SOPHIE BROOKS:
Party, hook-up, hangover, repeat.
I don't do rules, responsibility, or monogamy.
So when the chance to sleep with the hottest Olympian swimmer in the country presents itself, you can be damn sure I take it.
And sneak out before he wa...
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The first thing I notice when I wake is Jayden's cologne.
I'm groggy and disoriented, as for a moment, I try to remember if we finally gave in to the desire. A small smile of victory begins forming on my face as I recall Jayden pressing me against the kitchen counter.
And then-
It's like a bucket of ice-cold water is poured over me, and immediately my memory is crystal clear.
Everything I showed him. Everything I told him. Everything, everything, everything.
Fuck.
I'm waiting for the regret to come. My muscles tense, preparing for the onslaught of discomfort and self-hatred that is sure to hit in a second, but nothing happens.
There's a dull ache in my head and a sharp pain in my chest, but no regret. In one conversation, I managed to destroy every single barrier I'd built protecting my heart. Not from the outside but from the reality of my past.
For years I have meticulously removed all the reminders of my life before Michigan. Jen hasn't been allowed to mention anything from our childhood in Oklahoma. I took all the memorabilia that I didn't know how to toss and hid them away in a box in the back of my closet. I even closed off the memories. Locked them in a safe in my head and refused to think about them.
And now the lock is broken, and they're all there.
First day of college.
The first time I rode Max.
The ten thousand times Jen and I played house.
When I met Brad.
The hospital.
Oh god. I press my eyes together tightly, lights dancing behind my closed lids, as I attempt to hide from the pain that slashes at me.
I make an effort not to let it affect my breathing so that I won't alert Jayden to the mental war I'm fighting right next to him.
I'm there in the doctor's office that day when she told me I had cancer. She was so quick to tell me that this wasn't a death sentence, that it wasn't the end of the world. But the second she said the word hysterectomy, my brain shut down.
Sometimes, in the rare moments when I couldn't keep the thoughts at bay, I wondered how much of that Sophie was me. How much of it stemmed from me, from my soul, and how much had been a product of my upbringing.
Nurture vs. nature.
Honestly, I don't know.
From when I was a little girl, I was expected to become like my mom, following in her footsteps. It was the path laid out before me. Grow up, get married, have kids.
That was the goal.
So it's easy to presume that any dreams I had for my future were anchored in that. In those expectations placed on me from such a young age.
