The morning after the workshop,
Lauren walked through the park near Holly's apartment.
The air was cool and the sun was shining bright.
Her scarf pulled tight against the wind.
Every tree seemed to hold two truths at once,
Alive with flame-colored leaves and already preparing to let them go.
She thought about the circle,
About the word she'd spoken to her father's absence,
How her voice had trembled yet also held steady.
She thought about the strangers who had stood in for Nathan and Nico,
How their stances had carried the exact weight she already knew but hadn't wanted to admit.
Secrets have a body of their own.
Even strangers can feel them.
Lauren sat down on a bench,
Hands folded around her belly.
For the first time since the positive test,
She felt something close to calm.
Maybe not peace exactly,
But a calm in acknowledging the truth.
This felt like its own kind of peace that included a quiet acceptance that the story she was carrying wasn't just hers alone.
It stretched backward into people who had left her and forward into the child who hadn't yet arrived.
The wind pressed cold against her cheeks.
She thought of Nathan's laugh,
That wild sunlit sound that had pulled her into his orbit so easily.
She thought of Nico's silence,
Heavy and magnetic,
The way his eyes seemed to notice things she hadn't said out loud.
Two brothers,
Both carrying inheritances that she had nothing to do with,
And yet everything to do with what they'd been asked to become.
For so long,
Lauren had believed that love was a choice you made once and then lived with it.
Now she was beginning to understand it was like an echo chamber of old griefs,
Loyalties,
Replaying until somebody began to understand how interconnected love can be.
As leaves swirled around her boots,
She knew that the next step wasn't just deciding what to do with Nathan or Nico.
It was understanding who they really were beneath the patterns they had inherited.
The ones born from the losses that were never spoken and griefs that were never named.
Her story was tangled in theirs.
To move forward,
She would have to understand their histories in the shadows of the Salazar family itself.
Only then would she even know what kind of love,
If any,
Could survive the weight of truth.
She rose from the bench,
Pulling her coat tighter.
The air smelled of wood smoke.
Somewhere off in the distance,
A bell was ringing.
Lauren pressed her hand to her belly and whispered,
As much to herself as to the baby,
I love you already.
Even if I don't know exactly how everything might look for us,
I'm getting ready to hold you in my arms,
To love you.
The words seemed to steady her.
She couldn't change the past that had shaped them,
But she could choose how to walk forward,
Slowly,
Gently,
While the details evolved without being forced or rushed.
