A Storm Is Brewing

Law Awards Part. 3

Leah POV

The following days brought a glimmer of hope, as if the universe had heard my silent pleas and rewarded me with some kind of sign that things might be getting better. I had made a deliberate effort to give Sophie the space she needed without making a fuss about it. Yet, when she allowed me to look into her eyes for more than a second, I could sense that same sadness lingering. I could see that she felt guilty; I wasn't sure if that guilt was from saying she hated being a mum or whether it was coming from a place of not being able to feel anything other than that, even after we'd talked.

Sophie had always been the one with the magic touch, the one who effortlessly mended broken hearts and shattered dreams. She had an uncanny ability to see the beauty in the broken and to find hope in the darkest of places. She had been the one to find ways to overcome the hurdles we had faced up until now. In any other time, those qualities about her would have been some of my favourites, but in that moment, I could only think of the fear that I might not have the strength to fill those shoes. I had to try, though; I knew I had to try.

Simple words of affirmation wouldn't suffice as a remedy for her worries. I knew that because, when it was me, all the reassurances in the world couldn't have convinced me that the things my head was telling me weren't true. What made it more difficult was the conflict between making her feel like I still found her attractive and being too much. If I repeatedly told her or touched her, I risked drawing more attention to the parts of herself that she didn't like right now.

As the morning of the day before the awards came, our attendance at the event had never seemed so uncertain. Sophie, with her desperate determination to avoid anyone seeing her, had exhausted every possible excuse, from pretending she felt a cold coming on to making a deal out of an underslept and overly groggy Teddy. Again, I couldn't say anything; I just had to let her ride this wave of negativity. A vulnerable wife and a tired baby weren't the only people I had to contend with that night; Mum had been messaging persistently, unable to understand why I seemed so nonchalant about the arrangements for the following evening.

I couldn't tell her, though. If I told her, she would only try to make things better but probably end up making them worse by subtly telling Sophie how great she looked or something similar. Instead, I decided to go with the excuse that we had to wait for confirmation from a babysitter. I promised her that I would send a message to the babysitter before the night came to an end.

She didn't know it, but her reply would be the thing to jolt my mind to the place it needed to be to help me begin to rebuild the things Sophie had lost within herself.

Mum
Only a few more years, and Liv will be able to babysit for you! Xx

That was it. Liv was the answer to all of this. Maybe Liv's problem hadn't been about beauty or the exact same things as Sophie's, but as a whole, her sadness had been about feeling lost. She didn't feel like she was anything but a burden after being the one everyone had placed such importance on for years on end. Liv had felt lost, just as Sophie did now.

Flashback:

After our conversation about Liv's upset, Sophie and I vowed to bring her over a few weeks later and remind her that her place hadn't changed. Rhys had tried and failed to tell us not to pander to her attention-seeking, but something within me still didn't trust his intentions. It was almost like he didn't want Sophie and I to fix that broken bond that Liv felt we had with her.

Sophie, Liv, and Teddy came to one of our games at the Emirates, and we thought it would be a reminder of the times we had shared before Teddy came along and show her that we could still do those things, even if there was a baby to contend with throughout.