Meant to Be Broken

by Brandy Woods Snow

  “Don’t say anything. Just… love each other.” His tears wet the back of my shoulder as his voice cracks. When he pulls away, a fire replaces the tears. “And while y’all are doing that, I’m going to find the jerk that did this to you.”

  My foggy brain, spinning from injury and raging hormones, can barely keep things straight. Someone attacked me. It’s hard to believe even when I know it’s true. Sure, I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but who wants me dead? “Any leads from the police?”

  “Not much. Hundreds of people go in and out of that parking garage every day. No one suspicious on any of the surveillance videos, no eyewitnesses, nothing. But they don’t think it’s random. You weren’t robbed, nothing was taken. It was a wallop to your head, just a little closer to your temple and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  The words suck the air out of my lungs like a vacuum. The thought of never seeing my baby, never seeing Gage again, scares me more than death. “What if they come back? What if they try to finish what they started?”

  “That’s not going to happen.” He gets up and shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “No one’s getting through that door without my approval. Only family is allowed in here to see you. You and the baby are safe, I promise.”

  I nod and force a weak smile. Promises, promises. So many promises in my life splintered and destroyed, but surely not this one. My baby needs me. I have to live. I’m going to live.

  Preston walks back and kisses my forehead, his lips warm and trembling. “Rest now. Gage will be here soon.”

  A million noises rouse me from sleep, and each time it’s a disappointment. A candy striper with a meal tray, then a nurse checking my vitals. After that, it’s an alarm going off somewhere in the hall, Preston sneezing, or the TV. Each time, a surge of adrenaline shoots me straight up off the pillows so fast my stitches scream, and a surge of pain plows through me. My heart thumps until I realize it’s not him. It’s dark now, the pitch black snuggling up to the window outside, bringing along with it doubt that he’s actually going to show.

  It’s 8:30 when his voice rouses me. He’s talking to someone in the hall, but as the door handle turns, my heart pounds against my ribs.

  He came. He’s only feet away, and as if it senses him, my body goes on full alert, tingly tension running over every surface. A little painful. A lot euphoric. My baby’s father, the love of my life, is here.

  Gage walks in, but he’s not alone. She’s with him. I don’t know her, but I hate her, Miss straight brown hair and jeans and… I glance down at her shoes… Chucks. If I’d met her anywhere else, we might’ve become friends. Not now.

  He stares at me, but I can’t force my eyes to meet his. In fact, it’s kind of hard to breathe right now. Especially when she’s touching him like that, rubbing his shoulders, reaching for both of his hands and patting them between hers. As if she’s genuinely concerned.

  Yeah right.

  The vomit rises, burning my throat and sucking my stomach in like a vacuum. It’s the same feeling I had on homecoming night when I kept picturing him hooking up with other girls at Cedar Falls. That’d been all imaginary, but this… this is real. They lock eyes, conversations flowing between them without a word. She squeezes his hand, her palm wrapped tight around his fingers. He squeezes back and pulls her hands up to his chest.

  Oh God. Please God. No. How can he touch her like that? Lean on her? Share things with her he’s supposed to be sharing with me?

  I’m an idiot for not preparing myself for this. I laugh under my breath, and everyone’s looking at me like I’m two steps from the psych ward. I deserve this for pushing him away, lying and telling him I’m having Preston’s baby. Our baby. He’s never going to know his daddy now. Because Daddy has a new family. He’s moved on because I made him. Now he’s standing here with someone else, loving her, holding her, and I can’t help wondering what they’re like behind closed doors, kissing, lying together, sharing themselves…

  “Preston,” I say through gags. “Trashcan!” He grabs it, and I lean my head in, dry heaving over the rim. She and Gage exchange glances. Poor pitiful Rayne. Poor stupid girl.

  While Preston wipes my forehead with a cool washcloth, Gage walks closer and grabs my hand. The mere touch of his skin sends chills down my body, and I want him so bad. Like we’ve never been apart. Like this has all been a dream. Like she’s not standing there, watching. For a minute, I consider pulling him down to me, kissing him, and secretly flipping her off behind his back. How dare she come in here? In this place where our love is being tested yet again, where our son was just born hours earlier. But I don’t do anything because she didn’t force her way in here. He chose her, and he brought her here. He’s the one that made her family, and if I can’t have him or touch him, then he needs to go. Like, now.

  “Don’t touch me,” I snap, leaning away and right into the opposite bedrail and nurse call button.

  Her much-too-bright-and-cheerful voice fills the room. “Yes, Ms. Davidson? Anything you need, honey?”

  A machete. A loaded gun. A hit man and an alibi. “Tylenol. Just Tylenol.”

  Gage steps back, eyes wide and lower lashes glistening with tears he’s holding back. Good. I hope he feels as bad as I do. I’ve cried lots of tears—so many over these past months, waiting and wondering where he was, alone and pregnant. But every time I was tempted to give up, I held onto our love, so sure he’d wait on me. But now he’s here, and he didn’t wait. He’s moved on, and all that’s left of us is that precious boy in the NICU who’s losing his family and doesn’t even know it.

  Gage and I have always been dealers in the shattered pieces, putting together our future plans from the broken shards of other long-lost dreams. Now he’s trading it all in on shiny, new love, leaving me alone with the remnants of us—the ‘what-used-to-be’ and, even worse, the ‘what-could-have-been’.

  Preston moves to Gage, placing both hands on his shoulders and coming in close, face-to-face. “Give her time. She just had a baby. Her hormones are all over the place.” Gage peeks at me over Preston’s shoulder, but I turn my head away. It hurts too much.

  God, I hate myself right now. I’m pushing him away when all I really want is to hold him. Tell him I love him and need him. My body sets off all sorts of reactions when he’s this close. Reactions I’m no longer entitled to because he has her.

  She grabs his hand, ushering him toward the door, away from me and our life and our dreams. She pulls him to her.

  “Leave!” I yell, choking back all the words I want to say, which build up like a boulder in my throat.

  Gage closes his eyes, his breathing ragged, as if he’s been running. “I’ll come back later,” he whispers more toward Preston than me. I hear it anyway, and the hurt-fueled verbal vomit spews out again. I can’t stop it.

  Hurt is an awful thing. It makes you vengeful, spiteful. “Don’t bother,” I grumble not-so-quietly from the bed. “Who needs you? Why the hell’d you even come?”

  Gage lashes back. It’s probably passive-aggressive on my part to bait him this way, but between my pounding head and the fact that I’m losing him, I don’t give a damn.

  “How can you even ask that?” He steps toward me, but Preston grabs his arm, holding him back.

  “Gage, don’t. She’s been through hell today. Let her rest,” he reasons, but Gage isn’t having it.

  “No. Rayne asked me a question, and I’m answering it, dammit.” His eyes never leave mine. They’re fiery and dark. I’ve never seen him this upset. “Preston called and said you’d been attacked, and they took the baby. Of course I’m coming, Rayne. You know I’ll show up. At least you used to know that!”

  Trying to shut myself up when I’m mad and cut to the core is like trying to wrestle a rattlesnake. Someone’s getting hurt. “Yeah, well picking up and leaving everything behind can kinda ruin that trust. I don’t know anything about you anymore. I used to, but not now, so go do what you do best—le
ave!” I regret the words as soon as they exit my mouth. I don’t mean them. I know he still loves me to some degree. He just loves her more, and I can’t deal.

  The words punch him in the jaw, and he steps back into the doorway, where she grabs his hand and pulls him out in the hall. Preston closes the door, but I still see them through the sidelight window. They stand close, talking, as she pats his hand, then pulls him close, wrapping her arms around him as he buries his face in her shoulder.

  “Close the blinds,” I hiss at Preston, whose tortoise-like response isn’t acceptable. “Close the damn blinds!” This time I’m yelling.

  Gage hears the commotion and raises his head, meeting my eyes through the slim window. I stare back until Preston yanks the cord, the louvers clanging against the glass as they fall, blocking him out.

  Twenty minutes pass before Preston dares to speak. He’s been sitting quietly, reading a magazine in the corner arm chair, glancing at me from time to time. He’s checking to make sure I’m still here and not off stealing scalpels and plotting murder.

  “I’m an idiot,” I finally say. “I’m sorry.” The tears have disappeared again, so I sit emotionless and hard. Preston lays the magazine down and moves to where I pat the covers beside me, stroking my hair the way Mama used to when I’d fall off my bike. Except this isn’t a bike accident, and Preston’s best intentions can’t heal this wound.

  “This is all my fault,” he begins. “I’m sorry. I had no idea he’d show up here with…”

  I stop him before he can say her name. Saying it out loud means she’s real and this isn’t an awful screwed-up dream. “With his girlfriend,” I spit out, as if her name is synonymous with Brussels sprouts.

  Preston shakes his head. “He still loves you, Rayne.” He looks at his hands instead of me. “Didn’t you see the look in his eyes?”

  “Of pity? Yeah, I saw that look. Of admiration for her? Saw that one, too. Don’t need a recap. And quit saying he loves me. He’s moved on.”

  “We made him think you moved on, too. But you haven’t.” Hearing Preston admit that out loud catches me off-guard, and I look up quickly. He’s smiling. “You two are so stubborn. I know you’ve tried to love me like that, but you can’t. Because it’s him. You need to tell him. Maybe if you told him about the baby, then—”

  “No. I’m not telling him anything, and neither are you. If he wanted me, he’d fight for me. He hasn’t. If he loves her, let him have her.” Brave words to mask my destroyed heart. This feeling—so hollow, so unloved—this same feeling is why he left that morning. Feeling sorry for myself had been easy, but I’d never considered his struggle. He couldn’t see me with Preston any more than I can see him with her now. But she’s not the bitch. I am. She’s picking up the pieces of my mess. She’s the good one, and now he’s with her.

  Chapter 54

  Gage

  “W

  ho the hell actually buys this?” Taryn holds up a white straw cowboy hat decorated with blue bears, plastic rattles, and a banner reading It’s a Boy! in one hand and points to it with the other, eyebrows tented into her forehead. She tosses it back on the metal shelf. “Such a waste of money.”

  “I don’t know,” I grumble. “Isn’t it tradition to buy hokey shit and put it on your door after you have a baby?”

  “Tradition, maybe. Stupid, definitely.” She fingers through a collection of baby photo frames, side-eyeing me the entire time, like I’m going to break at any moment, hit the tile floor like a lump.

  I might.

  It’s worse than I thought. Rayne hates me. The flames in her eyes. The way she ripped her hand from mine. The ruthless barbs about my leaving and destroying her trust in me. With the words she spit at me, she ought to have just had a knife. It’s all the same sort of carnage.

  Taryn walks over and rubs my arm, gazing up at me. The one thing I love most about my cousin is that she only looks at me with concern, never pity.

  “She’s emotional,” Taryn says. “The hormone levels go spastic in post-natal women. Preston was right. Give her time.”

  I snort. “That wasn’t hormones. That was animosity. Hate.”

  “Not necessarily,” Taryn says then folds her arms and clears her throat, her usual stance that means I’m in for a scholarly lecture on a subject she’s studied in her medical classes. “My psychology professor says anger is merely a symptom of a much larger problem. One generally rooted in fear or hurt.” She deadpans waiting on a response, but I don’t give one. “My guess here would be hurt.”

  “Thank you for that analysis, Dr. Taryn.”

  “I’m just saying, I know the story now. Any idiot can see there’s a boatload of hurt feelings between the two of you. Mostly because you’re both dumbasses because you refuse to confess how you really feel for fear of hurting some other person’s damn feelings.” I glare in her direction, but she only shrugs. “There, I said it.”

  Truth is, Taryn only knows a Swiss-cheese version of the story. There’s no point taking her back through the beginning when Preston and Rayne were together. That was messed up enough, and I don’t think any of us want to relive that. No, on the drive up, I told her our story starting at good-bye, the day I found out the truth. Everything else was just summed up as we were in love.

  “That’s because there are more people to consider here, Taryn.”

  “Since when is love between more than the two people in it?” The question marks practically float around her. Valid ones, too. “For two people self-described as out to break the rules, you two sure do fall right in line with what the world tells you. And you’re losing each other because of it.”

  Her words cut to the quick. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Love never is, Gage.” Her eyes land on an assortment of monitors and camera devices along the back wall. She pushes past me and stands in front of the shelves, marveling at the selection. “Now these are sensible baby items. I say get something from this section.”

  I walk beside her and scan the merchandise. A brown teddy bear Nanny Cam, whose eyes are a miniature camera and nose is a microphone, catches my attention. And it makes sense. Someone attacked Rayne and the cops don’t know who. It never hurts to be cautious.

  The saleslady smiles as we approach the counter. She scans the box and then my debit card and asks if I want a complimentary gift bag and bow. While she measures out the ribbon, Taryn and I take a seat on the park-style iron bench in the hospital atrium.

  “I knew it was going to be hard,” I whisper, having to force the words out that want to stick on my tongue. Taryn grabs my hand and squeezes it. “I didn’t realize… I mean, how can you prepare…” I close my eyes and lean my head back against the mirrored glass wall tiles behind us. “If only…” I lower my head. No, it’s too late for that now.

  “Not if, when. ‘If’ implies looking back, and you need to look forward. When. As in when you both get things off your chests, let it all out, then you can move on.”

  “I’ll never be able to move on with Rayne. A baby changes everything.”

  She sighs. “They’re trying to do the responsible thing. No one intends to get pregnant as a teenager. It happens, and you deal with it. You’re right when you say a baby changes everything. Rayne’s entire life got flipped upside-down today, and you remind her of everything she’s had to give up, whether she wanted to or not. She’s broken inside.”

  She’s not the only one.

  The gray-haired lady brings out the bag, blue tissue paper and ribbons fluffing out in every direction. I muster a grin and head to the row of shiny elevators. Something about having the gift in my hand gives me a greater resolve, like I have a legitimate reason to actually go up to her room now.

  We get off on the fifth floor and check in at the nurses’ station with a black-haired woman in purple scrubs. When I tell her we’re headed to Rayne Davidson’s room, she frowns and purses her lips. “I’m sorry, but Miss Davidson and Mr. Howard have specifically req
uested no visitors tonight.” She rises up in her chair and looks over at the gift bag. “You can leave that at the desk if you’d like, and we’ll deliver it for you.”

  I crane my neck to look down the aisle. Her door is shut, blinds still closed tight, and I can’t help imagining them in there together. My stomach sinks.

  Taryn side hugs me. “It’s probably best. Give her tonight and come back in the morning. I’ll stay at the hotel so you can go alone. Maybe somehow, you two can find peace.”

  I drop the bag on the nurse’s desk and we turn back to the elevator. It slides open and Taryn reaches forward to press “L,” for lobby. I hope she’s right. Maybe tomorrow we can find a way to have closure.

  Then again, maybe not.

  Chapter 55

  Rayne

  T

  he sunlight streams in the double windows, the muted whir of rush-hour traffic in the background. It’s easy to forget where I am and what’s happened in the first moments of waking, but one glance around this sterile rooms brings it all back. I’m alone.

  It’s the first time no one’s hovered over me in the last 24 hours, making this the perfect time to think, though I don’t know whether that’s a good or bad thing. Yesterday was about unexpected endings. Today is about moving on, but I have no idea how.

  I miss my baby. For weeks, waking up was my favorite part of the day because the munchkin was active, kicking and rolling. I’d pull up my shirt and watch the waves ripple under my skin as he moved deep inside. The last time I felt it, I had no idea it would be the last time.

  My baby isn’t part of me anymore. He’s down the hall, in an incubator, and I haven’t even held him yet. I haven’t named him, either. People keep asking. I keep stalling because there’s only been one boy name on the table since the beginning. Gage Lucas Howard, Jr. But how can I use it now when things didn’t work out like I’d hoped?