Page 29 of Threads That Bind Us

“Is that something that’s required?” she asks, keeping her eyes on the page.

“No, not at all. Clara is required to have an heir, but even she’s not expected to have children biologically if she doesn't want to. There are no requirements of me here.” I want to see the look in her eyes, to be sure if my words are soothing her, but she doesn't look up at me.

“And if children were something I theoretically wanted in the future?” she asks.

Now that she’s said it, my imagination runs away with itself. My body on top of hers. Feeling her arch underneath my touch. Begging her to let me fill her.

I’m barely able to stem the upswell of possessiveness that hurdles through me. She’s not asking for that. She explicitly stated so.

“Obviously, we wouldn’t go about it in the traditional way.” She cringes, and I rush to make sure she knows I didn’t include this as some creepy ploy to get her to sleep with me. “There are plenty of safe in-vitro methods, or we can discuss adoption. There are some moral quandaries we’d have to think through, bringing a child into The Syndicate. But yes, if co-parenting is something you wanted, I would be open to it.”

My pulse is racing and I feel like I’ve just run a marathon. How do you explain to someone that you’re not pressuring them to have children, and most certainly asking them to sleep with you in order to achieve that goal, but also impress that you’re not opposed to fatherhood, all in a marriage contract you typed up on your phone in bed?

She’s tense and quiet for a few moments, scribbling bright green flowers into the corner of the page. She finally takes a deep breath and writes below the headingopen to the possibility.

She reviews the last section on security for her and Ana,making a few small edits, before passing the document back to me.

“Let me know if you’re amenable to those changes,” she says, and her voice is almost teasing, even if her smile’s a bit tight.

I’ll take what I can get in this moment.

“We’ll make it work.”

Chapter 11

Gwen

Ishould have waited to worry until she felt like ass. Ana was right.

It’s been three weeks, and every day has gotten harder for her. She’s just a little more tired, a little more sore. She’s kept up a good front until this point—joking and rolling her eyes and insisting she can still watch softball practice. But when I tried to wake her up today, she just rolled herself further into her covers and muttered that she felt like she hadn’t slept at all.

I brush the hair off her forehead, watching her face scrunch and relax in her sleep. Tears well, but I blink them back, wishing I could take this away from her, to trade places. The never-ending nausea intensifies, bile clawing at my already-raw throat as I think about what I should have done differently. What I could have changed. Less fast food, more fresh vegetables. Cutting out blue dye, or maybe it’s supposed to be red. Moving her to the countryside where she could breathe fresh air. Throwing out those nonstick pans when they started to flake. I’d give anything to go back and change it all, but I can’t, and she’s suffering for it.

I stand there for what feels like hours, wishing for impossible things. And when she finally settles into a deeper sleep, I step into the hallway to call her school and let them know she’ll be out for at least the next two weeks, promising to keep them updated as her condition changes.

Back in the apartment, I stand in the middle of the space, turning in circles. I feel like I should do something productive—cleaning, or prepping food for Ana, oranything—but there’s nothing to do. Even though Ana’s treatments have taken up a significant portion of our afternoons, she’s still been going to school three days a week until today. And for the first time since I was fifteen, I don’t have a job. Which means I’ve filled every waking second with deep cleaning the kitchen and washing sheets and fixing the leaky shower head.

I pick at my nails, suddenly anxious. I don’t know the last time I actually had nothing to do. Sure, I’ve taken time for myself while Ana’s been with friends or I had a random morning off from the club, but I always had a running to-do list gnawing at me. The emptiness is disorienting.

I’m saved from considering cleaning the bathroom grout by the buzz of my phone against the kitchen counter. When I slide it open, I’m confronted by a very long text message from my landlord with a passive aggressive reminder that if I’m going to pay my rent in cash, it has to be hand delivered to him, not left in an unmarked envelope in his mailbox. Which is a little rude, seeing as Ididn’tpay my rent in cash. I dropped a check in the mail three days ago, like I always do.

Confused, I switch over to my bank app, wondering if he meant to text another tenant, or if my check got lost in the mail somehow. When my account finally loads, I drop my phone on the counter, staring at it in shock.

I haven’t checked my bank account in a while. Charlie’s been almost annoyingly insistent about paying for dinnerswith me and Ana, sending us groceries, and covering all of the small things that I’ve barely swiped my card over the past few weeks. But there’s no way on god’s green earth I should have over fifty thousand fucking dollars in my bank account.

I tentatively pick my phone back up, swiping through the activity history. There’s no rent withdrawal, but there’s a notification for a canceled check, and a one-time transfer of a number with four zeros before the decimal point.

There’s not even a question of where this came from. I pull up our text thread, feeling like I’m having an out-of-body experience. My teeth are set on edge, irrational anger pulsing through me.

Me

Take it back.

I flip back to the bank app, ensuring I didn’t hallucinate while I wait for his response. It doesn’t take long.

Charlie

Good morning.