Page 112 of Nine Months to Bear

“I think he was trying to escape from her.”

“Then why name it after her?” I ask, wrinkling my nose in confusion.

“Antonia wasn’t her name,” Stefan says. “He named it after his first love. A woman he met in college, before my mother sank her claws into him.”

“Oh. What happened to her?”

“My mother happened. She made sure Antonia understood that my father belonged to her.” He takes a sip of his vodka. “Antonia married someone else six months later. Moved to Italy.”

“Did your father ever see her again?”

“No. But he kept her picture in his desk drawer, along with love letters she’d written him when they were young.” Stefan’s mouthtwists. “My mother found them after he died. Burned them in the fireplace while I watched.”

“Jesus. A little Cruella de Vilof her, no?”

“She said it was for the best. That dwelling on the past was unhealthy.” His laugh sounds dry and rusty, dead on arrival. “Then she married my uncle two months later.”

“Do you believe in it?” I ask suddenly before I can think better of it. “Love, I mean. Real love.”

“I believe in obsession. Possession. Lust.” He meets my eyes. “Love is just the story people tell themselves to feel better about those things.”

“That’s cynical, even for you.”

“It’s realistic.”

“I don’t think so.” I shift in my chair, pulling his shirt tighter around me. “I think you’re scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of wanting something you can’t control. Someone you can’t control.”

Stefan’s expression hardens. “I don’t want anything I can’t control.”

“Everyone wants that,” I counter. “Connection. Partnership. Someone who sees all your flaws and chooses to stay anyway.”

He scoffs, “Fairy tale bullshit.”

“Is it? Your father loved Antonia enough to name his boat after her twenty years later. What is that if not the real thing?”

“And look how it ended,” he retorts. “He died alone, betrayed by the woman he married because he couldn’t have the one he actually wanted.”

The pain in his voice makes my heart ache. “Maybe he made the wrong choice. That doesn’t mean love doesn’t exist.”

“You really believe in that? Soulmates and happily ever afters?”

“I want to,” I confess quietly. “I want to believe that somewhere out there is someone who’ll love me for who I am, not who they want me to be. Someone who won’t leave when things get complicated.”

“Everyone leaves when things get complicated.”

“No,” I whisper. “Not everyone.”

Stefan squints at me, the sun bright on half his face. “What happens when you find this mythical soulmate? What then?”

“Then I stop feeling like I’m fighting the world alone.”

“And if he’s not what you expected? If he’s dangerous? If loving him could destroy everything you’ve built?”

I look away again, following the path of the birds overhead. “I guess I’d have to decide what matters more,” I say quietly. “Safety or happiness.”