Chapter 19
NINETEEN
SARAH
Fuck this, Sarah thought, as she crossed one leg over the other, her foot bouncing rapidly, her thoughts swirling. She was so over this.
Jamie sat on her left, and on Jamie’s other side, Beth.
It had been a very, very long weekend, but it was the final day of events for the Philadelphia Liberty Spring Classic, and the three of them looked down into an arena filled with gymnastics equipment as athletes warmed up.
Lily spotted them from where she was stretching and gestured toward them with her hands in the shape of a heart, just like always.
It had been six weeks since Beth had given her that look—six weeks since her anger at the whole situation had been set to a permanent simmer.
On the surface, Sarah could rationalize that it really had been nothing, an honest mistake.
But that, coupled with the thousands of shards of all the little touches, glances, and glimmers of hope over the last decade, had slowly cut away at her tolerance for these moments.
Now, however, wasn’t the time to figure that out.
Now was family time. Time to box up those feelings for the sake of Lily.
She had always tried her best to do that for her daughter.
Jamie, for her part, kept trying to make conversation flow effortlessly among the three of them, but even she was getting worn out. So, when the last medal was handed out and Lily darted off to pack her bag, Jamie sighed and looked between them before standing and grabbing her jacket.
“You two need to work out whatever it is that’s going on here.
” Beth tried to protest, but Jamie cut her off.
“I don’t care about knowing what it is, but as the third coparent here, figure it out before Lily catches on.
Don’t ruin her success this weekend with your bad moods.
If I can feel them, she definitely can, and that’s not fair to her.
” Jamie jerked her head toward the hallway beyond the arena.
“I’m taking Lily to dinner back at the hotel. Figure your shit out.”
Jamie stormed off before either Sarah or Beth was able to respond, leaving them staring at each other.
Beth broke first. “Sar—”
“Not here,” Sarah said tersely, looking around. They were in too public a place to have the conversation she needed to have with Beth. She motioned to Beth to follow her, and they weaved their way in silence to Sarah’s rental car. Thankfully, the vehicles surrounding hers had already left.
The car also wasn’t an ideal place for this conversation, but she would make do. She yanked open the driver’s side door before sliding into the seat as Beth settled into the passenger seat beside her, and they each twisted their bodies to face the other as best they could in the cramped space.
“So,” Sarah began.
Beth crossed her arms, not looking at her. “Are you finally going to tell me why you’ve been giving me the silent treatment? I knew you might be a little upset, but not talking to me feels like an extreme reaction to what really was nothing.”
That did it. The low simmer that had been maintained all weekend jumped to a boil. Sarah inhaled deeply.
“Are you serious?” A cold bark reserved only for moments of complete indignation slipped out before she could stop it. “Honestly, I could be more upset. This is me holding back. And no, I don’t think it’s an extreme reaction when you looked at me the way you did when you have a girlfriend—”
Beth’s jaw tightened. “It didn’t mean anything. It was just an old habit.”
Sarah stared at her, hurt and disbelief creeping in at her words as the confines of the rental car seemed to press in around her.
The way Beth’s eyes had intentionally traced their way down to her lips that night hadn’t been a mistake.
There was too much purpose behind it. To claim otherwise was simply insulting.
“And that’s exactly why I need space from you.
Because I can’t tell the difference between old habits and actual intention with you, and it’s not fair on so many levels, but especially considering that you know exactly”—her throat constricted—“you know exactly how I feel about you, how I’ve always felt about you.
Can you look at me and honestly say you don’t know? ”
She looked to Beth, hoping to see the answers she craved written across her face, easy enough for her to read, but Beth gave her nothing.
Her head hung, long blond waves creating a curtain she shielded herself behind as she absently picked at the skin around her nail bed, like she had done for as long as Sarah had known her.
Her question was met with silence, leaving Sarah to fill in the blanks once again herself.
“You know,” Sarah said quietly, hurt clinging to her words as she desperately tried to understand. “You know, and you looked at me like that anyway . . .”
Beth nodded once, still not saying anything. Sarah took a deep breath, willing herself to continue in her pursuit of clarity.
“If you knew how I felt about you, then why? Why would you look at me like that? What made you feel like that was fair to me? I’ve kept my feelings for you in check for years because I respect you, and I respect Jamie.
Why have you never been able to show me the same respect?
” Sarah choked out, fighting back her tears.
Beth flinched. “I do respect you. The look had nothing to do with me not respecting you. How can you say that?”
“Then why? Why are you still looking at me like that when you chose someone else?”
“Because you’re right—I chose someone else, and I don’t regret that. I love Jamie, but that doesn’t completely erase all the years it was you and me.”
She stared at Beth, wanting desperately to understand her and how the hell they had gotten to this point.
“I don’t—but why?” Sarah asked, catching her tears, holding them back. She didn’t want Beth to see her cry. “If you still think about me like that, why did you choose Jamie? Why didn’t you choose me?”
Beth’s eyes shone with her own tears, and it physically hurt Sarah not to reach out and catch them for her, like she had done so many times before.
“Because we tried fixing us so many times at that point, and each time, it was clear we still had so much unresolved baggage. I couldn’t take another heartbreak with you.
You’ve been my one constant since I was eighteen, but I needed to know what it felt like to be apart from you for once in my adult life.
” She stopped picking at the skin on her thumb.
“I made that choice, but then you started seeing Nell, and it brought up—”
“Don’t you dare bring Nell into this,” Sarah spat. “She has nothing to do with any of this.” Her chest heaved, her voice rising ever so slightly as she attempted to keep a lid on the anger that raged inside her. “Don’t use her as an excuse.”
Beth folded her arms across her chest in that same defensive position she always favored when they fought. “I’m not trying to. I’m trying to explain to you how seeing you happy with Nell . . . I hadn’t fully prepared myself for what that would feel like.”
Finally, finally Beth looked at her, blue eyes cutting through her the way they had a habit of doing. Her heart twisted at the sight of confusion and guilt behind Beth’s look.
“Jesus,” Sarah groaned, resting her forehead against the steering wheel. The cool leather soothed her skin, and she gripped it tightly as she tried to stop the pounding in her chest. “What about Jamie?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm.
Beth’s hands went to her temples, rubbing small circles. “I love her . . .” Beth paused, struggling to find her words. “I never planned on loving anyone but you, Sarah, but then we broke, and all that love for you never went away. It just changed shape.”
Those whispered words sliced through her like a knife cutting clean across her chest.
“Why did you ask for a divorce?” The words slipped from her lips before Sarah could think better of them, her cheeks flushing with a combination of shame and embarrassment at the neediness of her question.
Beth studied her with unsure eyes before answering. “Because I needed to. I couldn’t stay around and watch us continue to break each other further . . . not after the miscarriage. Not after we lost Connor.”
Sarah stilled at the mention of their son’s name, knuckles white still gripping the steering wheel, stabilizing herself. There it was. The wound she had spent thirteen years repairing.
Beth’s lips trembled as she held on to her own tears.
“You were always enough for me, Sarah. But when we lost Connor”—she choked, her hand clasped to her mouth—“we were never the same after that. You buried yourself in your work. You stopped talking to me, stopped letting me in, stopped choosing me, and I couldn’t do it anymore.
I couldn’t keep trying to make you see me, not when I was drowning in grief and you didn’t even notice. ”
Those words slapped Sarah across the face, leaving her stunned.
Then came the heat, boiling up, prickling through the tips of her fingers.
“I never stopped choosing you. I woke up every day and chose you, chose Lily, chose our family. Even on the hardest days, I stayed, I provided, and I loved you in the ways I knew how, because I knew what we were going through was temporary. After we had Lily and you were struggling with postpartum depression, I was there for you. I kept everything afloat. I carried you. And when you wanted another baby, I carried that, too, because I was terrified of what another pregnancy would do to you. I carried him—and when I lost him, when I was the one who was drowning, where the hell were you when I needed to be carried?”
Beth’s eyes widened. “Sarah—”