Out on a Limb

by Hannah Bonam-Young

“Wait.” She laughs dryly. “Robbie?” “No!” I cry out. “The friend Caleb wanted me to hook up with?” “He’s going to love this.” Sarah beams. “I haven’t even met the guy.” “I fucked a guy named Robbie?” “You’re having a kid with a guy named Robbie, babe.”

“Cool, cool, great. So what I’m hearing is that my baby daddy is known to fall in love with women who seemingly enjoy hunting children for sport”—I inhale sharply, my voice cutting out—“and then proceeds to drop them like they’re hot garbage?” “Well, I mean,” Sarah says, crouching closer to me across the counter, “some women are hot garbage.” “That’s my sister!” Caleb protests. “You know who she is,” Sarah fires back from behind gritted teeth.

“This is who you are, baby. And it’s beautiful.” She stepped back, admiring the row of us girls with a fondness that still sits lodged in my heart. “You can’t change anything by hiding it. You’ll just look back on memories and realize you tried to erase yourself. And how sad that would be.”

“You’d have wicked secret handshakes.”

Bo laughs, deep and low, as the kid does another flip away from the probe’s view. “Seems like they want some privacy,” he says. “Oh my gosh, Mom and Dad-uh. Leave me alone,” I say like a moody teenager. “You guys are so annoying,” Bo adds in his own similar whine. We’re already so obnoxious. I love it. Probably more than I should.

“You’re perfect, Win,” Bo says, as easily as breathing. “Of course I’d want them to have every part of you.”

thought you knew, Win. I thought it was so painfully obvious how I feel about you. What I want here. I thought that’s why you set such clear boundaries. I thought you didn’t feel the same.”