“Are you asking me on a date, Chase Harper?”
A hint of bashfulness washes over him, and he nods. “Yeah, I am. So what do you say? Go out with me?”
My stomach swirls, and I nod, earning a victorious smile from Chase. We face forward after that, sitting comfortably as we listen to the music play.
As I look around at all the smiling faces, our friends only feet away, one spreads across my own.
And for the first time in a long time, a small sense of hope sparks within me.
This feels right.
So why does it take effort to hold my head up?
Later that night, once we get home and settled in, I search for Noah to show him the award he won, but he’s nowhere to be found, so I set his trophy on my dresser and slip out of my dress for a quick shower.
My smile is wide as I step into the warm spray, the evening replaying before my eyes, the promise of tomorrow strong, but just as the excitement builds in my gut, it twists. It twists until it’s painful, and suddenly, I can’t breathe.
The calm from moments ago washes away with the water, swirling down the drain, taking me with it. Before I realize I’ve moved, I’m tucked into the corner, my legs drawn tight, my head buried against my knees.
I begin to cry.
At first, it’s emotionless, confusing tears, but slowly, the ache lets itself be known.
The shame seeps in.
And the guilt is nearly too much.
For weeks now, as I told the doctor, I’ve been silently screaming to remember what I’ve forgotten by blocking out what I knew, because what I knew was too painful and what I didn’t, I was desperate for.
So I pushed it all away, the good, the bad, and the sad.
The precious.
A sob racks through me, and I give into it.
I let it consume me.
Alone in the corner of the shower, I cry for all the things I’ve tried to force from my mind, but ache within me every day, nonetheless.
I cry for the child I lost, who I can hardly bring myself to acknowledge because the agony and loss it brings is unbearable. Downright devastating.
Being a mom is what I want most in the world and here I am, too weak to even think about the little life that’s no more.
The door is thrown open, and Cameron’s wide eyes appear. “Oh, sister…”
Taking the towel off the counter, she quickly turns off the water, drops to her knees beside me and wraps me in it, hugging herself to me.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Today was so much fun but—” I break off in another choked sob.
“But what?”
“I don’t know!” I shout. “I don’t know what the ‘but’ is for, but I feel it. Constantly. It follows me. Every step I take the ‘but’ is right there.”
Something fucking stings and she doesn’t understand.
No one does.
Not even me.
An overwhelming sense of self-hate slips in and my shoulders coil.
“I haven’t allowed myself to think of what I’ve lost in weeks, Cameron. I pushed away the one thing I knew for certain. Who does that?!” Tears pour down my face. “Who pushes away a memory that should be treasured?”
I haven’t spoken of or permitted the smallest hint of remembrance of the child that was growing inside me. My child.
I can’t even bring myself to go near Payton’s, that’s how hard it is.
“It hurts, Cam. My bones literally feel like they’re cracking when I think of him.” I admit. “I think it would have been a him. A boy. I don’t know why.” I shake my head. “But every time I touch my stomach, or accidentally wonder about him, I feel like I’m having a heart attack.”
“It’s okay, Ari,” she murmurs.
A bitter laugh leaves me, and I swipe at my nose. “No, it’s not. You just have no idea what else to say.”
“It is okay—”
“It’s not,” I snap when I don’t mean to. “I’m just pathetic. Completely fucking pathetic.”
Panic flares behind my chest, and it swells, locking off my airway, and I start to sweat. It’s as if my brain starts flashing, all these moving pictures and words, each blurrier than the last.
I might vomit.
“I don’t want to hide from myself anymore, but I can’t do this. Sometimes I want to swallow a handful of sleeping pills and hope when I wake, everything is different.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I feel that, Cam. I won’t, but I want to. I’m helpless. I feel like a fucking fraud, and I don’t know how to fix it.”
My muscles win out and my body hangs like dead weight.
My head falls to the tile, and while my eyes are open, I see nothing.
I think I scream, but I can’t be sure.
I hear nothing.
But a loud bang has me blinking, and I find my brother standing there.