Page 70 of Like First Love, Again

Pulling Mia into her arms, Rita held her the way Mia wished her own mother could. Rocking from side to side, gently rubbing her back, Rita let her cry until she finally reached the bottom of what had seemed like an endless pit of grief.

When Mia finally spoke, her voice was hoarse and barely above a whisper. “People move on and forget. They’re allowed to, I guess. The world keeps spinning. They go back to work. They stop asking.” She pulled back just enough to look at Rita, her eyes red and raw and mirroring Mia’s pain. “But I can’t forget. I can’t escape my own body. I can’t stop feeling this emptiness. This, like, hyper-awareness of what’s missing. Like a phantom limb, or, I don’t know.” Her jaw and chest and throat ached from crying, and she was suddenly so tired she wondered how strange it would be if she laid down.

Rita didn’t flinch. She didn’t offer a correction or a platitude. She just reached up and brushed a strand of hair from Mia’s forehead, her touch so gentle it undid her all over again.

“Talk about it every day if you need to,” she said, sharp but warm in that way only moms seemed to manage. “Call me crying at two in the morning if that’s what your heart needs. Sit at my table and say their name over and over until it doesn’t burn as much. I’ll be here,mija. Always. No matter what. I will always love you like my very own.”

Mia’s breath caught in her throat. It was the kind of promise she hadn’t known she’d been waiting for.

She didn’t speak again right away. There was nothing to say. She just leaned in and let her head rest on Rita’s shoulder, letting herself be held. And for the first time since the losses—since the bleeding, the hospital, the silence—she let her body go soft. Let herself be comforted.

For the first time in so long, healing felt possible. Like she might really mend the gaping emptiness rather than just pave over it.

But even as warmth settled into the long abandoned spaces in her heart, something cold and familiar curled at the edges of her thoughts. Mia sat up, picking at a loose thread on the hem of her sleeve while she tried to formulate her confession.

“I don’t know if I can try again,” she admitted, hating the truth she’d been avoiding. “Not just physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. I don’t know if I’ll ever be brave enough to risk that kind of pain again.”

Rita nodded, like she’d known that was coming.

“And if it’s not me,” Mia went on, “if it’s Tori… I don’t know if I could handle that either. Watching her go through it. The fear, the waiting. What if it happens again?” She swallowed. “What if I can’t give her what she wants? What if I keep her from being a mother?”

The fears had been sitting in her chest for weeks—months—but saying it out loud made it real. Made it impossible to run from. She looked at Rita and waited for her disapproval.

Instead, empathy lined the corners of her eyes. “Mia,” she said with infinite patience. “Tori has never once talked to me about wanting children.”

Mia shook her head, but didn’t get the chance to argue.

“Not once. Not when she was little, not as a teenager, not as an adult. She’s never said shedidn’twant them either, but it’s just never been a thing she focused on. You know what she has talked to me about?”

Mia dropped her attention to her lap. Rita waited until she looked at her to continue.

“You. Over and over. Even when you weren’t talking. Even when she thought she’d never see you again.” Rita reached forher again, interlacing their fingers while she spoke. She was so sure. So steady.

“If that time ever comes, if you two decide you want to grow your family, there are so many ways to do it. Not all of them require biology. And none of them require rushing. You hear me?”

Mia nodded, but her chest still ached.

“You don’t have to carry anything alone, mija. You don’t have to have all the answers today. Or tomorrow.”

Tears welled again, but this time they didn’t sting. They just sat there, blurring her vision.

“I just don’t want to be the reason she doesn’t get something she wants.” Mia spoke the last of her fears.

“And what if what she wants most is you?” Rita asked rhetorically, her lips quirking into a smile like she’d already seen the future and knew it was going to be okay.

Mia didn’t respond. She just let her head rest on Rita’s shoulder again. Allowed herself to feel hopeful.

Rita gave her one more squeeze, then leaned back and dabbed at the corner of her eyes with the edge of her thumb like it was no big deal. Like they hadn’t just shared something sacred.

“Now,” she said, voice lighter, “go tell Tori we’re out of ice.”

Laughing the kind of delirious laugh that only came with exhaustion, Mia gave her a knowing look. “Ice, huh?” She was still smiling. “Now?”

“Of course! When else?” she teased, walking the short distance to the on-suite where they both tried to hide grief’s fingerprints on their flushed faces and swollen eyes.

Before she walked out to find Tori, Mia gave Rita the hug she would have given her own mother. With a heart floating with gratitude, Mia whisperedthank you, even if the words could never be enough to match what Rita had given her.

Thirty-Six

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