Forget Me Not

Take a breath.

“Livi…” My name falls from his lips like a plea as if he’s begging for this to not be true. As if somehow, he could change the past. “Baby, I’m sorry.” I look up, preparing to correct him for using the term of endearment he just can’t seem to shake, when I meet his watery green eyes. I’m not a stranger to Bennett’s tears, especially over this, but seeing him this way still guts me.

We’d mourned the loss of both children with more tears than I thought were possible. The second more so than the first.

“How…how far along were we?” he asks.

“I feel like I should back up a second and start from the beginning. It took us a while to get pregnant in the first place. I’m having some trouble placing exactly where your memory loss starts, but it was about two years ago that we started trying.” I narrow my eyes, trying to remember exactly when we decided we were going to try for a baby. “As you know, we were always a very sexual couple, so I don’t think we necessarily started having more sex, but I went off the pill and we just started trying. In the beginning, we didn’t think anything of it. It’s common for it to take a while when you’ve been on birth control for so long. But then the first few months turned to six and nine and every time I took a test, I saw so much disappointment on your face. I felt like such a failure…”

“You’re not. I never would have thought that,” he interrupts and I nod.

“I know that now, and I probably knew it then, but it’s not something I could control. My mind was so messed up during that time. I knew you wanted a baby, and all I felt was self-loathing that I couldn’t give it to you. I was scared you’d eventually leave me if I couldn’t give you what you wanted.” My heart feels like it’s about to beat out of my chest as I speak the words I’ve never spoken to Bennett. I don’t know why I’m letting myself be so vulnerable with him. Maybe because this is Bennett pre-miscarriages. The Bennett that believes I walk on water. The one that believes I can do anything. He hasn’t seen me when I felt my weakest. When I wondered how it was possible that he still loved me.

“I would never have left you. I can’t live without you. I want—wanted a baby, yes, but I wanted your baby. We would have figured something else out. Did we even see anyone? A specialist?” His brows are furrowed and his lips are fixed into a hard line.

“No, because eventually…” I let out a breath. “Eventually, I got pregnant.” A smile ghosts over my lips despite this morbid trip down memory lane, because the memory of peeing on that stick and seeing those two pink lines for the first time in my life was something I’ll never forget. “We were so happy. It was like this dark cloud had been lifted and the sun was finally shining. A moment of light after some of my darkest months.” My smile fades and the tears rush to my eyes and before I can stop them, they’re sliding slowly down my cheeks. My left hand is still encased in Bennett’s, and I don’t see him letting me go, so I wipe my face with my right hand despite the fact that more tears are quickly forming. “I miscarried the first time at seven weeks.” I’m silent for a moment as I let the words settle between us. He doesn’t say anything in response so I continue. “They say it happens and there’s nothing to be necessarily concerned about and it’s common…but there is nothing natural about being pregnant and then just…not. It feels…fuck…inhumane.”

He moves closer to me and I fight the urge to move away. There’s still space between us, and I’m half expecting him to do what he always does and pull me into his lap, but he doesn’t.

I don’t know if the thought makes me

grateful or disappointed.

“The second time…was worse.” He stiffens next to me and his thumb drags slowly over my knuckles. The feeling makes me warm all over, and now I really want to be in his lap. I want comfort and I’m seeking it in what I know to be a warm embrace. I take a breath preparing myself for this part of the story. It’s like jumping into an unknown body of water. You’re not really sure how deep you’ll go, so you dive in. Praying you don’t go too deep, and that you reach the surface before you drown.

I don’t want to drown in these memories.

“The second time I got pregnant, we made it past the seven week mark. I swear we held our breaths for the entire first two months. We stayed in my OB’s office, just to make sure everything was fine. Once we hit eight weeks, and I heard our baby’s heartbeat, I allowed myself to get excited. We were excited. We started thinking of names and preparing to turn the guest room into a nursery. We told our families. We named Lys and Wren as Godparents.” I tuck a curl behind my ear and sigh, my shoulders sinking further down as the pressure of this conversation takes its toll on me. “At eleven weeks, we went back in for a check-up and there was just…no heartbeat.” My lip trembles and suddenly I feel a prickle against my hand and I look over to see Bennett dragging his lips across my skin.

“I’m sorry.” I’m not sure if he’s apologizing for the innocent kiss or what happened but my heart melts at the look he’s giving me. He places our hands that are still clasped back on the couch between us and I give him a sad smile.

“I needed to have a surgical procedure to remove…” I trail off. I don’t get into the gritty details because, quite frankly, I hate thinking about it or talking about it. The miscarriage is painful enough without thinking of that part.

“What did the doctor say after the second time?”

“She said it happens and that two wasn’t something to be too concerned about, yet.” I shrug. “It happens. Three miscarriages is when they’ll dive into testing. I could have done it after the second but…” I trail off and my lips form a straight line.

“But…?” he asks, not realizing where I’m going with it.

“I just wanted to wait a few months to heal…but then,” I clear my throat, “you slept with someone. And I couldn’t deal with that and the possibility that something was wrong and that I’d be unable to bear children. I just…I couldn’t do it all.”

“I slept with someone because of the miscarriage? No…bullshit. It doesn’t add up.” He pulls his hand out of mine and leans forward, putting his head in his hands. “I would never leave you…to deal with that alone.” He turns to look at me, his eyes brimming with unshed tears before he blinks them away. “I loved you so much and…I broke us. I don’t know how I’ve been able to live with myself.”

His pain is so evident that I feel it in my chest almost as much as my own. “I pushed you away,” I say quietly.

“That’s not a fucking excuse,” he snaps.

“I know. But my therapist and everyone else who has a goddamn opinion about this, namely Wren Hamilton and my mother,” I say with an eye roll, “seem to think that I should have opened up to you about what I was feeling, and allowed you to tell me your feelings. I shut down and couldn’t cope with what was happening. I stopped talking. I wasn’t eating. I was pretty depressed. You did try, Bennett. I just couldn’t. I gave up…and it made you give up.”

“I would never give up on you, Olivia. Whatever that shit was with that woman…I don’t know if I wanted to feel close to someone or I was just as depressed as you were with no way to express it, but I’d never give us up. I don’t give a shit if you did give up first.”

“Yeah well…when your wife has two miscarriages and feels inadequate and unsexy and just like the shittiest woman on the planet because she can’t give her husband a baby and then said husband comes home after being out all night and confesses to sleeping with someone…” I shrug, “that was you giving up too.”

“Livi…” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me too,” I murmur. “I should have been able to talk to you months ago.”

“How long ago was all of this?”