20. Intertwined Paths
INTERTWINED PATHS
The apartment is still dim when I wake, but something about the air feels lighter than it did a week ago. Mother’s Day didn’t magically fix everything, but it softened something in me—like someone loosened a knot I’d been carrying in my chest for months.
Reid’s suitcase is by the bedroom door, half-zipped, a quiet reminder he has to head back to school this afternoon. Liam’s asleep across my stomach, star fished like he owns the whole bed, his cheek warm against my shirt.
Reid’s already up; I hear him humming to himself in the kitchen, probably making pancakes shaped like something Liam can identify on a good day. I brush my fingers through Liam’s curls and breathe in the quiet. It feels… good. Not perfect. Not fixed. But connected.
For a while, I just lie there and let the morning settle.
Liam shifts in his sleep, one little fist grabbing the fabric of my shirt like he’s worried I’ll disappear if he lets go.
My body is tired—every parent has that bone-deep tired you stop trying to fix after a while—but my chest feels warmer than it has in weeks.
When I finally get up, Liam dragging his blanket behind him like a tiny sleepy ghost.
Reid turns from the stove and grins. “Morning, beautiful.”
I snort. “You look way too awake for someone who slept four hours.”
“Love makes me radiant,” he says dramatically.
I shake my head, but the smile stays. The easy kind. The earned kind. The kind that creeps up without permission in moments like this—him here, the three of us moving around each other like a family that remembers how to breathe together.
While Reid plates pancakes shaped vaguely like animals, I refill Liam’s cup and start a load of laundry.
Nothing glamorous. Nothing special. Just our morning, stitched together by moments that feel less tense than they used to.
Liam bangs his hands against his tray in excitement, babbling at Reid like he’s hosting his own morning talk show.
“Is that supposed to be a cat?” I ask, pointing at one of the pancake shapes.
Reid looks offended. “It’s clearly a bear.”
“It has three ears.”
“Bears can have three ears.”
“Mm-hm.”
He bumps my hip gently with his. It’s small, but grounding.
There was a time—not long ago—when even tiny touches felt heavier because everything else around us was strained.
Now it feels like… us. Something familiar.
Something we didn’t break after all. Reid leans against the counter while Liam smashes a pancake with both hands.
“So,” he says, “I talked to my advisor yesterday.”
I look up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck—a nervous tell. “I’m taking an extra elective next semester. Might put me in the running for a research assistant spot.”
Pride hits me first, quick and warm. “Reid. That’s amazing.”
“I don’t know if I’ll get it,” he says quickly. “But I’m gonna try.”
“That’s enough,” I say. “Trying counts.”
He gives me a look—one of those rare ones that makes him look older than he is, like responsibility has been working its way into his bones too.
For a moment, I picture him in a lab somewhere, explaining something complicated with his hands, eyes bright.
He hasn’t said it out loud yet, but I can tell he’s starting to imagine a future that’s bigger than the next exam.
“What about you?” he asks. “You never told me how that meeting with Nexus went yesterday.”
I pause, surprised he remembered. Surprised he’s asking like he actually wants the full answer. I grab Liam’s discarded cup off the floor, rinse it, and take a breath.
“It went well,” I say. “Eric thinks the analytics report could lead to something bigger. A new role, maybe. I don’t know. It’s early.”
Reid smiles. “I hope it does. You deserve that.”
His tone doesn’t have the edge it used to—the unspoken pressure or insecurity. He just… says it. Proud. Genuine. Something in me unclenches because of it. It hits deeper than I expect.
We clean up together—him rinsing dishes while I wipe down the counters, Liam singing loudly to himself in the high chair—and for a moment it feels like the version of life we’re fighting for. The version where we’re not constantly stretched thin.
Where parenting feels like teamwork instead of a relay race we’re struggling to tag each other into. When it’s time for Reid to leave, he kneels to kiss Liam’s forehead, lingering a little too long, and then stands in front of me.
“You’ll call me tonight?” he asks softly.
“Yeah,” I say. “I will.”
His thumb grazes my jaw, slow and gentle. “I’m proud of you,” he murmurs.
My breath stutters—not because I don’t know he feels it, but because he’s saying it without being prompted, without defensiveness, without comparing his life to mine. Without making it about who’s more tired, more stressed, more overwhelmed.
I nod. “I’m proud of you too.”
He kisses me once—slow, steady, grounding—and then he’s gone, heading down the hall with that messy hair and hopeful determination he pretends isn’t actually determination. The door clicks shut. Liam babbles at the fridge magnets like nothing monumental just happened.
I lean against the counter for a few seconds, holding onto the warmth he left behind. Part of me hates how quickly the distance returns the moment the door closes. Another part is grateful we even get mornings like this at all.
And I stand there for a moment, breathing in the quiet, letting the morning settle into something real. We’re still far apart. Distances don’t disappear after one good day. But we’re trying again—really trying.
And for the first time in a long time, “trying” doesn’t feel like a losing game.
Work feels different after Mother’s Day—lighter in some places, heavier in others. The Monday after Reid leaves, I walk into Nexus with a coffee I actually drank and not just carried around until it went cold. Small victory. Eric catches up to me before I reach the fourth-floor landing.
“There she is,” Eric says. “Big week.”
I raise a brow. “Is it?”
“You know it is,” he says, nudging my shoulder with his own. “Recognition dinner on Thursday. People are already talking.”
I grimace. “Please tell them to stop.”
He laughs. “Absolutely not. You carried half this project on your back. You’re lucky they didn’t schedule the dinner earlier.”
I don’t say it, but it feels… good. Not glamorous, not life-changing, but validating. My work hasn’t been invisible. I’ve been doing more than surviving. I’ve been building something, quietly and consistently, even when I felt like I was drowning everywhere else.
We walk into the glass-walled meeting room together. The usual morning clutter is there—half-eaten muffins, someone’s unopened mail, a laptop with twenty tabs I don’t want to know the contents of. I take my seat. Eric sits across, flipping through printouts.
“You look tired,” he says.
“I am,” I say. “But today’s better.”
“That’s good.” His tone is casual, not prying. Just noticing. “Reid left this morning?”
I nod. “Back to school.”
Eric’s expression softens. “That’s rough.”
“It is,” I say. “We’re figuring it out.”
“You two always do,” he says. There’s no implication, nothing flirty—just a steady, supportive colleague who’s seen me show up tired more times than I’d like to admit.
The meeting begins. Numbers, projections, deadlines.
My brain shifts into work mode. For a couple of hours, I’m not thinking about teething charts or FaceTime schedules.
I’m thinking about trend analysis and feature rollouts and whether a specific regression model is going to cause problems for next quarter’s deliverables.
It feels good to be here. It feels like me. Around lunchtime, I see my phone light up with a message.
Reid: You’ll kill it at that dinner. I wish I was there. I type back quickly.
Thank you. You’ll hear all the boring details later.
Reid: They’re not boring. Not when they’re yours.
I stare at the screen longer than I intend to.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of tasks and meetings.
By the time I get home, Liam is ready to wage war on anything that doesn’t immediately meet his toddler standards.
Dinner is chaotic. Bath time is louder than usual.
But once he’s asleep, I sit on the couch, folder open on my lap, preparing for the recognition night.
Reid calls once I’m halfway through reviewing the agenda.
“Hey,” he says, voice warm. “How was the day?”
“Busy,” I say. “But okay.”
“Did you eat?” he asks.
I roll my eyes even though he can’t see it. “Yes.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, unconvinced.
“I had lunch with Hazel,” I say. “She made me order real food instead of whatever granola bar was in my bag.”
He laughs. “Thank God for Hazel.”
“I know.”
There’s a soft pause—comfortable, not heavy.
“How’s school?” I ask.
“Exams next week,” he says. “Got stuck with a group partner who thinks deadlines are optional.”
“Your favorite type,” I say.
“You know me so well,” he mutters.
I smile, leaning back into the cushions.
He talks more about classes, about a professor who keeps assigning last-minute work, about a possible opening in a research lab next semester.
There’s a mix of excitement and anxiety in his voice, and I can feel the pull in him—the desire to do more, be more. And then he says it.
“I’m proud of you, you know,” Reid says. “I know this dinner might feel like just another work thing, but it’s not. You’re killing it, Amelia.”
My breath hitches slightly. He’s said proud before, but not like this—not steady, not certain, not without comparing our lives.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
“You deserve all of it,” he says. “And more.”
We talk until Liam makes a noise in his sleep and I go check on him. By the time I return to the phone, Reid is yawning.
“I should let you rest,” I say.
“Call me in the morning?” he asks.
“I will.”