Most of them are from better days, when he was still healthy. When his skin didn’t have a gray, sickly tone to it, when he was still at a healthy weight.
I keep down the small sob that wants to escape as I grab the photo we took a day before he passed away. He was barely coherent anymore, but it was one of those rare moments where he smiled at me, where the recognition and love lit his eyes and turned him into the man who—together with my mom—made me into the person I am today, even if it was only fleeting.
Somehow, my mom captured that moment. I’d like to believe it was fate. A being at the right place at the right time moment.
I can’t even remember how many tears I’ve shed over that memory. Over the significance those few seconds allowed me to capture.
I loved him with all my heart, but he’s always with me. Always has been. He’s the reason I was able to get through the last decade, and also why I’ve reconnected with another piece of my heart.
No matter how much I miss him every second of every day, I can’t help but smile now each time I think of him. How could I not for the way he enriched my life and still does?
My fingers are on the go again, rummaging through the eclectic shrine of my past. Pushing aside little knickknacks and random memorabilia, everything from jewelry to spelling bee prizes, until I get to a beige wooden box at the bottom.
I last opened this box shortly after we moved to San Diego, when I tried to say goodbye to my former life. A farewell to the life before my prognosis and a welcome to the start of my second chance at life when I received my donor heart.
Holding it now, why does it feel more like a Pandora’s box than anything else?
Am I really ready to look at these things?
Do I really want to, knowing what’s inside?
Deep breath. One, two, three.
Before I can chicken out, I open the lid, and exhale loudly.
My eyes are glued to more photos. Some with my family, some with Eadie, but most of them with Noah.
Kissing, laughing, being silly together.
Dates, dates, and more dates. Proms. Birthdays. Holidays.
We did almost everything together.
My hands dig all the way to the bottom, to the picture I know is waiting for me there.
You have to tell him the truth. The whole truth. He deserves to know.
He does.
Gosh, I know he does.
But my heart.
It hurts, and it’s going to hurt even more than it already does.
Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow.
I can’t right now when I feel this tender.
A noise behind me makes me whip my head around, a sharp pain shooting through the bottom of my neck at the quick movement. And then my throat closes at Noah standing there.
No. No. No.
Dread fills my body, tightening around my organs with such ferocity that I almost buckle over.
“What . . . what are you doing here?” My breath whooshes out with my words, both unsteady.
He pushes his hands into his pockets, a wary expression on his face as he takes in the chaos around me. “Sorry for coming after you, but you told me where the extra key is, and I was worried and wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
I nod, my throat too dry to get out a single word right now.
Shit. I didn’t think he’d notice and come after me.
My hand is shaking so hard, I almost drop the picture in my hand.
The picture.
Panic has me clutch it to my chest, as I try to rack my brain for what to say.
But it doesn’t feel like enough time to think of anything. To find the right words that will allow me to tell him this piece of the story.
My legs are wobbly, and my stomach churns. Maybe I can get him out of here somehow? Away from all of this stuff I don't want him to see.
“What’s going on, Chloe?”
“I . . . I.” My cheeks puff out when I release a nervous breath. “Do you still want kids?”
Why the hell did that just come out of my mouth? What on earth is wrong with me?
He studies me for a moment, the confusion clear on his face. Maybe he’s also wondering if I short-circuited a fuse, because I’m certainly entertaining that option.
But then he nods, and a faint smile appears on his face. Followed by a shimmer of hope. “Yeah, of course. Nothing has changed for me.”
I close my eyes for a moment and dip my head once. “Of course.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“You too, right?” There’s an edge to his voice now. Not anger, but something else. Maybe uncertainty?
“Well, yes, but also no.” I meet his gaze again.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Chloe.
Absolutely nothing.
You didn’t do anything wrong.
Not a single thing.
He brushes a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure I understand. Do you want to have kids or not?”
Just say it. “I’d love to have kids more than anything, but I won’t have any. Not with everything going on. I just can’t.”
There. It’s out now.
At my answer, he stumbles back a step, almost banging into the closet door. With wide eyes, he looks at me. His gaze is so intense, it feels like he’s trying to pull the thoughts out of my brain by sheer will.
“I . . . I don’t think I follow.” He’s still shaking his head in denial.
Out of pure reflex, I take a step closer, reaching for him, the need to comfort him overriding any other brain function.
Noah’s hand shoots out, grabbing my wrist. The one where my hand is holding the photo.
“Chloe. What the hell is this?”
I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “An ultrasound.”
“Yours?”
I nod.
“You’re . . . you’re pregnant?” That hopeful glint is back in his eyes.
I don’t even feel like I’m really present right now. My muscles feel weak, and I’m wondering if it would be better to sit down before I collapse.
All I manage is a shake of my head.
His eyebrows pinch together, and every last ounce of happiness is sucked out of his face? “So, you’re not pregnant?”
Another shake of my head. My breathing accelerates, and I count breaths before I begin to hyperventilate.
“You . . . you were pregnant before?” His voice is so quiet I barely hear it.
This time, I nod.
As much as this whole situation makes my skin tingle with discomfort, I can’t look away from him. Our locked gazes might be the only thing that keeps me upright right now.
He blinks a few times, not breaking our eye contact either. “So you had a baby?”
This whole situation is so similar to when he discovered my pills in the bathroom.
I’m blindsided. Unprepared. Paralyzed.
Incapable of uttering more than a random word.
Maybe it would have been better to tell him everything back then, but I just couldn’t. This whole kids topic has always been one of the hardest parts about my condition.
Having your dream future go up in a cloud of nothing because your body suddenly decides it doesn’t want to function properly anymore wasn’t easy to accept. Without a doubt, it was the hardest part.
Yes, I wanted to live, and I’m beyond grateful that I got another chance, yet I’m still mourning the future I lost too.
Because isn’t that what we live for? For our futures?
We build our dream future based on what we deem important to us, our must-haves and most-importants, and then we work our butts off to get all of those things.
That’s all great and dandy until life decides to slap you in the face and yells, “Surprise, not anymore.”
A tug at my hand brings me back to reality.
Noah’s widened gaze burns into mine. “When was this?”
I’m sure he already knows because everything leads back to us. It always does. We’re lin
ked in so many ways.
“It was . . . it was a few weeks after I left.”
He takes a few shaky breaths, looking at the photo between us. The ultrasound. The one proof that we once created something magical together that neither of us ever got to experience and that we never will. At least, not together. “No, that’s impossible.”
I sniffle and rub at my eyes. “They discovered my pregnancy when they did a bunch of tests at the hospital. But it was already too late at that point. They couldn’t find a heartbeat, and I miscarried a few days later.”
Noah raises my hand so he can take a closer look at the ultrasound. At the little blip that never got to be more.
Then he presses his fist to his mouth and turns away. “I . . . this is just . . . I can’t.” A loud exhale follows. “I have to go.”
And just like that, he leaves the closet and my room, and a minute later, the front door closes.
I finally give in to my body and drop to the floor, collapsing in a heap of emotions that are too strong for me to endure right now. Too complex to tear apart. Too painful to even look at.
The man I’m still in love with just walked out on me after finding out the secret I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to share with him.
My life imploded back then. My heart was already in tatters—literally and figuratively—and the losses just kept coming. My future. Noah. And then the part of him that I’d never meet.
I’d already let him go, and there was no reason to bring him into that mire of sadness. I mean, look at how he got back up after heartbreak and succeeded.
No, I did the right thing back then, even though I still have words yelling inside of my head saying he had a right to know.
But the despair in his eyes a moment ago makes me think this might have been too much for Noah to handle. Not just back then but also now.
And I’m not sure he’ll ever find his way back to me.
Thirty-Two
Noah
Hushed voices in front of the bedroom door wake me up.
“What do you want me to do? Short of putting on a show for him, I’ve tried everything I can think of. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone. As far as I know, he only leaves his house to get food, to hit the gym, or go to the pool.”
Why is Hunter at my house?
Oh, that’s right. He’s conveniently been “passing out” on my couch since I got drunk as fuck after Chloe’s revelation and butt-dialed Ryan, who came over with the other guys. The next day, they—and my sister who had miraculously shown up too—made me spill the beans, so I broke down and told them. I had almost been a dad.
The last time I checked, it was only Hunter here though. So who’s he talking to?
“What kind of show are we talking about?” Of course, it’s my sister.
There’s some mumbling and laughter.
What the hell are they doing?
Can’t they at least take this conversation somewhere else? Hunter was right. I don’t want to talk to anyone . . . on purpose. All I want is to be left alone. To work out as much as I can, so all I manage to do is fall into bed and pass out.
This is my way of dealing with things. Of grieving something I thought I would or could have had. Something that was a mirage all along instead of the reality I spun it into.
But it was already too late at that point. I miscarried a few days later.
But where does that leave me?
I’m still not ready to think about it. About any of it.
Does that make me stubborn and maybe a little childish? Sure.
But I don’t give a fuck.
After I left Chloe’s house, I felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under me, right before jumping me, and punching me in the face a few times for good measure.
So, mission avoidance was born and has been in full-on mode ever since.
I have to say I’m pretty good at it too.
Exercising until I pass out is a pretty foolproof tactic. After I got over my hangover of the year, that is.
My phone beeps and I grab it. It’s not like I’m not awake anyway thanks to those two dorks not-so-whispering in front of my door.
Mom: Hey, sweetie, I hope things are still going well on your side of the world. Sorry you haven’t heard a lot from us in the last few weeks, but the connection out here in the rural areas isn’t very good. We’re still planning on coming home next month, and I’ll let you know as soon as we know the details. Give your sister and my two boys a hug. We love you.
My parents. Currently spending a lot of their retirement time in rural areas all over the world, this time in Africa. Helping others to have a better life. People who have so much less than we do, people who have so much less than I do. If that isn’t like a kick in the gut, I don’t know what is.
Can I be grateful for the life I have, for the possibilities I was given, and I’ve worked hard for, while also grieving something that was important to me?
A knock on the door pulls me out of my thoughts.
I swing my legs out of bed and pull a T-shirt over my head. “Come in.”
The door opens and Daisy pokes her head in. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I look at her, the resemblance to my dad so evident in her features, where I look more like my mom. “Did you draw the shorter stick?”
“Huh?”
“Sounded like you guys were whispering about who has to come talk to me.”
Her cheeks turn pink and she swallows half of her laugh. “We didn’t. I came by because I wanted to talk to you.”
I pick up my phone and show it to her.
She reads the message and sighs. “Awesome. It will be nice to have them back, for a while at least until they’re off on their next mission.”
I nod. I don’t say what I know we both think. That it would be nice to have them here on a regular basis, but we both know it’s just the way it is. It’s their life, and they’re happy doing what they’re doing.
Daisy sits down in the armchair by the window, so I sit on the edge of the bed.
Her gaze is intense as she looks at me. “How are you feeling?”
I shrug. “Fine.”
She nods. I’m pretty sure she expected that answer. “Can we talk about what’s going on?”
“I don’t know if there’s a point. It’s not like I can change anything about the situation.”
“Shit, I hate this.” She tilts her head back and looks at the ceiling for a moment. “Listen, I know this sucks. Gosh, my heart is hurting for both of you, so very much, but I know how much she means to you, so I’m just going to say it, okay? I think giving up on her will be the greatest mistake you can make.”
Unable to be still, I push off the mattress and pace the length of the room.
Daisy turns in her chair so she can still see me. “I know I wasn’t around much the first time, but I still know how much you loved her. It was evident every time we saw each other or even talked on the phone. And I don’t think that has changed. The way you talk about her, the way you look at her . . . it’s like she hung the moon. And she looks at you the same way.”
I pause for a moment at her words before pacing some more. Up and down. Back and forth. The movement helps, but it also doesn’t. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, what do you want? When you think about Chloe and your history, what do you want?”
I rub my hands over my face. Roughly. Wanting to pull my hair out. “Her, of course. But, at the same time, I don’t know how to get over the fact that we won’t have any children. It sucks.”
“I know.”
I stop pacing and look at her. “I mean, regardless of how things turned out with Daniel and you, would it have been easy for you to accept that you couldn’t have kids?”
She shakes her head before I even say the last word. “No. But of course, it’s extra hard for me to imagine my life without the boys now that I have them.” She stares at her hands. “It would feel empty to me, but then I don’t know if Daniel was ever to me wha
t Chloe is to you either. What both of you are to each other.”
Damn it, she’s got a point. Daisy and Daniel were an okay couple, but they never seemed crazy into each other. Whereas Chloe and I always used to be joined by the hip as my mom liked to call it.
“I don’t even know if Daniel and I would have gotten married—or stayed together—if I hadn’t gotten pregnant. We did the right thing, or rather what we thought was the right thing, which, of course, turned out to have been the wrong thing. But as I said before, I can’t regret my time with him because he gave me the boys.”
“Yeah.” The word leaves my mouth on a heavy breath because shit, I’m not sure if what my sister said just made it worse or better.
No matter how much I don’t want to think about Chloe dying at some point—possibly in the near future—the thought keeps popping into my head like a snake ready to strike. Filling my mind with images I’d rather not think about. Ever.
It would be a sad place—the saddest—and my heart would surrender to the darkness that inevitably would come with her passing. I’d be like a flower without water, slowly wilting until the last particles of me were carried away in the wind, leaving nothing left.
Daisy clears her throat, her eyes slightly shiny when I look at her. “What do you see when you imagine your future? I know you’ve always wanted a family of your own, but sadly, we know that things don’t always work out the way we want them to.”
What do I see when I imagine my future?
Easy.
I see Chloe.
I doubt that will ever change.
“Chloe.” Her name flows through my lips with wonder, like the miracle she is. She’s been so strong, walking down a path that has caused her immense pain and sorrow, leading her straight back to me. And I . . . I don’t fucking know where up and down, or left and right is anymore.
“What are you scared of?” Daisy’s voice is quiet, like she knows she’s treading hazardous waters.
I snort, too exhausted mentally to keep up any shields anymore. “What am I not afraid of when it comes to Chloe?”
She leans forward in her chair, trying to keep eye contact with me. “You know that’s okay, right? We’re all afraid of things. All of us. Especially where our hearts are concerned. We’re all shaped by our experiences, and sometimes, it’s the experiences that we know will shape us in the future, that we’re most afraid of. And that’s okay. It’s normal. It’s part of being human.”
Second Dive: A Second Chance Sports Romance (Kings Of The Water Book 3) Page 20
