Page 129 of The Friend Zone

Josh wanted to make a blind, emotional, knee-jerk decision that would alter the rest of his life, and I couldn’t be a part of that. I just couldn’t. Sloan could be pissed at me all she wanted. I was doing the right thing, and sometimes doing the right thing was unpopular, but that didn’t make it wrong. Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind, and I wasn’t going to be bullied into changing my mind.

I drove home, Sloan’s words pinging painfully around my mind like a ricocheting bullet. They didn’t change anything. But they hurt.

When I got home, I dropped my car keys onto the table in the kitchen and looked around my immaculate house, feeling lost.

What did I do now? I’d always had Sloan. What if she was really serious about this and she wouldn’t see me anymore?

I realized suddenly that I needed her almost as much as she needed me. Taking care of her helped me to stick to my guns with Josh, because even though she was a mess, a mess was something to clean up. And now, without the distraction, the emptiness was overwhelming.

I sat down at the kitchen table and pulled a stack of napkins in front of me and started to straighten them, lining up the corners and chewing on my lip, thinking about my next move.

Okay, maybe what she said about Mom was true. God knows I could spend the rest of my life in therapy working through the shit the Ice Queen put me through. Maybe Mom did fuck me up and I had some self-worth issues. But the cold, hard truth was that I came with too much baggage, and I wasn’t worth the sacrifice Josh would have to make to be with me. I could never give as much as I would take from him. That wasn’t lack of self-esteem. That was just a simple fact.

Maybe Sloan would agree to a deal. I’d talk to someone about some of my issues if she would agree to go to grief counseling. It wasn’t me giving in to Josh like she wanted, but Sloan knew how much I hated therapists, and she’d always wanted me to see someone. I was debating how to pitch this to her when I glanced into the living room and saw it—a single purple carnation on my coffee table.

I looked around the kitchen like I might suddenly find someone in my house. But Stuntman was calm, plopped under my chair. I went in to investigate and saw that the flower sat on top of a binder with the words “just say okay” written on the outside in Josh’s writing.

He’d been here?

My heart began to pound. I looked again around the living room like I might see him, but it was just the binder.

I sat on the sofa, my hands on my knees, staring at the binder for what felt like ages before I drew the courage to pull the book into my lap. I tucked my hair behind my ear and licked my lips, took a breath, and opened it up.

The front page read “SoCal Fertility Specialists.”

My breath stilled in my lungs. What?

He’d had a consultation with Dr. Mason Montgomery from SoCal Fertility. A certified subspecialist in reproductive endocrinology and infertility with the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He’d talked to them about in vitro and surrogacy, and he’d had fertility testing done.

I put a shaky hand to my mouth, and tears began to blur my eyes.

I pored over his test results. Josh was a breeding machine. Strong swimmers and an impressive sperm count. He’d circled this and put a winking smiley face next to it and I snorted.

He’d outlined the clinic’s high success rates—higher than the national average—and he had gotten signed personal testimonials from previous patients, women like me who used a surrogate. Letter after letter of encouragement, addressed to me.

The next page was a complete breakdown on the cost of in vitro and information on Josh’s health insurance and what it covered. His insurance was good. It covered the first round of IVF at 100 percent.

He even had a small business plan. He proposed selling doghouses that he would build. The extra income would raise enough money for the second round of in vitro in about three months.

The next section was filled with printouts from the Department of International Adoptions. Notes scrawled in Josh’s handwriting said Brazil just opened up. He broke down the process, timeline, and costs right down to travel expenses and court fees.

I flipped past a sleeve full of brochures to a page on getting licensed for foster care. He’d already gone through the background check, and he enclosed a form for me, along with a series of available dates for foster care orientation classes and in-home inspections.

Was this what he’d been doing? This must have taken him weeks.

My chin quivered.

Somehow, seeing it all down on paper, knowing we’d be in it together, it didn’t feel so hopeless. It felt like something that we could do. Something that might actually work.

Something possible.

The last page had an envelope taped to it. I pried it open with trembling hands, my throat getting tight.

I know what the journey will look like, Kristen. I’m ready to take this on. I love you and I can’t wait to tell you the best part…Just say okay.

I dropped the letter and put my face into my hands and sobbed like I’d never sobbed in my life.

He’d done all this for me. Josh looked infertility dead in the eye, and his choice was still me.