Tragic

by Devney Perry

  My breath hitched. Was this happening? Had Kaine Reynolds, a man dedicated to keeping his emotions locked up behind a dozen padlocks, just confessed his feelings? This sounded a lot like . . . love.

  “You really mean all of this?”

  “You’re important to me,” he said quietly. “The most important person in my life.”

  “You’re important to me too.”

  “Then let’s go backward.” His arms banded around me tighter. “Let’s do all those things I should have done from day one.”

  Yes was right on the tip of my tongue, but I held it back.

  “Where is it all coming from?” The sex between us had been amazing, but for this kind of confession? One of us should have blacked out.

  “It’s been there for a long time. I guess . . . I didn’t want to spring it on you. I won’t say that the babies didn’t change this. We both know it doesn’t work like that in real life. But I’d like to think that even without them, this would have happened eventually.”

  I liked to think that too. I liked to believe that eventually he would have confided in me. And I had faith that eventually I’d hear the rest of his family’s story. It wasn’t easy, but I’d give him more time.

  “So?”

  I snuggled deeper into his arms. I knew what he was asking but messing with him was too much fun to pass up. “So, what?”

  “Are we going backward?”

  I smiled, holding in my answer.

  “Piper,” he grumbled.

  I still didn’t say anything.

  “Jesus, woman. Yes or no?” He shook my shoulders until we were both laughing. “Answer me, damn it.”

  “Yes!” I giggled. “Yes. I like backward.”

  “You drive me crazy.” He smiled. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Kaine kissed my hair again and shifted his arms so one was resting under my neck and the other was over my belly. Then for the first time, I fell asleep in his arms with his scent surrounding me and his heartbeat as my lullaby.

  “Morning,” I yawned as Kaine kissed my hair. My first thought when waking up was how nice it was to have him in my bed. The second was how badly I’d embarrass myself if I didn’t get to the bathroom and pee.

  I whipped off the covers, pushing myself off the mattress and scurrying to the bathroom. Getting out of bed was the fastest I moved these days.

  I did my business on the toilet, emptying my bladder and sighing with relief as the pressure eased. I had a smile on my face as I stood to pull up my pants. But then it dropped, and I stumbled against the wall as I looked down to the porcelain bowl filled with red.

  “Kaine!” I shouted, then I started to cry as panic set in. “I’m bleeding.”

  Piper shook her doctor’s hand. “Thank you so much.”

  “My pleasure.” The doctor smiled. “I’ll let you get changed. If you have any other concerns, just call or come on in. Otherwise, I’ll see you at your checkup in two weeks.”

  “Thank you again.” Piper waved as the doctor let herself out of the exam room. As soon as the door closed behind her, Piper rested back on the table, the paper crunching underneath her back. “Everything is okay.”

  It sure as hell didn’t feel okay. As many times as the doctor had reassured us, what I was feeling right now was not okay. The image of Piper standing beside the toilet this morning was on a loop in my head.

  Her face so white as she looked down at the water tinged red with blood.

  The terror in her eyes, her unsteady hands as we hurried to get her dressed.

  The sound of her panicked voice on the phone with the doctor.

  Piper had been on hold with the doctor’s office as I’d thrown on some clothes, then loaded her into the car. The nurse had assured us that things were likely fine but to come in just in case. I’d already been racing down the highway at that point.

  The thirty-minute drive to Kalispell had only taken twenty. If not for a few patches of early morning frost causing me to slow, I would have made it in fifteen.

  A nurse had waited inside the door as we’d walked into the clinic. She’d taken us to an exam room where Piper had stripped off her clothes in a frenzy, donning an ugly, faded gown. As she’d climbed up on the table, I’d stuck my head out the door and hollered that we were ready.

  The doctor had come in with a smile. It hadn’t helped steady my shaking hands. Neither had the good results from the exam, or the sound of the babies’ heartbeats on the monitor. My foot wouldn’t stop bouncing on the speckled linoleum, and the lump in the back of my throat wouldn’t stop choking me.

  Things were definitely not okay.

  The doctor suspected the blood was a normal side effect of sex. Piper had likely developed a polyp of sorts that had burst when we’d been together. It was normal. Everything was normal. The doctor had said normal about a hundred times.

  Except this was un-fucking-normal. I couldn’t breathe. I stood from the stiff chair and went to the door.

  “You’re leaving?” Piper’s head came off the table.

  “Get dressed,” I ordered before escaping the room.

  A nurse passed me in the hallway, smiling brightly. Most expectant fathers probably smiled back. She’d have to settle for a curt nod as I scanned the walls for an exit sign.

  I found an arrow pointing to the left and followed it to another, making my way back to the waiting room. I let myself out of the clinic and jogged down the hallway that led me to the parking lot. Piper’s doctor’s office was attached to the hospital, and beyond the glass doors, an ambulance drove by.

  The moment I pushed outside, the cold air assaulted my face. It froze the hairs in my nostrils and cooled the blood in my ears. The pressure in my chest was crushing, and the thin air wouldn’t fill my lungs. I spotted a bench on the sidewalk and stumbled toward it, collapsing on the icy boards.

  Then I dropped my head into my hands and tried to breathe.

  The darkness was coming back. The sun was rising, lighting a new day, but the black was creeping in on me. I could have lost it all again. Except it wasn’t someone else’s fault this time. There had been no accident. The person responsible was me.

  I could have lost my boys. I could have lost Piper. And why? Because I’d wanted to have sex with her.

  The entire reason we were here—why I was here, outside another hospital panicked and alone—was because I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants.

  “Sir?” A voice hovered above me. “Sir? Are you okay?”

  In front of me, hot pink scrubs came in and out of focus. A nurse placed her hand on my shoulder, repeating her question.

  The world was spinning too fast, and the air wouldn’t stay in my chest. The bench beneath me swayed like a ship riding out an ocean storm. I gripped the edge, holding on for dear life so I wouldn’t drown.

  “I think he’s having a panic attack.”

  “Oh my god.” Piper’s voice broke through the static buzz in my ears. “Kaine? Kaine, take a breath.”

  I nodded, trying to breathe as she sat at my side. But my lungs, they just wouldn’t work right.

  “Breathe.” Her hand rubbed up and down my back. “In and out. Breathe.”

  The nurse’s hot pink scrubs disappeared from my periphery, but I didn’t turn. My eyes were locked on the blurry sidewalk beneath my feet.

  I sucked in a gasp but it wasn’t enough oxygen. My heart was racing, and I was seconds away from blacking out when the nurse’s pink scrubs were back in front of me.

  She shook out a brown paper bag and handed it to Piper, who put it over my face.

  My hands covered hers, my eyes squeezing shut as I dragged in a ragged breath. The bag crunched and crackled as it constricted on my inhale, then expanded on my exhale. Seven more huffs into the paper sack and I finally had enough oxygen back in my bloodstream to open my eyes.

  The nurse wasn’t alone anymore. Three others from the hospital had gathered on the sidewalk, crowding Piper and me on the bench.

&nb
sp; I shied away from their attention, focusing on Piper while pulling the paper bag away from my face.

  “Are you okay?” She hadn’t put on her coat in her rush to follow me outside.

  I frowned, pushing off the bench. My legs were unsteady but not enough that I couldn’t stand or walk.

  Piper stood too, and I yanked the coat out of her arms. Then I pulled the purse off her shoulder and held it while I handed her the coat. “Put this on.”

  “Sir, do you—”

  I shot the nurse a glare before pushing past her and the others. It was bad enough that Piper had to see me like that. I didn’t need a fucking audience as my life spiraled out of control.

  Piper rushed to catch up while simultaneously putting on her coat, carrying her purse and saying thank you to the nurse. But I didn’t slow down.

  Getting the hell away from the hospital was priority number one.

  We got to the car and I didn’t open the passenger door for Piper like I normally did. I let her climb in herself while I hopped in the driver’s side, turned on the engine and got us gone.

  The cab of the Tahoe was silent, much like the drive up had been. But my mind was whirling faster than the tires on the pavement.

  One or two.

  If we had lost the boys, I would have had to decide again. I would have had to put them in the ground.

  One. We’d bury them together. Brothers should be together. And at least Piper and I had picked out names. Their headstones wouldn’t be unmarked.

  “Kaine!” Piper hollered. “I said slow down.”

  I blinked, glancing at the speedometer between my white knuckles. Then I backed off the gas. “Sorry.”

  It would be ironic if I crashed this car, for more than one reason. Leaving the house was tempting fate. But staying home wasn’t safe either.

  “I’m sorry.” Piper sighed. “I didn’t know this would happen.”

  My silence was deafening. It sounded a lot like blame.

  “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

  Talk? If she only knew what she was asking. She had no idea how impossible it was for me to talk about everything that had happened. I’d lose my temper. I’d lose the control I’d worked so hard to keep. And she’d be right there in my warpath.

  Look at what had just happened at the hospital. I couldn’t even control my own body.

  Mom had been begging me for weeks on our phone calls to open up. She thought it would be healthy for me to talk about it with her or Piper, then let it go. She wanted me to find forgiveness and move forward.

  How did you forgive someone who stole a piece of you? How did you forgive someone who you loved and trusted completely but hadn’t hesitated when the time came to stab you in the back?

  Forgiveness? Not happening. Mom didn’t know what she was asking for either. Three years and the pain and rage I’d felt was as strong as ever. I’d just managed to bury it deep. If I let it go, I didn’t know what would happen. The last time I’d thought about him, I’d taken a chainsaw to a chair.

  I could have killed myself or Piper that night.

  “Where do you go?” Piper whispered. “When you get so lost in your own head, where do you go?”

  Where did I go?

  To the past. To the places and people who haunted me.

  I broke my eyes away from the road as Piper swiped a tear from her cheek. The sadness on her face made everything worse. I was hurting her. I’d promised to care for her, and instead I was causing her pain. I wasn’t doing right by her or the boys.

  When you were broken, breaking others wasn’t all that difficult.

  Maybe it would be best if I kept my distance for a few more months. My stomach churned at the idea of leaving them. But what other choice did I have?

  A few days apart would do us both some good. Things had happened so quickly; our lives had changed so much these past few months. We could each use time to process it all.

  Piper swiped another tear. I hadn’t answered her question.

  There was nothing to say.

  I focused on the road, driving us safely home as Piper dried the occasional tear. When we pulled into the garage, she was out of the door before I shut off the engine. She slammed it closed behind her, then did the same with the door that led inside.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  I was ruining this. Just last night I’d told her that she was the most important person in my life. She’d asked me for a label, and I’d given her one. But who was I kidding? I didn’t know the first thing about being part of a couple.

  I shut off her Tahoe and went inside. I’d expected to find Piper in the living room or kitchen, but as I passed the guest bedroom, the sound of sniffling and rustling clothes caught my attention. When I reached the doorway, I found Piper running back and forth between the closet and the bed.

  She was taking my clothes out of the closet and putting them into the duffel bag that they’d come over in.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I think you need this.” She grabbed the stack of jeans she’d folded for me two nights ago when we’d been at the kitchen island, folding laundry. She tossed them on the bed, undoing all the folding.

  Undoing us.

  “Need what?”

  “To run away.”

  “What? No.” I stepped into the room, stopping her before she could go back to the closet for more. “I don’t want to run away.”

  “But maybe you should.” She looked up at me with glassy eyes. “I mean, you just had a panic attack, Kaine.”

  “No. I just . . . I just needed a second.” Panic attack sounded so serious. “It was just a shock.” Wasn’t it?

  “No, it wasn’t. And it’s my fault. I’ve been pushing so hard, wanting you to open up to me on my timeline. But my timeline doesn’t matter. You matter. So maybe you need to run away. Get some space and get okay with everything. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here. If you decide you don’t want to talk, I’ll still be here.”

  This woman. She’d figured me out so quickly.

  Except she was dead wrong. I was dead wrong. I didn’t need space to come to terms with my past. What I needed was her.

  I wanted her to have all my pieces, even the ugly, misshapen ones.

  “I’m scared.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I’m scared too. I wake up every morning, wondering if this was a dream. I worry that I could lose it at any time. This is everything I’ve ever wanted, and it terrifies me because it could all be gone in a flash.”

  “You don’t know what it feels like.” Piper might be scared, but her imagination couldn’t conjure the magnitude of fear I was living with. The pain of losing a child was unthinkable.

  “No,” she said gently. “I don’t know the kind of pain you went through. I hope to God I never do. And I’m so sorry you went through that. But I do know what it feels like to lose someone you love.”

  She did? “Who?”

  Her eyes held mine. “You. I’m losing you.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed, tugging her hand so she’d sit down next to me. “You’re not losing me.”

  “I’m not?”

  “Never. And I’m sorry. About last night, I shouldn’t have been so rough. And—”

  “Stop. Please, stop,” Piper begged. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t my fault. I won’t feel guilty for last night, and I won’t let you either. You heard the doctor. Everything is normal.”

  “It still scares me. I-I don’t know how to deal with some of these feelings. But I’d like to try if you’ll listen.”

  She nodded.

  I took her hand and stood from the bed. For this conversation, I wanted to be in a bigger room. I needed more space because the rage would inevitably return, and I wanted room to let it breathe.

  Piper followed me without a word to the living room and took a seat on the couch. But instead of sitting next to her, I went to the chair across from the coffee table. As much as her touch calmed me, to look in
her eyes did so much more.

  “Remember how I told you Shannon was in a drunk driving accident?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Well, she wasn’t the one driving. And she wasn’t the one drunk. My brother was.”

  Piper flinched. “You have a brother? All this time, you never . . .”

  She trailed off, her brain getting ahead of her questions. Then her eyes got wide and her hand slapped over her mouth, muffling a gasp.

  “My brother is five years younger than me. My parents got divorced just a few months after he was born. He wasn’t exactly planned since they were already separated at the time.”

  I didn’t remember much from that time, other than Mom being exhausted a lot and falling asleep on the couch while I played. I remember Dad coming over to take me fun places, like the park in the summer or the sledding hill in the winter. I don’t think he’d ever really bonded with Isaiah before moving to Asia.

  “Mom did her best to raise two boys on her own, but she worked a lot. And as I got older, I took on more responsibility, especially with Isaiah. It was just him and me at home after school and on Saturdays until Mom got home from work. He was younger, but he was my best friend too.”

  “Was?” Piper whispered. “Did he—in the accident, did he . . .”

  “Die? No. He made it out without a scratch.”

  Piper sat on the edge of the couch, her hands resting on her stomach, waiting for me to continue.

  “I should have known something was going on with Isaiah and Shannon. They were closer to the same age and had a lot of the same interests. He was always hanging around the house when she was home. They’d watch TV together or cook dinner together. I didn’t think anything of it at first. I thought he was just getting to know her for my sake.”

  “But it was more?”

  I nodded. “They were dating behind my back. Mom knew. Her parents knew. Even some of my friends.” Former friends. I hadn’t kept in touch with them after I’d moved to Lark Cove.

  “Why wouldn’t they tell you?”

  “I don’t know.” I sighed. “Maybe they thought I’d be mad or jealous. But they hid it and snuck around for months.”