Aller au contenu—pink.
A soft gasp rippled through the group, followed by cheers and applause. Someone clapped, someone else laughed, and Jenna pressed a hand to her mouth, tears already spilling as Tom wrapped his arms around her.
“A girl,” Jenna whispered, her voice shaking. “We’re having a girl.”
Everyone surged forward to hug her, to congratulate them, to take photos. I smiled because my face remembered how, even if my heart didn’t. My hands clapped because they were supposed to.
But my eyes weren’t on the cake.
They were on Caleb.
He was standing far too close to my sister. His hand rested briefly at the small of her back—just for a second, just enough to steady her, anyone could say—but the gesture felt intimate in a way that made my stomach drop.
When she leaned into him, laughing through tears, he didn’t move away.
I told myself I was imagining it. I told myself grief had sharpened my senses into something unreliable, something that searched for pain even where there was none.
But the feeling didn’t leave.
The rest of the party passed in a blur. I accepted a slice of cake I barely touched. I listened to conversations about nurseries and baby showers, about how “everything happens for a reason,” a phrase that landed like broken glass in my chest.
Caleb eventually came to stand beside me, sliding an arm around my waist. His touch felt unfamiliar, almost rehearsed.
“You okay?” he murmured.
I nodded. “Just tired.”
He kissed my temple, quick and distracted, and turned back toward the group. Toward Jenna.
On the drive home, the silence stretched. The late afternoon sun slanted through the windshield, turning dust motes into gold.
“You were quiet,” Caleb said finally.
“So were you,” I replied.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Work’s been a lot.”
“You’ve said that every night for weeks.”
He exhaled sharply. “I’m trying to keep us afloat.”
The word us hung awkwardly between us.
That night, I lay awake long after Caleb fell asleep. His breathing was steady, deep, the sound of someone unburdened. I stared at the ceiling, replaying moments from the party I hadn’t wanted to notice: the way Jenna’s eyes had flicked toward him before she cut the cake, the way he seemed to anticipate her movements, the quiet ease between them.
At 2:14 a.m., my phone buzzed…………