Chapter Text
daniela has always been a storm of emotions in sophia’s life. from the very first time sophia saw her, she was just a little girl. daniela was someone she couldn’t reach… then sophia fell in love with her, falling with no safety net. daniela was warm, she was the pure sun that warmed the blood beneath her skin, she was the strong, slender arms around her waist and shoulders, she was the one throwing rocks at her window from afar so she could sneak into sophia’s room while her parents were asleep. she was everything.
daniela was everything, everything sophia had ever dreamed about before she even knew what she truly wanted. she made sophia hers so naturally that sophia believed she had been born for it, born to meet her, to be held in her arms. of course, that was a lifetime ago. she was just a little girl back then.
now, the sun didn’t warm sophia’s blood anymore, not in the office of a therapist. it was too… white. impersonal. a comfortable couch she sat on beside daniela — a safe distance between them —, a leather chair across from them, a few plants scattered around the office in a weak attempt to make the place feel more comfortable, more alive. maybe it would’ve worked if the tension between sophia and her ex-wife couldn’t be cut with a knife.
neither of them dared to say a single word. both knew where it would lead — screams, yelling, tears, anger. that was the only way things ever ended between them.
“avanzinis…” the man sitting in the leather chair spoke. he looked to be in his late forties, glasses resting on the bridge of his large nose. he smelled like expensive cologne worn by men a few good years younger than him, but his face was gentle somehow, and it made sophia feel slightly at ease. if google said he had helped a thousand couples and ex-couples learn how to cooperate, who was she to say otherwise?
and sophia definitely couldn’t let daniela think she had been right about therapy after all.
“not avanzinis. she’s avanzini, but we got divorced a few months ago,” sophia interrupted, irritation clear in her voice despite the polite tone.
the man glanced down at the papers in his hands. daniela sighed in annoyance.
“okay,” he said simply, a careful smile reaching his lips. “maybe first names will do, then, sophia? would that be alright for both of you?” he asked.
the mention of her first name added a personal feeling to the whole session, to the whole thing both of them considered bullshit. but what wouldn’t sophia do for the seven-year-old girl she loved more than life itself? the little girl with a smile full of missing teeth, daniela’s dimples and curly hair, sophia’s skin tone and soft eyes and her ex-wife’s love for sports. nothing. there was probably nothing sophia wouldn’t do for elena avanzini, including spending one hour every week with her other mother trying to deal with the fact that she had a child with the person she hated most.
doctor bennett spoke again, setting the folders down on his lap before adjusting his notebook instead. his tone turned serious. not harsh, not angry, but serious.
“for starters, i need to understand the dynamics of your relationship.”
the worst possible, sophia thought, but she didn’t say a word.
“you’re both quite younger than most people i see, i must say.”
“we are. classic story, knocked her up at sixteen,” daniela said lightly… too lightly. sophia hated how at ease she looked. wasn’t she nervous talking about their marital problems to a random man for an hour? wasn’t she nervous to be there with her ex-wife? did she feel nothing at all?
“do you have to say it like that?” the words left sophia’s mouth before she could stop herself. she hated the way daniela spoke about it so crudely, as if it were some funny story. it wasn’t. not even close.
daniela looked at her tense posture, a white shirt that highlighted her slim shoulders, black pants that looked far too elegant on her for such a casual outfit. far too… beautiful. had she dressed like that during the marriage? if she had, daniela probably would’ve worked a little harder to keep her happy by her side.
“don’t fucking start,” daniela said, her words final.
but sophia had no intention of obeying.
doctor bennett interrupted before sophia could even begin.
“you have a daughter, right?”
the question was directed at sophia, and she tore her angry eyes away from daniela to look at him instead. her shoulders relaxed slightly, and she nodded proudly before finally finding her voice.
“i do. we do. elena,” she said.
“we’re here because of her, doc,” daniela spoke, and this time her voice didn’t annoy sophia. much. “we can’t be in the same room without wanting to kill each other, but for elena… we have to do it, so we want to learn how to… cooperate.”
sophia thought she could’ve explained it better, could’ve used better words, but for once, she held her tongue.
the doctor hummed, jotting something down on his notebook before looking up again.
“i see. well, that’s good to hear. she’s more than enough reason for you two to want to make this work.”
every word he said was true. remembering the way elena looked at sophia after she argued with her mami was enough to remind her why she was there.
daniela stayed silent too. she probably felt the same way.
“i’m going to ask a few questions, and i do hope this doesn’t turn into another petty argument. it’s simply so i can understand the dynamics between you.”
sophia held her breath for a second.
“how did you meet?”
suddenly, she was back in first grade, so many years earlier.
the classroom walls were covered with colorful drawings — flowers, butterflies, cars, sunny days. mrs. mitchell wore a soft, sweet smile as she introduced the new students, and sophia watched them with wide eyes. maybe one of them could become her friend. maybe they wouldn’t laugh at her missing tooth or her messy drawings like some of the other kids did when she first arrived from the philippines around three years ago.
by now, she had adjusted well enough, but she still ate lunch alone whenever her only two friends were sick or stayed home because of lice.
“i’m jacob. i came from california,” a boy said. he had blonde hair, blue eyes. he was tall, taller than most boys in her class, athletic too, sophia could tell. he had dimples, and the girls beside her whispered to each other about how cute he was.
and he was cute, in fact.
but sophia’s eyes stayed glued to the girl beside him instead.
she had messy curly hair, dimples, earrings, a yellow shirt under a denim jacket, and bright hazel eyes.
“i’m daniela. i’m from atlanta,” she said naturally. she wasn’t shy. she looked at everyone while standing in front of the class, and she didn’t tremble, didn’t flinch. her voice was loud enough, and her small hands didn’t fidget with the straps of her backpack. she was steady. she was confident.
“hi.”
a smile touched sophia’s lips, and she waved at both of them along with the rest of the class, but her eyes stayed on the girl.
daniela.
daniela and sophia didn’t become friends the way sophia had hoped back then. daniela was too confident, and soon enough she was friends with the most popular kids in school. sophia wasn’t bullied, wasn’t some weirdo or super nerd, she was just… herself. a few friends, a few interests, good grades. everyone knew her, but no one cared about her particularly.
including daniela.
until she turned sixteen.
she got her braces off and finally learned how to brush her hair properly before school. she started wearing a little makeup, her breasts filled out slightly, she got her nails and eyebrows done, developed a sense of style, and suddenly, life wasn’t about who sat next to who during lunch anymore.
it was about who had kissed who.
and people wanted to kiss her.
suddenly, boys came to her like moths to a flame. kids she had known her entire life started looking at her differently in the hallways, whispering to each other whenever she passed.
she caught daniela’s eye.
daniela let her curly hair grow out and dyed it blonde. she joined the girls’ soccer team and now attracted more attention from girls than jacob had ever dreamed of, but her confidence stayed exactly the same, just like the dimples on her cheeks, the freckles scattered across her nose, the smile always sitting on her face.
she was still daniela.
she threw a paper ball at sophia’s head during history class. ms. wilson had put on some boring war movie on the projector, and most of the class was half asleep. sophia was taking notes in her notebook when she felt the small impact against her head.
she looked back at daniela with furrowed brows.
daniela smiled.
sophia’s heart sped up, and she quickly turned back toward the screen again.
a minute later, she felt daniela’s presence behind her.
“hi, laforteza,” she whispered.
some nerd a few seats away hissed out a quiet “shh.” daniela ignored it completely.
“hi, dani,” sophia whispered back. she hardly ever called people by their last names, even though she knew daniela’s full name, including her middle one.
sophia glanced at her again.
there was already a smile pulling at daniela’s lips.
“you’re going to jacob’s party tonight, right?” her voice was low, and her eyes stayed fixed on sophia’s plump lips, making heat rush to her cheeks. daniela knew exactly what she was doing. she knew it all too well.
but in daniela’s defense, sophia had only recently learned that her lips were soft and full in a way people found attractive, so now she wore gloss on them all the time.
“party? i wasn’t invited,” she whispered back, and once again, the nerd nearby hissed out a more irritated “shhh.”
daniela rolled her eyes, completely ignoring it again.
“what do you need, a written invitation?” she chuckled softly. “i’m inviting you, pretty.”
sophia's heart flipped happily in her chest. her cheeks turned bright red, and she bit her lip to stop herself from giggling like some stupid high school girl.
turns out “jacob’s party” was nothing more than a bunch of dumb teenagers sneaking into an old basement to drink cheap beer, listen to loud music, and pretend they were cooler than they actually were.
turns out daniela thought sophia’s gloss looked really, really pretty and ended up kissing her before she went home.
and now, eight years later, there she was. not in a dimly lit basement that smelled like weed, but in an impersonal white office, being analyzed by an older man because she couldn’t find it in herself to respect the same woman who had kissed her that night, the same woman she had raised a child with.
it felt strange.
a weird feeling bloomed slowly in her chest. the affection she once felt for daniela was nowhere to be found now, but the memories still comforted her somehow. the careless laugh, the brush of shy fingers through sophia’s hair while daniela tried to make herself look taller somehow.
the memory still warmed her blood like sunlight beneath her skin.
“how long after you started dating did you get pregnant?” doctor bennett asked.
sophia was pulled out of her thoughts. daniela must’ve answered the previous question for her.
“only a few months,” sophia replied.
“so… you were really young, i see,” he said quietly, writing something down on his notebook before looking up at them again, his expression carefully studying the both of them. “how did you first react to the pregnancy?”
the office walls faded away…
in their place was the hallway of sophia’s high school. she stood alone, arms wrapped around herself as if she could somehow make herself smaller, small enough to disappear. she waited for daniela’s practice to end, her heart pounding so hard against her ribs that it felt like she had run a marathon herself.
but it wasn’t sophia who had spent two hours running across the field, scoring goals and dribbling with every fiber of her being while wondering why her girlfriend — who had promised she would come watch — never showed up.
when practice finally ended, the exhausted girls headed toward the locker room. daniela lagged a few steps behind, stretching her neck to glance toward the bleachers, searching for her girl.
then she spotted sophia standing alone in the hallway.
the other girls had already disappeared into the locker room. it was just the two of them now.
daniela walked over to her. her hair was tied up in a messy bun, sweat running down her face, a bottle of cold water clutched in her right hand. worry filled her eyes the moment she noticed the state sophia was in — red eyes, anxiety written all over her expression, her pretty bottom lip nearly raw from how hard she had been biting it.
“what’s wrong, baby?”
daniela stepped closer, and sophia nearly melted into her, immediately clutching at her shoulders while her girlfriend wrapped an arm around her waist.
“you… dani… i…”
it took sophia nearly ten minutes to finally tell her.
she was pregnant.
two positive tests. a late period. morning sickness. every sign had been there.
daniela blinked a few times. her gaze drifted away from sophia’s face, almost like she was thinking, almost like looking directly at her would hurt somehow — seeing her cry, seeing how terrified she was when there was nothing daniela could do to change it. or maybe she was annoyed by sophia’s trembling voice, by her words, by the way she had just changed the course of both their lives.
for a few long seconds, daniela avoided looking at her entirely.
“dani… dani, say something,” sophia murmured.
she cupped daniela’s face with both hands, forcing her to look into her eyes. sophia’s own gaze was teary and desperate now, and the moment daniela truly saw it, her expression softened.
“it’s okay,” daniela whispered, maybe to sophia, maybe to herself. “it’s okay… it’s okay. we’re gonna be okay.”
sophia hugged her tightly, both arms wrapped around daniela so firmly that daniela suddenly realized how strong she actually was. sophia pressed her face against daniela’s sweaty shirt, and after a second, she felt daniela’s arms wrap around her too — weaker than hers, more hesitant, but still there.
daniela let sophia cry against her chest. she kept whispering in a frightened, insecure voice that everything would be okay, over and over again until sophia finally started believing her.
sophia believed her.
perhaps that had been her second mistake.
she believed daniela and the lies she told just to make her feel better. perhaps that was exactly why she had ended up in doctor bennett’s white office years later, sitting only inches away from her while avoiding looking at her entirely.
“it wasn’t easy. but we made it work.” daniela finished quietly.
“for a while,” sophia added. “but we’re not here to relive the past, doc. we’re here to move forward.”
sophia could practically feel daniela rolling her eyes at the way she spoke, and only then did she realize how bossy — maybe even overbearing — she sounded.
“yeah, move forward,” daniela muttered lightly, as if she were talking about the weather. “imagine living with someone who thinks she knows more about therapy than an actual doctor. imagine that.”
“yeah, because living with someone childish enough to talk about me like i’m not sitting right here was fucking easy,” sophia replied with an ironic chuckle.
she caught the spark in daniela’s eyes immediately.
sophia had always known exactly how to make her angry. honestly, it was almost impressive after all these years.
“it was easy to live with me. i wasn’t yelling at you over every tiny mistake like a bitch,” daniela replied flatly, like she was stating an undeniable fact instead of throwing an insult.
sophia stared at her, offended.
“you really can’t control that big mouth of yours, can you?” she muttered under her breath, trying to keep her voice calm.
daniela laughed softly, crossing one leg over the other.
“well, there was a time you didn’t complain about my mouth on you, sophi—”
doctor bennett interrupted before sophia’s cheeks could turn completely red.
“well,” he cleared his throat, “i think i already understand quite a bit about your dynamic.” he gave them both a careful smile. “same time next week?”