Forever with You

I blinked. “I . . .”

“You know what? This isn’t the time for this conversation.”

My stomach twisted. “Why not?”

He shot me a disbelieving look. “You don’t need to deal with anything else.”

Here it comes, I thought. “I’m okay,” I told him, straightening my shoulders. “What conversation do you want to have?”

“You’re okay?”

“Yes.”

His eyes flared. “You ca

“I’m okay.” My heart was pounding. “What do you want to talk about?”

Shaking his head, he started to walk toward the table—to his helmet. He was leaving, and panic took root in the pit of my stomach. I stepped in front of him. “Why won’t you tell me what you want to say?”

“Why?” The hollows of his cheeks flushed. “Because I’m trying to be a decent human being right now, Stephanie. I’m not trying to dump more shit on your head when you don’t need it right now. I’m—”

“What?” I snapped, frustration and confusion swirling in me until it turned into bitter-edged anger. “You’re what?”

“I’m pissed! I’m fucking disappointed,” he shot back, and I flinched. “How could you deal with that by yourself?” He stepped toward me, his hands closing at his sides. “How could you not think that I would’ve—I would’ve fucking dropped everything to be there. I mean, did you even think of me when this was happening? Did it even cross your damn mind that I would want to be there for you? For myself?”

My mouth opened but there were no words. “I . . . didn’t think when I started having the pains. I drove myself to the hospital and I—”

“I get that. Okay? I can understand that part, but you wait until today to ask me to come over via fucking text message, are you kidding— Okay.” He drew himself up straight, drawing in a deep breath as his entire body tensed. “I’m doing this right now. You don’t need this,” he said, stepping around me. “I don’t need to do this right now. Okay? I need to clear my head. You need to clear your head.”

I folded my arms across my waist. “I’m sorry.”

Nick spun on me. “Stop apologizing, Stephanie. What happened isn’t your fault.” He reached out, but my body had a mind of its own. It recoiled from his words, because how could this not be my fault? His hands touched air, and the skin around his lips whitened. “What the—”

“Please just leave,” I whispered. “Please. Just go.”

“Steph—”

“Please.” My control stretched, thi

Nick stopped moving. He might have stopped breathing, and for a long, tense moment there was nothing but silence. I closed my eyes, hearing the helmet scrapping off the table, and a heartbeat later the front door slammed shut.

Chapter 28

Nick had walked out, not on me, I would discover, but had simply left the apartment. He’d called Roxy and remained in the parking lot until she showed up some fifteen minutes later.

I knew this because when she knocked on my door, I heard his motorcycle roar to life.

Roxy stepped in before I had a chance to say one word. “I know what’s happened, and Nick doesn’t want you to be by yourself right now. You shouldn’t be by yourself right now.”

“I’m—”

“Yeah. You’re fine. He said you kept saying that.” Roxy shrugged off her jacket. “You might as well go ahead and close that door, because I’m not leaving.”

There was a huge part of me that wanted to tell her to leave, but I was suddenly too tired to argue. Exhausted to the bone, I closed the door and then walked past her, to the couch. Sitting down, I picked up the quilt and dragged it over me, tucking it under my chin.

Roxy draped her coat over the back of the kitchen chair and made her way over. She didn’t speak as she sat on the other side of the couch, and I didn’t look at her. I stared at the TV screen, not really seeing it.

“I want to hug you right now,” she said, and the muscles all along my spine stiffened. “But you look like you might punch me if I did.”

I shook my head slowly. I wasn’t sure if I was agreeing or not.

She exhaled softly. “I don’t know what to say, Steph, other than I’m so, so sorry.”

Closing my eyes against the burn, I gripped the edges of the blanket. My stomach cramped and it was painful, but in a way, it was no match to the complete and utter devastation I felt. “I don’t get it,” I said after a moment.

“Get what?” she asked quietly.

I really didn’t know where I was going with any of this, but my tongue was moving and words were becoming attached to the pain bubbling up inside me. “I don’t get why it hurts so much. It’s not like I was even that far along, you know? I haven’t even told my boss yet. Maybe I shouldn’t have told anyone. I mean, I was just entering my second trimester.” A sharp slice of pain cut through me. “Actually, I probably wasn’t even close. The doctor at the hospital said that the ba—said that it probably stopped developing a week or more ago.”

And now that I’d said it out loud, things started to make sense. The exhaustion that I felt. The loss of whatever weight I had gained. “There had been signs,” I told her. I was starting to see white spots behind my closed eyelids. “Signs that I was losing . . . it, and I didn’t pay attention to them. I thought they were normal.”

“How would you know? You couldn’t,” Roxy argued. “And I know that miscarrying is common, Steph. It happens, and no one is to blame for it.”

No one was to blame? I wasn’t so sure. Maybe I hadn’t taken the pregnancy seriously. I know I missed taking the prenatal vitamins once. My diet could’ve been way healthier. And what if the baby hadn’t stopped developing, and if I paid attention to the pain last night instead of going to bed, could this miscarriage have been prevented?

The racing thoughts made me feel sick. I felt like . . . like I deserved this. Like some kind of punishment had been handed down. I’d messed up and I didn’t even know what I’d done.

Roxy scooted closer, placing her hand on my shoulder. “This isn’t your fault.”

I opened my tired eyes.

“These things happen,” she continued, her voice barely above a whisper. “I know that sounds lame right now and doesn’t help anything, but these things do happen, Steph, and no one is to blame.”

My gaze fell to the Christmas tree and my thoughts immediately drifted to the day I picked out the tree with Nick. How we’d roamed into the baby section and looked at all—

I cut those thoughts off as I inhaled sharply, but I couldn’t look away from the tree. God, was that really only two weeks ago? Was the baby even still alive then?

Roxy squeezed my shoulder. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing,” I whispered.

“Do you think you can eat?” she asked, and I shook my head. “What about something to drink? Or something for pain?” When I didn’t say anything, she dropped her hand. “I’m not leaving you, so you should make use of me being here.”

I pressed my lips together. “There’s nothing I need right now.”

A moment passed. “I don’t think that’s true. You need Nick right now.”

Sucking in a sharp breath, I stiffened.

“And he needs you right now,” she added.

I shook my head again. “He . . . he doesn’t need me.”

“He sounded like he was about ten seconds away from losing his shit.” Her eyes met mine when I looked at her. “Maybe you don’t need to hear that right now, but I’ve never really seen Nick upset. Ever. And he was really upset.”

“I don’t want him to be upset.” My voice was hoarse. “The last thing I wanted is for him to get hurt again. He’s lost . . .” I trailed off, partly because I didn’t want to share his personal business and because Katie’s words rushed back to haunt me.

You’re going to break his heart.