Untitled S&R Chapter Sixteen
Untitled S in the name of sexual health, they would have a right to know, but she then had to consider how they would take the news.
Eventually, she’d arrived at the conclusion that there was no erasing her sex work, and stopping short would not delete it from her past. Either she would find someone who was okay with it, or she would be alone.
S enjoyed her own company, and she told herself that either possibility would make her happy. And yet…
“I’d like a partner,” S finally replied. “I imagine it’s nice to find someone you actually want to spend the majority of your time with. I… I also like the idea of being adopted into a big family, I guess.”
“To make up for the lack of your own?” R asked.
S shrugged. “I prefer ‘extend’ over ‘replace’—my family are not gone.”
“When do you think you’ll see them again?”
“When I’m brave enough,” S answered.
“I think you’re brave.” R paid S rent on her red houses. “Not everyone can do what you do.”
“Thank you, but one person cannot be brave at everything,” S said. “When it comes to family… I know I can mend things, I just have to accept how uncomfortable and laborious the effort is going to be.”
R nodded. “It’s not a one-time-conversation kind of thing.”
“Exactly. Even if I spoke to them today, I’d still be explaining things in five years. I’m choosing to delay the inevitable, but for now, that’s what I prefer.”
“Delaying the inevitable,” R repeated. “Another thing we have in common.”
While R rolled the dice, S studied her. “And what have you determined is the inevitable?”
“Honestly?”
“It only seems fair.”
“I think my inevitable is not keeping the baby,” R said. “I’ve been waiting for some moment—the moment that tells me I should do it, that I should go for it. The moment that gives me a definitive yes. But it hasn’t happened, and at this point, where would it even come from?”
S didn’t say anything for a while; R knew her well enough to understand that she was simply thinking. In the meantime, S moved across the board.
“I applaud how seriously you’re taking this decision,” she eventually said, “but the only unchangeable fact is that you are pregnant. You don’t have much more time to delay.”