by C. M. Owens
After doing the running man and a few robot dances, she moonwalks back to the house, brushes her clothes back into place, and smooths her hair down before opening the door. I move back into the room, acting like I didn’t just see her suffer temporary insanity.
When she walks back into the room, she’s a picture of composure.
“Yes,” she says calmly. “This will be the best nursery there’s ever been, and I’ll do it in neutral colors. We can always add a different color into the scheme after we figure out the sex.”
It’s all getting more real by the second.
“Thanks, Mom. Really. You have no idea how much—”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I juggle it out, seeing Corbin’s name flash across my screen. He rarely ever calls me, so I’m confused when I answer.
That’s when my world comes crashing down for the second time in a week. Only this time, it’s all I can do not to fall apart.
Chapter 67
BELLA
My phone buzzes with a text, and my stomach tilts.
ETHAN: Will you breastfeed?
I’ve been on edge just waiting for him to call me or text me or something, and this is what he sends? I’ve anticipated a lot of swearing and resentment. I’ve braced myself for the inevitable blame game. After all, I’m the one who forgot to get my shot, and I let him know that. This is on me, and then I hid like a coward when I needed time to process what this meant.
ME: Yes.
I decide to stick with a simplistic answer, since it’s such a random question.
I stare at my phone, waiting on him to explain. Instead, I get another random text.
ETHAN: Where the fuck are you?
Is he drunk right now? I hate texting. It hides the emotion behind the words, and I don’t know if he’s exasperated or pissed.
ME: At home.
Is he coming here?
One glance in the mirror has me cringing. I look like death warmed up on a cold plate of hell. Today, I got the first taste of morning sickness. And it sucks big hairy donkey balls.
ETHAN: That was meant for Tag. Not you. Sorry.
Apparently he’s not coming.
My mind, being the obsessive maniac it is, starts wondering why he’s looking for Tag, or if it’s really Tag he was sending that message to. What if it was meant for Star? I got those messages when he was ready for me to be with him and I was running behind.
What if she’s getting them now?
No. No. I can’t do that.
ME: Ok.
I don’t even know why I bother answering. He’s driving me crazy, and I don’t know if it’s intentional or accidental.
Tossing my phone aside, I run a hand through my hair. I have a doctor’s appointment in two weeks. My appointment last night led into another appointment, because my blood pressure was a little high.
Nothing to worry about, they said, but to come back in a couple of weeks just to be sure.
As if that doesn’t have me worried more. My blood pressure is probably higher because of that damn visit.
I’m glad I have the day off, because I can’t handle this queasy feeling at work right now. There’s no way I’d be able to inhale all the scents of the hospital without losing my stomach on someone’s lap.
I need fresh air. And I need a distraction.
After showering quickly, I toss on some clothes and check my phone again. Ethan hasn’t called or sent another text. Not that I expect him to.
The suspense sucks, but I understand his need for space right now. It’d be wrong to deny him something I once chased.
Allie’s phone goes to voicemail, but then she’s suddenly beeping in on me.
“Hey, where are you?” I ask her.
“Actually, Wren’s taking me out of town. I was just calling to tell you that.”
“Oh,” I say surprised. She doesn’t sound happy about it. “Everything okay?”
She sighs harshly. “Yeah. He’s sweet, but I don’t need to get away, and he thinks we do. Anyway, Angel is in the back, and we’re buying clothes when we get to where we’re going, wherever that may be. He’s filling up the tank right now.”
“You don’t know where you’re going?” I ask, confused.
“No. We left Tag’s about two hours ago, and we’re heading north now. Wren said we’d stop when we felt like we were in the right place to unwind and enjoy. It’s uncharacteristic for him, so I think he must need it and is saying I’m the one who needs it.”
“Okay then. I’ll… Well, just call me when you get home.”
“Are you okay? Because I can totally have him bring me back if you’re not.”
“I’m fine, Allie. Really.”
She sighs before saying, “Alright. But call if you need me.”
“I will. Be careful and have fun.”
I hang up with her and call Ruby. Ruby answers on the third ring. “Hey, little momma. Just had a heart to heart with Ethan a few hours ago. Is that why you’re calling?”
Heart to heart with Ethan?
“Actually, I don’t want to think about Ethan right now,” I say to her, swallowing the knot in my throat.
“Sorry. Right. I didn’t mean to upset you or anything.”
“I’m fine, but I was wondering if you wanted to get out and go with me. I can’t stay in this house, and if you aren’t doing anything, I thought maybe we could just… Go somewhere. Maybe to some thrift stores or something?”
“Oh! There’s a new thrift store up the road from me, actually. If you’ll give me fifteen minutes, I’ll swing by and collect you myself.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Brin’s with me. Care if she comes too?”
“Yeah. Bring her. Ask her if she knows of any shops.”
I hear muffled conversation, and suddenly Brin is on the phone.
“I know of a lot of really good ones. I still shop on a budget, because I won’t use Rye’s money.”
“Then I’ll see you two soon.”
I hurry through the motions of getting dressed, discreetly side-eyeing my phone a few times, even though I say it’s because I’m expecting a call from Brin or Ruby. Honestly, I know exactly why I’m eyeing it. But I’m trying really hard not to admit why.
When they show up, I dart out to the car, ready for the distraction, and grateful they seem happy to thrift shop with me.
We hit a couple of places, and after three hours, I’m exhausted.
“Should you be getting so much exercise?” Ruby asks me, worried.
“Of course,” I tell her. “But I’m tired. What about you two?”
Brin acts a little spaced out, and she doesn’t seem to hear me as she checks the nooks and crannies of this huge, overly stuffed, three-story shop.
“Is she okay?” I ask when Ruby stares at her with me.
“I think so. She and Rye had a little bit of an argument earlier. She came home with me, since Corbin had to go help Maverick with something.”
I nod, even though now I’m worried. Rye and Brin bicker, prank each other, and then they make out. They never actually argue.
“Will they be okay?” I ask.
Ruby puts her hand on my shoulder, and she starts guiding me toward the stairs.
“Yeah. They love each other, and believe it or not, that trumps most anything.”
My heart squeezes, but I stuff down the emotion as I start walking down the stairs, thinking of what life would be like right now if Ethan had just fallen in love with me. It might not have changed anything at all. I’m not so sure that love really does trump all else.
My head is swimming with a thousand scenarios, and it takes a second to register the fact my feet are treading on air and no longer on the stairs… I’m falling? How am I falling?
Ruby is screaming my name as a sick, airborne sensation steals my stomach and shoves it up to my chest. My hands reflexively grab my middle protectively.
Someone is screaming as pain shoots up my leg and back, searing through me like a h
ot’s knife blade from the impact. It’s me... I’m screaming!
What happened?
I can’t breathe! Why can’t I breathe?
I suck in for air, but it won’t enter my lungs. All of the sights around me are a dim blur.
Suddenly, all the air hits me at once, and the pain is almost unbearable as my lungs expand with the multiple breaths I’ve been gasping for. I feel as though I’m being sliced in two as the painful breaths cut into me.
The world above me is spinning, and something wet is all over my legs. Ruby is over me, saying my name and so many other words I can’t understand. She’s shouting… I think. But she’s shouting at someone else as she lifts my head.
I glance down the length of my body, and my legs lift, letting me know they’re still working. But my heart sinks to my toes when I see all the blood seeping through my jeans.
So much blood...
It just keeps pouring out, turning my jeans darker and darker red, and I reach down, touching the wood at my sides. My fingertips get wet, and I stare in horror at all the blood on them.
Too much blood...
My baby! No. No. No. No. No. Please, God, I’m begging you, don’t take my baby away from me.
Blackness swarms me as my eyes roll back in my head.
“Bella! Bella, no! Don’t close your eyes, please! Stay with me!” is the last thing I hear Ruby saying before it all disappears.
Chapter 68
ETHAN
My heart is jackhammering in my chest when I come skidding to a stop in front of the hospital, leaving the keys and everything behind as I run inside.
“Hey! You can’t park there!” someone barks at me, but I ignore them as I crash through the doors and into the emergency room’s waiting area.
Ruby rushes toward me, and I get sick when I see the blood on her shirt. It’s all I can do not to punch something or someone right now. I need something tangible to hit.
“How is she? Where is she? The… The baby?” I can barely get the words out before my voice cracks and my hands ball into fists.
Ruby’s eyes are red, and tears are running down her cheeks.
“I… They won’t tell us anything. They shoved us out of the way. The paramedics were just next door when we called, dealing with something that wasn’t a true emergency. We were lucky they came right to us, but… We don’t know anything. Allie isn’t answering, and she’s her only next of kin that’s listed.”
I pick up my phone with shaky hands, and I dial Wren. It goes straight to voicemail. Allie’s phone does the same damn thing.
I move to the glass in front of the reception desk, and I bang on it as a woman walks up.
“Bella Pierson! I need in now to see her.”
“Unless you’re family, you can’t come back until she wakes up,” the nurse says with a sad smile. “I’m sorry, but it’s hospital policy.”
“He’s Corbin Sterling. He fucking owns the hospital,” I say, pointing at Corbin.
“His father owns it, and unless Hershel Sterling calls here himself, I can’t do anything,” the nurse informs me.
Corbin offers me a grim, regretful look. “Dad’s not answering, since I’ve sort of cut him out of my life,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. I’ve already tried.”
I punch the glass, and the woman jumps, but it doesn’t break.
“I’m the baby’s father. Please, I’m fucking begging you, let me come back there. Or at least tell me something.”
Her eyes soften, and she clears her throat.
“They’re working on her right now. That’s all I know. Unless she wakes up and tells us it’s okay, we can’t allow you back here. We have a strict policy to ensure our patients’ privacy, so unless you can prove you’re the baby’s father, you can’t come back here. She’ll be going to a room soon, and you can meet her up there, though.”
“Fuck!”
I spin around, barely able to hold it together. Rye is holding Brin as her body shakes in his arms, her head buried against his chest. He gives me a pitying look that I can stomach right now.
“How did it happen?” I ask Ruby, who is curled in Corbin’s arms as they stand together.
“I don’t know. One second she’s right beside me on the stairs, and the next… The next…” Her voice catches, and she wipes away fresh tears. “The next she’s falling and I tried… I tried so hard to catch her. I missed her by a few fingertips. There was so much blood, Ethan… I’m… I’m so sorry.”
She starts sobbing, and Corbin holds her closer.
Her words slam into my head like a bowling ball rolling down hill to a wall. No… No. Fuck no!
My chest feels like someone is crushing it down, and my insides feel raw. A growing ache forms in my core, expanding more and more by the second.
Something wet hits my cheeks, and I reach up to swat it away. Tears?
I haven’t cried since I was a kid. All that was beaten out of me, and I haven’t even had to resist the urge. Now the tears are falling, and I touch them, dumbstruck.
“Ethan Noles?” I spin around as a familiar face walks up to the glass.
It’s the linebacker woman who tackled me once upon a time, but she doesn’t look like she’s trying to take me out right now.
“Berta, right? Can you please fucking tell me something?” I ask her, moving toward the window again.
She sighs as she frowns. “I wish I could, but I don’t know anything, and they’re shut up in a room with her. Here’s what room she’s gonna be in though,” she says before sliding a piece of paper through the slit at the bottom. “Go there and wait for her, okay?”
I snatch it away, and I look back up at her. “Find me if you find out anything.”
She nods and walks off, and I rake a frustrated hand through my hair.
I dial Wren again, cursing when his phone immediately goes to voicemail. He has to be in an area with no signal the one fucking time I need him.
My mom walks in with tear-streaked eyes. My dad is on her heels, and his eyes look suspiciously wet. That can’t be right. He’s never cried. He sure as fuck can’t cry right now, because I’ll lose the small amount of strength I’m clinging to by a thread.
“The baby? Bella? Are they okay?” Mom asks in a quiet, broken voice.
I swallow down the painful knot. “I don’t know.”
It’s the worst fucking feeling in the whole world, even though the dread of the probable is choking me. I don’t tell my mother about my inner thoughts. She’d fall apart right now.
If there was so much blood, I know without a doubt, my baby is gone. And it hurts more than I ever thought possible. Bella… Bella is going to be crushed.
I sag to a seat, dropping heavily as I put my head in my hands, trying to stop the spinning as everything shatters at once.
My chest caves in on itself, and I cover my face tightly as pain like I’ve never experienced before lances through my heart and proves to me that I can still cry like a fucking ba—
A choked sound rakes against the insides of my throat as that one word—that I can’t even think—sets me off. I’m slinging a chair through the front glass before I even realize I’ve stood up. It shatters and people scream, but fuck them all.
Corbin and Rye start tackling me, trying to drag me out, telling me to calm down before I get arrested. I don’t care. None of it fucking matters. I failed the only two people who’ve ever truly needed me.
The look Bella gave me when I grabbed Star slams into my mind, and rage simmers close to the edge.
Struggling, I break free, and my fist slams into Rye’s face just as they drag me into the parking lot.
The memory of me standing shocked in that hallway after Bella told me she loved me assaults me next. More self-loathing comes out violently as I connect an elbow with Corbin’s middle, causing him to double over in pain.
Maverick and Tag come racing up, as though they arrived just in time to deal with me. When I think of the hole I punched in the wall after learning Bell
a was pregnant, Maverick takes a shot in the chin, and Tag drops to the ground after catching a shot to side.
I couldn’t even look at her. I just walked away because I was too much of a fucking coward to face it in that moment. My pride was hurt. I was scared. And I failed her.
Swing after swing, my fury pours out, and my friends bear the brunt of my own misery, because I can’t beat the fuck out of myself.
Corbin wrangles my arms back, and Rye bear hugs me, clutching me as I break down like I never have before, struggling uselessly as the pain overwhelms me.
Life is really fucking cruel.
Chapter 69
BELLA
Lights. I see lights blaring down from above me, but I’m too disoriented to focus on them.
Familiar smells taint my nose, but they’re confusing.
Where am I?
“She may have suffered a panic attack that caused her to pass out, though the blood loss was exaggerated for the injury,” someone is saying, but it’s all so out of focus that I can’t see what’s going on.
“The crowd she’s gathered is growing antsy. Are you sure we can’t tell them anything? We’ve already had to call the police because of the one claiming to be the baby’s father,” someone else says, confusing the hell out of me.
“I wish we could, but it violates all our policies. The only family listed on her employee file is Allie Thrash, and Bella hasn’t named the father of her child herself, or adjusted any paperwork. Anyone of them could claim to be the child’s father. We’ve been trying to contact Allie, but we can’t confirm anything over the phone. Again, it’s policy. It’s even stricter with employees.”
“Let’s hope there’s not a damn riot,” comes a grumbled reply.
“Get her up to the room, Berta. Stay with her there. And don’t tell the ridiculous amount of people here for her anything unless she wakes up and okays it.”
