36. Facing Hard Truths Too Long
FACING HARD TRUTHS TOO LONG
The apartment sounds like it’s holding its breath. The TV is on low, some animated show Liam insisted on before wandering off to build a fortress out of couch cushions. Pots are drying in the rack. My laptop is open on the table, a half-finished email blinking at me like it’s annoyed I walked away.
Reid sits at the end of the couch with his backpack at his feet, flipping through notes for an exam he has on Monday. He’s technically “home for the weekend,” but it feels like he brought school with him in the bag and scattered it across our living room.
“Did you eat?” I ask, wiping the counter for the third time even though there’s nothing left to clean.
“In a minute,” he says without looking up. “I just need to finish this outline while it’s still in my head.”
That answer is familiar. So is the way my chest tightens around it.
Liam pops up from behind a cushion wall, curls wild, cheeks flushed. “Dada, watch,” he says, and launches a toy car off the back of the couch. It hits the coffee table and clatters to the floor.
Reid looks up and smiles, tired but genuine. “Nice jump, buddy.”
Liam beams like he just landed a world record. “Again!”
He climbs onto the back of the couch to reset his stunt. I move without thinking, crossing the room to steady him.
“Hey,” I say, putting a hand on his waist. “Feet on the cushions, not the edge. You can launch from here, not from the cliff of doom.”
He giggles and obeys, mostly. The car flies again. Reid laughs, then drops his gaze back to his notebook. It’s such a small thing, the way his attention falls away. It shouldn’t sting. But it does.
I glance at the clock on the microwave. Eight-thirteen. Bedtime is in seventeen minutes if I want tomorrow morning to be less of a disaster. I am the only one tracking that invisible countdown.
“Can you start bath?” I ask, still balancing Liam with one hand.
“Yeah,” Reid says. His pen keeps moving. “Give me like ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes turns into thirty,” I say quietly.
He hears that. His hand stills. “I said I’ll do it,” he replies, a little too sharp for how simple the sentence is.
Liam doesn’t notice the shift. He’s too busy making car engine sounds with his mouth. I swallow the quick reply that wants to jump out—about how often I’ve heard “I’ll do it” and ended up doing it myself because something urgent came up on his end.
Instead, I set Liam down and crouch in front of him. “Bath rocket time,” I say. “Let’s go blast off.”
He groans like I suggested a tax audit but eventually lets me herd him down the hallway. Behind me, I hear Reid sigh and close his notebook.
By the time I have Liam stripped, in the tub, and negotiating how many bath toys count as “too many,” Reid finally appears in the doorway.
“Sorry,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “I lost track.”
Of course he did. School lives in his head the way schedules live in mine.
“It’s fine,” I say, even though it isn’t. “Can you rinse while I get his pajamas ready?”
“Yeah,” he says, and this time he actually steps in, crouches beside the tub, and starts scooping water over Liam’s hair.
I walk to the bedroom and pull out pajamas from the drawer, the ones with little dinosaurs marching across the legs.
I lay them on the bed and catch a glimpse of myself in the closet mirror—hair in a messy bun that stopped being cute somewhere around noon, dark circles settled under my eyes like they’ve decided to take up permanent residence.
I look like someone who is always five minutes behind her own life.
From the bathroom, Liam squeals. “Too much water!”
“Sorry, man,” Reid laughs. “Got a little carried away.”
Their voices blend with the running tap, with the TV still murmuring in the living room, with the hum of the fridge. It’s domestic and ordinary and everything I said I wanted. So why does it feel like my chest is braced for impact?
Later, pajamas on and teeth brushed, we tuck Liam into bed together. His small hand clings to my finger until his eyes finally slide shut. Reid leans down and kisses his forehead, staying there a second longer than usual.
“I hate leaving him,” he whispers.
“Then don’t,” I say before I can stop myself.
The words hang there, soft but heavy.
Reid straightens slowly. In the dim glow of the nightlight, his expression tightens. “You know I have to go back.”
I know. I do. That doesn’t make it easier. We tiptoe out of the room and close the door halfway. The quiet that follows isn’t peaceful; it’s crowded with all the things we aren’t saying.
In the hallway, Reid shoves his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. “You want tea?” he asks. “I can make some.”
“I already had some earlier,” I say. “I have to finish a report for Monday.”
We walk back to the living room like roommates who share rent and Wi-Fi.
My laptop waits on the table, cursor still blinking in that half-written email.
Reid’s notes are spread across the coffee table: formulas, readings, deadlines circled in red.
Two different worlds stacked in the same small space.
He drops onto the couch and rubs the back of his neck. “My exam schedule next month is brutal,” he says. “Coach also wants us doing extra conditioning because we tanked last game. I don’t know when I’m going to get back here after this visit.”
I sink into the chair opposite him and open my laptop. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah,” he says, but his tone sounds more like I hope so than I know we will.
I start typing, trying to coax my brain into work mode. It doesn’t bite. It’s too busy cataloging every tiny abrasion between us—every almost-fight we’ve had in the last few weeks, every time one of us sighed and the other flinched.
Reid leans back, staring at the ceiling. “I feel like every time I come home, we’re both too tired to actually enjoy it.”
“That’s because we are,” I say. “I’m running on caffeine and survival. You’re living on no sleep and whatever food a twenty-year-old thinks counts as a meal.”
“Twenty-one,” he corrects automatically.
“Sorry,” I say. “Big difference.”
He huffs a laugh that doesn’t last long. “It is to me. I’m supposed to be an adult now, remember?”
“You became an adult when Liam was born,” I say. “The government is late.”
He smiles a little, then looks at me more closely. “You okay?”
The question is simple. The answer isn’t.
“I’m tired,” I say, because that’s the version that fits into a sentence.
“Same,” he says, dragging a hand over his face. “I just need to get through this semester. Once I’m done with this set of classes, it’ll ease up. Then I can be home more, help more.”
He’s been saying some version of that since freshman year. Once this exam is over. Once this season ends. Once this project is done. Life keeps lining up the next “once.”
“Sure,” I reply. It comes out flatter than I intend.
He notices. His gaze sharpens. “You don’t believe me.”
I close my laptop halfway and rest my fingers on the edge. “It’s not about believing you. It’s just… there’s always going to be something. That’s how life works.”
“So what?” he asks. “I should drop out? Give up everything I’m working for?”
“No,” I say quickly. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?” His voice stays low, but the tension in it curls through the room.
I look at the notes on the table, the laptop in front of me, the closed bedroom door down the hall. All the pieces of the life we built faster than either of us knew how to manage.
“I’m saying I feel like I’m holding up most of this on my side,” I say quietly. “And I’m starting to bend.”
He goes still. For a second, I think he’s going to let it go, push it down for the night because we’re both exhausted and he leaves in the morning.
But something in his jaw shifts, and I know we’ve crossed the line where pretending everything is fine isn’t going to work anymore. The air between us pulls tight.
This is where the gloss of newlywed compromise cracks and the harder questions start to push through.
And for the first time, I’m not sure either of us is ready for the answers.
The argument doesn’t explode all at once.
It builds, slow and sharp, the way pressure does when neither of us has slept well in weeks.
Reid is standing at the edge of the living room, hands on his hips, breathing hard like he’s been holding everything in for too long. I’m across from him, arms folded, trying to keep myself steady when everything in me feels like it’s pulling tight.
“You act like I don’t do anything,” Reid says, voice tight. “Like I’m checked out on purpose.”
“I never said you don’t do anything,” I say. “I said I feel alone. That’s not the same.”
He shakes his head, frustrated. “You make it sound like I want to be gone all the time. Like I want to miss everything.”
I push my hair back, trying to think before speaking, but everything feels too full. “I’m not saying you want to miss things. I’m saying you do, and I’m the one carrying the weight when you’re not here. That’s the reality.”
Reid steps closer. “I’m trying. I’m doing everything I can. School, practice, internships—these aren’t optional, Amelia. If I don’t push now, then what? You keep working yourself into the ground forever?”
“I’m not asking you to drop out,” I say, voice rising despite how hard I try to keep it even. “I’m asking you to see what this actually looks like for me. I’m asking you to understand that I can’t keep pretending everything’s fine while I’m juggling so much I can barely breathe.”
“You think I don’t see it?” Reid snaps. “You think I don’t notice how tired you are? I’m killing myself trying to make sure our future isn’t some paycheck-to-paycheck mess where you carry all of it.”
The words hit harder than he means them to. I feel them in my chest before I can process them. “I never asked for that. I never asked you to fix everything.”