What Grows Dies Here

“You will be loved many times by many men,” Mihai repeated what she’d said, stuttering slightly on the words.

The woman kept speaking.

I was frozen in terror.

“You will only ever love one man,” Mihai translated. “And that man will be your destruction.”

My heart thundered.

“He will be your sun. Your stars. Your moon. Even though this man is darkness itself. Midnight personified. You will know the moment you meet him. And you will try to fight it, fight him.”

She was still speaking as Mihai struggled to catch up.

“But you will love him until you meet your death.”

My mouth was dry. I tried to lick my lips, but I found that I was paralyzed.

“It is up to you whether you spend your life with this man,” Mihai continued. “There is a chance that you will not. The stars have not decided yet.”

Although the woman kept speaking, Mihai stopped abruptly, as if he couldn’t say what was coming next.

“You will be a mother for only a short time,” he gasped. “Your child will not breathe air or know the warmth of your arms. You will never have another.”

The air thrummed with the silence that proceeded the prediction. I was numb, my stomach swirling, my head pounding.

Later, I would try to dismiss what she’d said over red wine with Mihai, but my voice would be weak, and my smiles would be hollow.

I’d try my very hardest to forget the words spoken to me that day, but they would haunt me forever.

Because I knew in my heart of hearts that they were true.

I was no longer in the in-between. No longer in the muffled silence of my memories.

I was back here. In horrific reality.

There was noise. A lot of it.

Voices. Sirens. Engines grunting. Beeping of machines.

There was pain.

A lot of it.

I didn’t focus on that, not for long.

“My baby,” I croaked, blinking at the ceiling of the emergency room.

That’s where I was, wasn’t I? An emergency room. I was sure I’d been in an ambulance just moments ago. Less than a minute ago I was on the sidewalk. Stella was screaming, she had been covered in blood. My blood.

I was losing time.

Time wasn’t anything, though. I’d gladly lose months, years, decades if I could keep her.

“My baby,” I called out louder now. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since I’d spoken the first time. Seconds? Minutes? Hours?

There was bright light. Noises. Voices shouting things about vitals, blood loss, surgery.

No one was listening to me.