The Best Worst Thing: An Intimate Romance of Infertility, Betrayal, and Second Chances

by Lauren Okie

It was just like IVF, wasn’t it? Divorce? A whole cottage industry designed to make her feel like she had control of her life, like she could maybe have a second chance at it, when she did not. When she could not. It was a business. A machine. And every time it chewed her up and spit her out, there’d be yet another woman—shit out of luck, with a little money to burn—waiting in line.

“Hey, Nicole?” She turned around. “Just so we’re clear,” he said, “you’re the one who’s out of Gabe’s league.”

“You know how when you read, you’re just kind of floating? Like, you can feel your legs under the covers and your hands on the pages, but you’re not quite there? You’re halfway between your own bed and some other world, and everything blends together, and you kind of just … hover? You’re kind of just … nowhere?”

“I want to kiss you, Nicole,” Logan said. Her whole body jolted. “You know that, right?” She nodded. Every inch of her seized, and she just nodded. “I had a feeling, yeah.” She pressed her foot against his a little harder. He pressed back. “You just tell me when, then.” “Okay.”

“You’re not mad? You don’t think I’m a fraud?” “Nicole,” he said. “I know you. I’ve known you for years. I don’t know why you keep acting like I don’t.”

“I think you’re a good person,” he said. “I think you’re going to be a great mother. I think you’re loyal and smart and really funny. There’s not much you could do to change my mind about that. And that includes not sleeping with me, okay?”

But they never want to know what it feels like. Nobody wants to hear about pain they can’t make go away.”

Thank you for never making me feel like an idiot.” He smirked. “Thank you for the exact opposite.” “For making you feel like an idiot?” “Yeah,” he said. “Every damn day, since the very beginning.”

“In any other universe,” he said, “I would. But I can’t get this wrong with you. And I’m not going to sleep with you for the first time because I’m sad or I’m angry or I hate my boss or anything like that. When we do this, you’re going to know exactly how much I want you, exactly what I’m doing here, and exactly what kind of man I am. I don’t want there to be any confusion about that, ever again.”

“There are worse things,” he said, “than listening to Nicole Speyer beg me to screw her brains out every night. I’ll leave it at that.”

“Every single time you have said my name or laughed at my dumb jokes or looked my way, I have wanted you. I have wanted this.”

“You have to understand. My life’s just a mess right now.” He stared at her, frowning. “Nicole,” he said. “It’s my life too.”

“What have I ever done,” he said, “to make you think I needed you to be anything other than exactly who you are?”

“Because I’m crazy about you! Because you are perfect for me! Because you are everything I have ever wanted!”

“I don’t have a time machine, Nicole. I can’t give you the do-over you want. Can’t give you back your twenties, or make it so you never left New York, never married Gabe, never left your job. Can’t fix the hell that you went through, or the doctors or lawyers or people you loved who let you down. But I can be here with you now. And I can tell you with every bone in my body that I am absolutely, one hundred percent all in. That I am not scared. That I would pick whatever absurd thing we’ve got over anything else, every single time.”

I had a feeling that you were going to be the man of my dreams, okay? That’s why I showed up. That’s the answer to your question. I had a hunch that it was you. I had a hunch, and I was right.

There are a million ways for your body to let you down, but there are even more ways to fall in love. We are so much more than what our organs can or cannot do, and we were put on this Earth, above all else, to love.