“Does she know?” I don’t even recognize my own voice. The break in it, the tone of it, the complete disbelief owning it.
“The doctor’s spoken to her, yes,” she says with a shake of her head, and I realize in that moment Rylee is dealing with this all by herself, taking this all in … alone. The baby she’d give anything for—was told she would never have—she actually had.
And lost.
Again.
How did she take it? What is this going to do to her?
What is this going to do to us?
Everything is spiraling out of fucking control, and I just need it to be in control. Need the ground to stop fucking moving beneath me. Know the only thing that can right my world again is her. I need the feel of her skin beneath my fingers to assuage all of this chaos rioting through me.
Rylee.
“I need to see her.”
“She’s resting right now but you can go sit with her if you’d like,” she says as she stands.
I just nod and suck in my breath as she starts to walk down the corridor. My dad’s hand is still on my shoulder, and his silent show of support remains until we walk farther down the hallway to the door of her room.
“I’ll be just outside, if you need me. I’ll wait for Becks,” my dad says, and I just nod because the lump in my throat is so fucking huge that I can’t breathe. I walk through the doorway and stop dead in my tracks.
Rylee.
It’s the only word I can hold on to as my mind tries to process everything.
Rylee. She looks so small, so fucking pale, so much like a little girl lost in a bed of white sheets. When I walk to her side I have to remind myself to breathe because all I want to do is touch her, but when I reach out I’m so fucking scared that if I do, she’s going to break. Fucking shatter. And I’ll never get her back.
But I can’t help it because if I thought I felt helpless sitting in the back of the police cruiser, then I feel completely useless now. Because I can’t fix this. Can’t charge in and save the fucking day, but this … I just don’t know what to do next, what to say, where to go from here.
And it’s fucking ripping me to shreds.
I stand and look at her, take all of her in—from her pale bee-stung lips, to the soft-as-sin skin that I know smells like vanilla, especially in the spot beneath her ear; and I know this feisty woman full of her smart-mouthed defiance and non-negotiables, owns me.
Fucking owns me.
Every goddamn part of me. In our short time together she’s broken down fucking walls I never even knew I’d spent a lifetime building. And now without these walls, I’m fucking helpless without her, because when you feel nothing for so long—when you choose to be numb—and then learn to feel again, you can’t turn it off. You can’t make it stop. All I know right now, looking at her absolute fucking beauty inside and out, is that I need her more than anything. I need her to help me navigate through this foreign fucking territory before I drown in the knowledge that I did this to her.
I’m the reason she’s going to have to make a choice, one I’m not even sure I want her to make any more.
I sink into the seat beside her bed and give in to my one and only weakness now, the need to touch her. I gently place her limp hand between both of mine, and even though she’s asleep and doesn’t know I’m touching her, I still feel it—still feel that spark when we connect.
I love you.
The words flicker through my mind, and I gasp as every part of me revolts at the words I think, but not the feelings I feel. I focus on the fucking disconnect, on shoving those words that only represent hurt out, because I can’t have them taint this moment right now. I can’t have thoughts of him mixed with thoughts of her.
I try to find my breath again as the tears well and my lips press against the palm of her hand. My heart pounds and my head knows she just might have scaled that final fucking steel wall, opened it up like fucking Pandora’s box so all the evil locked forever within, could take flight and exit my soul with just one thing left.
Fucking hope.
The question is, what the fuck am I hoping for now?
My head is foggy and I’m so very tired. I just want to sink back into this warmth. Ah, that’s so nice.
And then it hits me. The blood, the dizziness, the pain, the rectangular tiles on the ceiling as the stretcher rushes down the hallway, once again foreshadowing the doctor’s words I never expected to hear again. I open my eyes, hoping to be at home and hoping this is just a bad dream, but then I see the machines and feel the cold drip of the IV. I feel the pain in my abdomen and the stiff salt where tears have stained my cheeks.
The tears I’d sobbed when I heard the words confirming what I’d already known. And even though I’d felt the life slipping out of me, it was still heartbreaking when the doctor confirmed it. I screamed and raged, told her she was mistaken—wrong—because even though she was bringing my body back to life, her words were stopping my heart. And then hands held me down as I fought the reality, the pain, the devastation until the needle was pressed into my IV and darkness claimed me once again.
I keep my eyes closed, trying to feel past the emptiness echoing around inside of me, trying to push through the haze of disbelief, the unending grief I can’t even comprehend. Trying to silence the imaginary cries I hear now but couldn’t hear last night as my baby died.
A tear trickles down my cheek. I’m so lost to everything I feel, so I focus on every single feeling as it makes the slow descent because I feel just the same.
Alone. Fading. Running away without any certainty but the unknown.