22. Strengthening Bonds
STRENGTHENING BONDS
The year doesn’t start with fireworks. Or grand declarations. Or some sudden epiphany about how to fix everything all at once. It starts the way most years start—quietly, almost unnoticeably, like a page turning itself.
Liam climbs into my lap while I’m still half-asleep on the couch, clutching his blanket in one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. The morning light hasn’t fully settled yet; the apartment still feels hazy, soft around the edges.
I press a kiss to the top of his curls and tell myself, like I do most days, that I’m doing my best. And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe it has to be. Because even with all the hard moments—the distance, the juggling, the exhaustion—Reid and I are…
better. Not perfect, not magically fixed, but better in ways I can actually point to.
We talk more honestly now. We say things out loud instead of letting them sit and rot. We check in, even when it’s inconvenient. We apologize faster. We try harder. It’s not glamorous, but it feels… adult. Real.
Sometimes I think that’s what love actually looks like—less like movie scenes and more like tiny, consistent choices not to give up on each other. But those small choices come with a cost, and today, I feel the weight of it like an ache under my ribs.
I’m folding Liam’s laundry at the kitchen table, surrounded by little socks and shirts he grew out of overnight, when it hits me how many things I’ve quietly traded away over the past two years. Not in a dramatic, sacrifice-my-dreams sort of way—just slowly, one practical decision at a time.
I stopped looking at out-of-state job listings because they never aligned with Reid’s school plan.
I turned down extra hours that would’ve meant more money but less stability at home.
I reshaped my schedule around daycare costs, tuition payments, grocery budgets, and the invisible math of stretching every dollar.
None of it was forced. I made these choices willingly. But willingness doesn’t erase impact. And being supportive doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes wish someone would support me back with the same intensity.
Liam toddles over, tugging one of his old shirts out of the laundry basket and trying to pull it over his head. The neck hole gets stuck around his forehead, and he freezes like he’s lost all peripheral vision.
I laugh and help him out of it. “You’re too big for this now.”
“Too big,” he repeats proudly.
I kiss his cheek. “Yes, you are.”
He runs off, and I keep folding, but my mind drifts.
Sometimes I miss being twenty-one and carefree.
Sometimes I miss being in a phase of life that didn’t require constant tradeoffs or constant maturity.
Sometimes I miss feeling like I had the freedom to want things just for myself. And then I feel guilty for the thought.
Because if someone asked me whether I’d go back to my old life, before Liam, before Reid… I know the answer. No. Not in a million years. But loving the life I have doesn’t mean it’s easy. My phone buzzes. A picture from Reid.
It’s on his desk—coffee mug, open textbook, laptop covered in sticky notes. A mess of responsibility that mirrors my own.
Reid: Morning. Wish I could teleport.
I smile a little, even though the ache stays.
If you could teleport, you’d never go to class again.
Reid: Fair. But I’d be with you.
I look at the message longer than I need to.
Everyone always talks about young love like it’s flimsy, like it evaporates when life gets hard.
But ours hasn’t evaporated. If anything, it’s deepened, grown roots, complicated itself into something harder to break.
But the deeper love goes, the more it asks of you.
“Up!” Liam declares, lifting his arms.
I scoop him into a hug that he instantly tries to escape from—because he’s independent now, apparently, at two years old.
I let him go, watching him run towards his toys, and I feel a swell of something warm in my chest. This is my family.
My messy, imperfect, stretched-thin, fiercely-protected family.
And even if I’ve sacrificed a lot, I know Reid has sacrificed pieces of his life too.
He’s not living the typical college experience, not when he’s working between classes, studying late, budgeting everything, and coming home every break like his life depends on it.
We’re both fighting for the same future.
Just from different angles. But sometimes those angles make it feel like we’re walking parallel lines—close, but not touching. I’m cleaning up the living room when Hazel drops off coffee on her way to an appointment downtown.
“You look like you’ve been thinking. Dangerous,” she teases, stepping over toys like she’s crossing a minefield.
“I am allowed to think.”
“Not when you make that face.”
“What face?”
“That ‘I’m a single mom but not really single but maybe a little bit single because my boyfriend is two hours away’ face.”
I groan. “Please don’t call it that.”
She presses the coffee into my hand. “Drink. Then tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m fine,” I insist.
Hazel gives me a look that fully translates to: Girl, don’t lie to me.
I exhale slowly. “Just… reflecting. A lot has changed. And I’m trying to figure out what I want. For real.”
“And what do you want?”
“I—” I hesitate. “I want us to make it. I want the sacrifices to lead somewhere. I want to feel like we’re moving in the same direction.”
Hazel softens. “And do you?”
“Some days, yes,” I say.
A beat.
“Some days… not as much,” I add.
She nods like she understands, because she does. She always does.
“You two are in a weird phase,” she says gently. “You’re living grown-up life, and he’s in college-life. That’s not a moral difference, it’s just a phase difference. It’ll get easier.”
I sigh. “And if it doesn’t?”
“Then you’ll figure out who you are in the process. That’s never a loss.”
I let her hug me before she leaves. Hazel always knows how to ground me just enough to keep me moving.
And I want to move forward. With Reid. Not without him.
After Hazel leaves, I clean up the kitchen while Liam hums at the table, scribbling on construction paper.
I catch my reflection in the microwave door—hair in a messy bun, T-shirt slightly stained from breakfast, face tired around the eyes.
I’m proud of the woman I see there. But sometimes pride is lonely. My phone rings. Reid. A mid-morning call, unexpected.
“Hey,” I answer.
He sounds breathless. “I have ten minutes, but I wanted to hear your voice.”
Warmth floods me. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Just… tired.”
A pause.
“But hearing you helps.”
I close my eyes. “Same.”
“How’s Liam?”
“Being a menace.”
He chuckles. “Of course.”
We talk lightly, weaving between jokes and updates and small moments that stitch us together again. I feel the connection settling between us—warm, steady.
And then he says softly, “Thanks for holding everything down while I finish school.”
The words hit somewhere deep.
“I believe in you,” I tell him. “I always have.”
“I know,” he whispers. “I just want to finish strong. For us.”
Us. The word is a small spark. A reminder. A promise. And even though the sacrifices are real and sometimes heavy, the love is real too—strong enough to keep me walking forward, even when I’m tired. Even when part of me aches from carrying so much.
When the call ends, I stand in the quiet apartment and breathe through the mix of gratitude and exhaustion. We’re better. We really are. But better doesn’t mean easy. And love doesn’t erase sacrifice. Sometimes it just makes you willing to try again.
I pick up Liam’s artwork from the table—a circle with too many lines and one accidental smiley face—and tape it to the fridge.
One day at a time. One step at a time. There’s a point in every week where the balancing act becomes uncomfortably obvious—usually when I’m staring at the calendar on my phone, moving colored blocks around like I’m playing Tetris with my life.
Work deadlines. Daycare hours. Reid’s class schedule. His exam weeks. My project cycles. Liam’s checkups, teething phases, random sniffles, sudden clinginess. Bills spaced out across the month like landmines.
Some days, I’m proud of how well I manage it all.
Other days, the sheer logistics exhaust me before anything even happens.
And lately, I’ve become more aware of just how often the path bends toward making Reid’s life possible—his education, his future, his dream.
I don’t regret supporting him. I want him to have the degree, the career he’s aiming for, the stability I never had growing up.
But the more the costs stack up, the harder it is to ignore them.
Like today. I’m sitting at the dining table after work, laptop open, inputting numbers into a spreadsheet for our monthly expenses.
Liam is stacking blocks beside me, humming to himself.
Every few minutes, he hands me one like he’s contributing to the budgeting process. His cheerfulness helps—barely.
I move down the list: rent, groceries, electric, daycare, gas.
Then the line item that always tugs something inside me: Reid’s tuition support.
It’s not everything—he covers part through work-study and loans—but the rest still comes from me.
From the job I chose specifically because it offered stable benefits and predictable hours.
From the shifts I picked up. From the little sacrifices he knows about and the ones he doesn’t.
I breathe in slowly, forcing myself not to frame it as resentment. That’s not what this is. It’s… fatigue. Accumulated strain. The kind that settles into your muscles and takes a while to shake out. Liam drops a block onto my keyboard, and Excel crashes like it’s emotionally overwhelmed too.
“Buddy,” I whisper, rubbing my temples. “Please let Mama finish before we break the economy.”
He giggles, delighted. My phone buzzes. A picture from Reid—him and a stack of books at the library.