Chapter 48
AVA
Going from the last week of the second trimester to my first week of the third trimester was like flipping a switch
All of a sudden, I understood all the warnings—especially from Rumi—about how the third trimester is thinking you can’t get any bigger, but somehow being proven wrong with every week that goes by.
I’m thirty weeks today, and I officially can’t see my feet anymore. I am constantly bumping into things because I forget how much my stomach sticks out.
And the baby is about to double in weight in these last ten weeks.
We just finished up with Georgie’s last soccer game of the season, and the AC in Anderson’s car is blowing directly into my face, yet I’m still sweating in the August heat.
We’re on the way to a local ice cream shop, where the team and all the girls’ families are meeting not only to celebrate today’s win but also to commemorate an undefeated season.
I might be biased, but Georgie deserves an MVP award for how amazing she did as the team’s goalie—all her life, she’s had to always be watching, always be bracing, quietly carrying pressure on her shoulders that shouldn’t have been hers to begin with.
It’s a role she took in stride, and one I am so proud of her for taking on.
Both for her team and for herself.
Pulling into the parking lot, Georgie hops out of the car before Anderson can even turn off the car, running to meet up with some girls from the team standing in line.
“You made it through your first season as a soccer mom,” Anderson says, cutting the ignition and turning to look at me.
“Couldn’t have done it without you,” I tease, even though I mean every word.
I catch myself watching him longer than I mean to—really watching him.
The way his hand lingers on the steering wheel, the faint creases next to his eyes that never fully go away, like he’s smiled so many times to leave permanent marks on his face.
The words “I love you” materialize on my lips, begging me not to hold onto them any longer.
There have been so many moments like this, small and quiet, where the words have risen up, right to the back of my throat.
I’ve almost said them a dozen times by now—in the middle of the night, in passing, in the spaces where it would’ve been easy to let them slip out and pretend I didn’t mean everything they carry.
But something always stopped me.
Timing, maybe.
Fear, definitely.
The weight of saying them would make everything real in a way I couldn’t take back.
But right now, sitting here with nothing extraordinary happening, I don’t feel that hesitation. Just a steady, certain kind of knowing that doesn’t ask permission first.
I always thought this moment would feel bigger.
Not the moment itself—there’s nothing cinematic about sitting in a parked car with the AC rattling and the distant sound of kids yelling over melted ice cream—but the words.
I love you
They’re supposed to arrive with certainty, with stillness, with something that marks it as different from everything that came before.
Something you could point to and say, 'That was the moment everything changed.'
But nothing about us has ever been like that.
Not the rushed vows that weren’t supposed to mean anything.
Not the two pink lines that turned everything upside down.
Not the slow, quiet way, somewhere along the chaos, I stopped pretending.
Maybe this—this in-between, ordinary, overheated, completely unremarkable moment—is exactly right for us.
Anderson reaches over, brushing his thumb across my damp cheek, like it’s second nature now, like he’s done it a hundred times.
And it’s so simple, so thoughtless, that it catches in my chest before I can overthink it.
“I love you,” I blurt out, the words tumbling into one another—something that felt so impossible now feeling so effortless.
The words don’t echo. They don’t demand attention. They just settle in the air, soft and certain.
Right where they belong.
For a second, he doesn’t say anything. Not in a bad way—not like he didn’t hear me—but like the words landed somewhere deeper than either of us expected.
His hand stills against my face, his eyes searching mine like he’s trying to understand how we got here, how something that started so temporary turned into something that feels anything but.
And then I see it—the shift. Like something in him finally settles into place.
“You don’t get to just say that so casually,” he murmurs, but there’s no real protest in it, only something softer, almost disbelieving. His thumb brushes my cheek again, slower this time, like he’s grounding himself in the moment.
Grounding me in the moment.
“I didn’t mean for it to sound casual,” I admit quietly. “I just—”
“—meant it,” he finishes for me.
I nod, because there’s nothing else to say.
He exhales a quiet laugh, shaking his head like this was the last thing he expected today—between soccer games and ice cream and August heat—but somehow the only thing that makes sense.
“I love you too, Ava,” he says.
There’s no hesitation. No overthinking.
Just certainty.
And somehow, that feels even bigger than anything I imagined.