” I say, voice cracking before I can stop it. “Like I’m barely holding it together at work. Like I’m missing something with Liam. Like I’m disappointing Reid. I feel like I can’t be enough for anyone.”
Mom reaches over and puts her hand on mine.
“You are doing more than enough,” she says. “You just don’t have enough help.”
A tear slips before I can wipe it away. I hate crying in front of people. Even her. Especially her.
“Some days,” I whisper, “I feel like I’m doing this alone.”
“You’re not alone,” she says gently. “You have us. And you have him. But love doesn’t erase distance. And it doesn’t erase pressure.”
I nod, throat tight.
She tilts her head, studying me with the kind of clarity only moms have. “This is hard, Amelia. Harder than you’ve admitted. You’re balancing motherhood and work and a relationship that’s stretched thin. Of course you’re tired. Of course you’re scared.”
I swallow. “I don’t want to lose him.”
“You won’t,” she says softly. “But you also can’t lose yourself.”
My chest aches at that—because I know she’s right. Because I’ve felt edges of myself blurring into survival mode these past months. Mom squeezes my hand.
“You love him,” she says. “And he loves you. But love is not a solution. It’s a reason to keep trying. And you both have to want to try.”
I nod and take a shaky breath.
“I do,” I say. “I want this to work. I just… what if we don’t make it? What if we’re trying so hard to be a family that we’re not actually being one?”
The words hang in the air, the kind of confession that feels too raw and too honest to take back. Mom’s eyes soften.
“Then you talk. You keep talking. You stop carrying everything in silence. You tell him when you’re drowning and let him figure out how to swim toward you.”
I blink away another tear. She stands and comes around the table, pulling me into one of those tight, grounding hugs she used to give when I scraped my knees as a kid.
“You’re a good mother,” she murmurs. “And a good partner. But you’re also still Amelia. Don’t forget that.”
I hold on a little longer than I intend to. When she leaves, the apartment feels different. Not lighter. Just… honest. I lock the door, check on Liam again, then crawl into bed with the lamp still on. My phone buzzes once—Reid again.
Reid: I miss you. I know you’re asleep. We can talk tomorrow.
I look at the screen for a long moment. Then I turn the lamp off and lie there in the dark, listening to the quiet apartment, the rhythm of Liam’s baby monitor, the echo of my mom’s words.
Love isn’t the issue. The issue is everything love can’t fix on its own.
And I don’t know if it’s enough anymore.