She sighed. “I’m exhausted, Low. I need some time alone before all hell breaks loose. And this would give you a chance to spend some time with kids your own age.”

She was dismissing me again. Sending me away with a smile. I watched as she detached the splash pan and headed for the bucket of clay refuse. She dumped the mud into the pail, then rinsed the tray in the sink. Her expression was weary but content, like we’d just had a normal conversation, like she hadn’t just stabbed me in the heart. She turned the water off and faced me.

“And then, after the baby’s born, we can legitimize things.”

I’m embarrassed to say that her words filled me with hope. I wasn’t sure what she meant, but as a girl raised by multiple parents, I knew there were possibilities. I could be Freya’s girlfriend. Or Freya and Max’s girlfriend. I’d only recently felt stirrings of sexual desire, but I wanted to be a part of this. Whatever this was.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and . . . I’d like you to be our nanny.”

Fuck.

She smiled at me as she pumped lotion into her hands, worked it between her fingers. “We’re so comfortable with you. And you know so much about babies. We’d pay you, of course. And then your parents couldn’t be upset.”

What I felt in that moment was a disappointment so crushing I could scarcely breathe. For the first time, I knew the truth. Freya didn’t see me as a friend or a soul mate. She viewed me as an employee. A kid she could hire to take care of her brat while she worked out and got her nails done and hiked/drank wine/had lunch with her real friend, Jamie. Her #bestfriend. I was not an emotional person, not prone to tears and outbursts, but I felt my chin wobble.

She was watching me, waiting for a response. I would tell her that I knew the truth about her baby’s father. I would demand that she let me move in with her, insist that she treat me like a friend, an equal. Freya would be angry at first—I knew this about her. She would scream and yell, throw pottery at me or even slap me. But then she would take me back. She’d have no choice.

But she wouldn’t love me; not the way I wanted to be loved.

“You’re hurt,” Freya said.

She knew me after all. She could read my pain.

Freya moved toward me. “I still want you to be my photographer, Low. We’ll still do our photo shoots when you’re not taking care of the baby. You can take pictures of the kid, too. You’ll be my nanny and my artistic partner.”

I croaked a single word in response. “Okay.”