‘You’re not driving,” he said, sounding angrier than before. My irritation morphed into rage.
“The hell I’m not,” I snapped, trying to open my car door.
“You’ve had too much to drink, and you’re obviously upset. You shouldn’t be driving in your,” he hesitated, “condition.”
I scowled at him. ‘What the hell are you talking about my ‘condition’?”
“Just give me your Goddamn keys, Demetria, or we’ll be here all night.”
I was too tired to fight so I threw my keys at him. They hit his hard chest and bounced onto the ground.
“Fine.”
I walked around to the other side and climbed in, making sure to slam the door. If he insisted on treating me like a child then I’d behave like one. He slid into the driver’s seat, looking hot and disheveled in his black tuxedo. His hair stood in all directions, probably from running his fingers through it more than a few times, and his face was hard. He was quite a sight, even when he was pissed off.
We drove through the gates and onto the road, the silence stretching between us and growing more intense. I wasn’t going to speak first. I had nothing I wanted to say to him.
He muttered something under his breath and turned my face to glare at him.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he grunted.
“If you have something to say, Brody, then just say it! I’m so sick of your stupid games!”
“This isn’t a game, Demetria.” He drove faster and if I hadn’t trusted him so implicitly, I would have been scared. We reached the edge of town and I was relived to almost be home. I needed to get away from Brody, and fast. He was no longer good for me, I realized.
“Well then grow a pair,” I said, “and tell me why you felt the need to drive me home when I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I’ve been doing it for the last year and I sure as hell won’t stop when you leave again.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Brody half yelled. He pulled to a stop outside my house and I didn’t bother waiting for whatever explanation he’d come up with. I ran up the stairs and unlocked my front door before hurriedly entering. Again, Brody was hot on my heels.
“I know you’re no longer the same person you were, Demetria, and neither am I, but I didn’t realize you’d become so irresponsible.”
I whirled around and faced him, unable to keep a lid on my brewing indignation. “What are you talking about, Brody? You keep talking in circles, so just spit it out!”
“You were drinking, and last I heard that’s not good for the baby.”
His words caught me off guard and I froze, feeling the color drain from my face.
“What baby?”
“The one you’re carrying, Goddamit! And don’t lie to me. I saw the ultrasound!”
I was so confused. “What ultrasound?” My voice shook.
“The one next to your bed, I saw it when I brought you home the other night.”
Oh God. No no no no. How could I have been so reckless?
“It’s not – “
“Don’t lie to me, not about this. You said you weren’t seeing Jeff, which was obviously a lie too.”
“No, I wasn’t lying. There was nothing going on between us.”
“Are you telling me you’re pregnant with someone else’s baby?” The disgust in Brody’s voice was thick and protruding. I stared at him, until finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I cracked.
“NO!” I bawled, feeling hot tears spill over my eyelids. “It was our baby! That ultrasound is of YOUR baby!” I placed my hand over my mouth and cried, watching Brody’s face blanch. My secret was out, and there was no way for me to take it back, no matter how hard I wished for it. I clutched my stomach, fighting the need to double over. I closed my eyes and immediately regretted it…
“Can someone help us, please?” Huntley asked, looking around at the Emergency Room nurses. It was three a.m. and I’d called Huntley after I woke up bleeding. I knew something was wrong. I could feel it.
The truth was, as surprised as I was about my pregnancy, I was excited. It had been a difficult few weeks but I’d focused on the little life in my belly and it had somehow given me something other than Brody to live for. He’d left me two months ago, and yet the ache in my chest hurt as if it was yesterday that he’d walked out my front door. I hadn’t spoken to him at all, and when he did call, I ignored it. If he knew about the baby he would have stayed because he had to and I wasn’t prepared to carry that on my shoulders. So instead, I’d lost one thing and gained another. A part of me wished he was here to experience this with me but I silenced it when I reminded myself that our life together wasn’t enough for him. I doubted having this baby would have made him want to stay.
“What seems to be the problem?” and elderly nursed asked, looking at us from over her glasses.
“My friend is pregnant and she’s in a lot of pain and she’s bleeding.”
The nurse walked around the counter and her eyes grew wide when she saw me. I was pale and when I looked down, I saw blood trailing down my leg.
“Who’s your doctor?”
“Dr. Bates,” Huntley replied quickly. I was in too much pain and too scared to say anything. I was losing my baby.
The nurse hurried to the phone and after a quick phone call, she came rushing towards us with a wheelchair. I sat down, crying out in pain, and I was wheeled to the Maternity floor where we found Dr. Bates waiting for us. Without saying I word, he escorted us into a delivery room. Nurses started hooking me up to all kinds of equipment and I started panicking. Dr. Bates pressed my hard belly and I cried out.
“We’re going to do an ultrasound,” he said. The expression on his face was of no comfort and only added to my distress. A nurse squirted a cold gel onto my skin and Dr. Bates wasted no time. He pressed the wand onto my belly and moved it around.
“Dammit,” he muttered. He turned to face me, looking forlorn. “Miss. Rosemead, I’m sorry to have to tell you this but I can’t find a heartbeat.”
The floor dropped from beneath my feet and once again my world came crumbling down.
“W-why?” I asked, “What’s wrong.”
“I’m afraid you have a case of placental abruption, and if we don’t deliver your baby now, you could bleed out.” He didn’t give me time to respond before a nurse separated my legs and removed my panties. My dress was lifted up to my waist and I leaned up on my elbows to see what he was doing.
“She’s already dilated, and we don’t have time for a C-section,” he said to a nurse. He turned his gaze back to me. “You have to deliver your baby naturally Miss. Rosemead, but you’re too far dilated for an epidural - “
“Is the baby okay?” I asked, cutting him off. When he didn’t answer immediately, I yelled, “Tell me!”
“No,” he paused, “I’m afraid your baby has died.”
I stared at him and felt the life drain from my own body. My baby was dead. It couldn’t be. It had to have been a nightmare and I would wake up any second. It wasn’t real.
“Oh God,” Huntley cried next to me. I looked up at her and burst into tears. My baby. Dead.
I screamed when a sharp pain shot through my abdomen.
“Doctor,” a nurse said, “We’re ready.”
He nodded, and took a seat at the end of the bed between my legs.
“Okay, Miss. Rosemead, I’m going to need you to push. Now.”
“No,” I cried. “Please, it hurts too much.”
Huntley squeezed my hand reassuringly but it didn’t help. I was devastated, and now I had to deliver my dead baby.
“Push,” Dr. Bates ordered. I shook my head, and cried harder.
“Please, no. I can’t do this. I can’t.”
Huntley cried next to me and I realized that while it was a nightmare, it was in fact real, and I wasn’t going to wake up.
“Please push Demi, you have to do this,” Huntley pleaded with a tear streaked face. I took a shaky breath an
d started pushing. The pain was excruciating and it felt like I was being sliced through the middle. Dr. Bates ordered me to stop but the reprieve didn’t last.
“Please,” I sobbed, “make it stop.”
“We’re almost there, Miss. Rosemead. Push.”
I gritted my teeth and bore down, giving it my all. It wasn’t until I saw Dr. Bates lift the baby that it all really sunk in. When a nurse took the baby from him, I waited for the cry. It never came.
“What is it?” I asked.
Dr. Bates looked up from where he was cleaning me up, sadness marring his face. “A girl.”
“A girl,” I whispered. A little girl.
She was wrapped in a pink blanket when they handed her to me and for a short time I had no idea what to do or say.
“Did you have a name?” I looked up at Huntley and then back down at my daughter.
“Gracie,” I replied, struggling to get the word past the lump in my throat. “Her name is Gracie.”
Her eyes were closed, but I imagined they were brown like Brody’s. She had a sprinkling of hair on her head, light and blonde. At only five months she was already her daddy’s girl. Only that wasn’t true, because she was gone. With teary eyes I pressed a kiss to her forehead in the hopes that she knew she was loved, no matter how short her time on Earth had been. She was made up of the best parts of me and Brody, something I would always remember. I suddenly felt exhausted. So very tired. I couldn’t understand why my heart was still beating, and my little girl’s wasn’t. It was cruel.
My eyes started to flutter shut my limbs started going numb. I whispered a ‘good-bye’, because really, that was all I had left to give, and the last thing I remembered was Dr. Bates yelling, “Miss. Rosemead, stay with me!” Everything went dark after that, and I felt nothing. I was consumed by a darkness that never ended.
IT WAS A few hours later when I started regaining consciousness. The harsh light above me hurt my tired eyes and I cowered away from it. My head was in a hazy fog and I fought it.
“Demi?”
I opened my eyes slowly, and saw that Huntley was standing above me, her face still red.
“What happened?” I croaked, rolling to my side to face her.
She sniffled and I saw relief flood her stormy blue eyes. “You passed out because of the amount of blood you lost, sweety. They had to do a blood transfusion. It was touch and go there for a while.”
“And the baby?”
Huntley looked down and started crying again. “She’s gone.”
“So it really happened?” I asked, feeling the onslaught of tears coming again. Huntley nodded and in that moment, it felt like the fight had left my body.
Huntley crawled in next to me and wrapped her slender arms around my shaking body. She carried the weight of my loss with me, and in some ways it helped lighten the burden. I found myself stuck in the darkness again, only this time I saw no way out. There was no light left. It was just an abyss of endless…black.
Demi crumpled to the floor in a sobbing mess and it took every bit of inner strength not to go to her. The need to comfort her came as naturally to me as breathing, but I’d decided that just this once depriving myself of that was the right thing to do.
“My baby?” I asked, my voice barely audible. Her head hung low but she still nodded. I fisted my hair and inhaled deeply. It was all I could do not to fall to floor myself. I looked around the dark house and tried to wrap my head around Demi’s admission. I thought back to all the times I’d seen her this week, remembering that I hadn’t once seen her with a baby. She cried harder and I took a step closer. A brown puppy was pawing at Demi’s legs, but even then Demi remained on the floor while her body shook. Her broken cries taunted my ears and as much as I wanted to pick her up and hold her to me, I wasn’t going to.
“Where is it?” My tone came out harder than I intended. “The baby, I mean.”
When Demi finally looked up at me, I saw the light leave her eyes and it made me afraid of the answer. I could tell it wasn’t going to be good. “Tell me, Demetria,” I pressed.
“She died,” Demi whispered. Time stopped just then, and I felt the air leave my own lungs. She?
“We had a daughter?” I swallowed and felt my eyes grow wet. When Demi didn’t say anything more I fell to my knees in front of her and gripped her forearms. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I yelled. Tears started sliding down my face but I didn’t care. I’d just been sucker punched and betrayed by the woman I’ve loved more than life itself since I was six years old. I think I deserved to fucking cry. Demi flinched, and looked away.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I yelled again, “I deserved to know!”
“Brody,” she cried, “I’m s-sorry. Y-you w-would have s-stayed for t-the wrong reasons if I had told you. I c-couldn’t keep you here, so I l-let you go!”
A sense of loss overcame me and collided with the anger and duplicity coursing through every fiber in my body. My blood boiled with it, my bones ached with it.
“I can’t believe you would hide this from me,” I said. Looking at her felt like looking at a complete stranger. I didn’t know her, not anymore, and that hurt me almost more than learning about our child.
She shook her head and I loosened my grip on her arms, still afraid that I’d hurt her. I was pissed, but I wasn’t about to hurt her physically.
“I t-tried to t-tell you,” she sobbed.
“When? I never heard from you!”
“I w-went to Chicago two months after she…” Demi swallowed, struggling with the words, “died, but I saw you with Sienna and thought you had moved on.”
I sat back and wiped my face. The gravity of the situation hit me square in the chest. It wasn’t only her fault. If I hadn’t left none of this would have happened.
“How did she die?”
“Oh God, Brody, please, I can’t take anymore right now!”
“Do Huntley and Grayson know?”
Instead of replying, Demi just curled further into herself and I realized that I wasn’t going to get the answers I wanted.
“If you can’t tell me, I’ll find someone who will,” I said standing up. Before I left, I turned around and looked at her one last time.
“I felt like shit for months after what I did. I was consumed with my guilt for months. Now, I find out you kept our child and her death from me! You are no better than I am, and you have to live with this. There’s no coming back from this, and this time it’s on you.”
I slammed the door shut, drowning out her cries, and walked with determination to her red Lexus. There was no way in hell I was going anywhere until I had some answers.
I pulled up the hand break and the car screeched to a halt on the dusty gravel of the parking lot next to Lake Dixon. There were fewer cars now, but when I spotted Grayson’s truck, I knew he was still here. The fact that it was his wedding didn’t stop me. Nothing would.
I found him standing on the side, talking to Huntley, Jeff, his parents, Coach Morgan and his wife. They all laughed, and smiled, but when Grayson spotted me his smile fell.
“Brody, what’s wrong?” he asked, right before I knocked him on his ass. I ignored the pain, since I’d hit him with injured hand. It didn’t compare to what I was feeling inside.
“What the fuck?” Jeff yelled, moving to pin my arms behind me. Huntley bent down and helped Grayson to his feet while everyone glared at me.
“You sonofabitch! How could you not tell me?”
“Tell you wha - ” Grayson snapped his mouth shut and I saw realization flicker across his face. I would apologize for hitting him later, when I wasn’t so angry.
“She told you,” he said quietly, barely above a whisper.
Everyone went quiet, and their expressions morphed from shock to a combination of sheepishness and sympathy…
“You all knew, didn’t you?”
No one replied and they could barely look me in the eye.
“Fuck,” I muttered, pulling away from Jeff. “Is thi
s some kind of sick joke?”
“No,” Huntley replied. She opened her mouth to say something more but I cut her off.
“I called you,” I looked at Grayson, “every day for three fucking months, and you didn’t think to mention any of this to me?”
“It’s not that simple,” he replied.
“Why not?” I shouted. “You’re my best friend, and you betrayed me! Every fucking one of you betrayed me!”
“Demi wanted to be the one to tell you,” Jeff said from behind me. I spun around to face him, itching to hit him too.
“And how would you of all people know that?” I snapped, stepping closer. Coach Morgan and Grayson’s father, Richard, also take a step forward, flanking Jeff on either side. I didn’t care. I would punch all of them if I had to.
“She flew to Chicago to see you, but she saw you with someone else.”
I snorted. “So that’s when you decided to swoop in and rescue her, right?”
He inched closer until we were toe-to-toe. He was only an inch taller than I was, so I’d have no problem taking him. The fact that we’d been friends for most of our lives didn’t seem to matter to either of us.
“She was a mess because of you and she needed a friend. I won’t apologize for being there for her when she needed me,” he growled.
“Does she know you’re in love with her?”
Jeff went quiet and looked down. I wasn’t an idiot. A blind man could see he wanted to be more than just friends with Demi. He thought I hadn’t seen them together on the dance floor earlier, or the way he’d stormed off. He was wrong. My eyes had been on Demi all night and my guess was the conversation hadn’t gone the way he wanted it to.
“That’s what I thought,” I snarled.
“Will you stop?” Huntley said angrily. She stepped next to Jeff and fixed her glower on me. “Jeff was there for Demi when she needed you, but you weren’t there - ”
“And whose fault is that?” I threw my arms in the air. “You can’t blame me if I had no idea what the fuck was going on.”
Begin Again (Beautiful #2) Page 12
