Something Blue - Emily Giffin [122]
"Probably both," Ethan said.
"She thinks of me every day? Do you think she's exaggerating?"
"No. I don't, actually," Ethan said. "Don't you think of her every day?"
The answer was yes, but I pretended not to hear the question as I rattled on. " 'Pleased to learn from Ethan?'" I said, remembering the bits of the conversation I had overheard on Christmas. "What exactly did you tell her?"
"Well, obviously I told her you were having twin boys. You said I could… and I just told her that you're doing well here. That you've made some friends. And I told her about Geoffrey too."
"Have you talked to her since Geoffrey and I broke up?" No.
I briefly considered asking him about Rachel's engagement, but I decided that I still wasn't ready to have it confirmed. I closed the card and tucked it back into the envelope.
"She can't honestly think that we could really be close friends again?" I asked, my voice trailing off.
"She knows you pretty well, Darce. I don't think she expects you to fold," he murmured. His tone was matter-of-fact, but his expression said, "I think you will fold." Or maybe, "I think you already have folded."
I put off writing Rachel's thank-you note for nearly two weeks because I couldn't decide on the content or tone. Should I forgive her outright? Tell her that I missed her, too, and that although I would never fully accept her relationship with Dex, I wanted to repair our friendship? Was that even the case?
One evening, on the Saturday night of my thirty-fourth week, something compelled me to get out of bed and retrieve a small leather album in the closet nursery, stuck down in a side pocket of one of my suitcases. I had put together the album several summers before and had packed it at the last moment. I brought it back to bed and flipped through it, skipping past the photos of Claire and Dex and various other friends, and finding one of Rachel and me taken in the Hamptons right after she and Dex had graduated from law school. I studied our carefree poses, our broad smiles, our arms draped casually around each other as we stood by the water's edge in our bikinis. I could practically smell the salty air, feel the ocean breeze and the sand shifting under my feet. I could even hear her laughter. I wondered why beach photos taken of lost loved ones always seemed so much more poignant than other photos.
As I looked at that picture of us, I thought about everything that had happened between Dex and Rachel and me, deciding again that the cracks in our relationships had been a breeding ground for deceit. Dex and I had cheated on each other because we weren't right together in the first place. Rachel betrayed me because our friendship was a flawed one. I lied to her about Marcus because of the same negative undercurrent—the unspoken competition that can corrupt even the best of friendships. That had ruined ours.
As much as I wanted to hold them responsible, I knew that I was not blameless. We were all accountable. We had all lied and cheated. But despite everything, I knew we were still good people. We all deserved a second chance, a chance to be happy. I considered the expression "Once a cheater, always a cheater," and I dismissed it as a fallacy. People generally didn't cheat in good relationships, and I couldn't imagine Dex and Rachel cheating on each other. I also knew that if I were ever with Ethan, I would never cheat on him. I would be true to him, no matter what, always.
And at that moment, there on the doorstep of forgiveness, I went into labor. It started out as an intense cramping in my lower abdomen, and when I got up to pee, fluid ran down my leg. My water had broken. I felt a strange sense of calm as I phoned Mr. Smith and reported my symptoms. He confirmed that I, indeed, was in labor, and he instructed me to come to the hospital as soon as possible. He said he would meet me there.
Ethan was at a sports bar in Piccadilly watching Stanford play in the NCAA basketball tournament. I hated to interrupt the game—he took March Madness very seriously—but he had made