A Love Like Ours

by Micalea Smeltzer

He nods once, his eyes sliding over my face like he’s reminding himself that I’m here and that this story does have a happy ending, no matter how gruesome it might be.

  I close my eyes and allow myself to go back and relive that day. Something I’ve never done in all this time.

  I smiled as I spoke into the phone. “I’m going in right now to pick up the food. I’ll be home in a little bit. Yes, I’m sure Cheeto misses you too.” I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. I barely had a bump and Ollie was already obsessed with our child. Something told me once this baby made his or her appearance in the world he was never going to let them go. Something else told me I was perfectly okay with that. He was going to be a great dad. “All right, I’ve got to go. I love you too.”

  I hung up the phone and climbed off my bike, leaning it against the side of the building before going around to the front. Several cars filled the parking lot but the sign on the door said CLOSED.

  My brows pulled together.

  “Closed?” I mumbled questioningly to myself.

  Mo’s was never closed at this time, and Rebecca had answered the phone when I called to place my order. She hadn’t said anything about them closing early, so maybe it was an accident and they didn’t know the sign was flipped. Or maybe some emergency had come up. There were a million and one plausible explanations.

  My feet carried me to the door and I opened it.

  I stepped into darkness. All the blinds were closed and lights off.

  The silence was deafening.

  “Hello?” I called out hesitantly.

  A big hulking mountain of a man appeared from the kitchen, storming toward me.

  Another leaner man strolled casually behind him.

  “Take care of her,” he said in a silky, syrupy voice.

  “And he shot me,” I finish for Ollie. “It was dark so his aim was shitty. I think he was aiming for my chest and got my abdomen instead. I dropped to the ground and played dead.” I shrugged my shoulders like that was that and this was no big deal—like I was simply telling him a story about how much I liked ice cream.

  Ollie covered his face with his hands, his elbows propped on the table.

  His shoulders shook with silent sobs.

  Softly, I say, “And you know the rest.”

  Another minute passes before he lowers his hands. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that. It should’ve been me.”

  I gasp. “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”

  He rubs his hand over his chin. “It kills me that I was so helpless. All I could do when I got the call was get my ass to the hospital and wait.” He shakes his head. “I’ve wished so many times that I could’ve traded places with you.”

  “Don’t say that,” I plead again. “I don’t like the idea of you being hurt any more than you like the idea of me being hurt, so please stop saying that.”

  He sighs and says softly, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s over,” I add, wiping the condensation from my water glass with the side of my finger. “That’s all that matters.”

  He nods once and looks out toward the ocean. I follow his gaze, smiling wistfully at the group of surfers in the water, and the sunbathers on the beach.

  Over here in our little bubble we’ve been focused on the past. On a horrible event that forever changed our lives. But over there? People are living their lives, blissfully unaware, because life goes on, and if you don’t go with it then you’re left behind forever.

  Ollie and I used to live our lives on one speed.

  Fast.

  The last ten months we’ve been on pause, stuck in place as we struggled to move on from that day.

  But finally it’s like someone has pressed play again and we get to live our lives again.

  Something tells me we won’t be going quite as fast now—that we’ll take time to slow down and appreciate the little things.

  As his eyes drift back to me and he cracks a smile—a genuine smile—I know that no matter what, we’re going to be okay.

  “Ready to see your baby?” the doctor asks.

  I nod eagerly, my heart racing. Ollie is antsy beside me, his fingers jumping restlessly against the side of his leg.

  “Since we don’t know how far along you are, we’re going to start with the abdominal probe and move on to the more invasive one if we don’t see anything.” She winks and I cringe, remembering the internal monitor.

  She squirts the goo on my stomach and the bottle makes an obnoxious noise, which makes Ollie snicker because he’s more of a little boy than a man when it comes to those kinds of things.

  I reach for his hand as the doctor grabs the wand.

  I feel nervous, and scared, and happy, and a million other emotions all wrapped in one.

  “Ready?” she asks.

  I nod my head rapidly, the paper behind my head crinkling.

  I hold my breath as she presses the wand to my skin and wiggles it around.

  The greatest sound I’ve ever heard in the entire world fills the room.

  Our baby’s heartbeat.

  I gasp and tears pour from my eyes.

  “There’s your baby,” she points to the screen. “Strong heartbeat too.”

  I gasp when I realize the baby on the screen looks like an actual baby and not like a round little bean like I was expecting.

  “That’s a baby,” Ollie gasps, and I think he’s as amazed as I am.

  She takes some measurements while we look on in wonder.

  “It looks like you’re about eighteen weeks.”

  “Eighteen weeks?” I gasp. “But I just started getting sick.”

  She shrugs. “Some pregnancies are that way. Smooth sailing early on and then the sickness sets in.”

  “Wow.” I shake my head. I had no idea I could be this far along but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. My periods had been irregular since the accident so when I went long periods without one I didn’t bother to take a test, because it always came back negative. At first, I thought my missed periods had something to do with the miscarriage, but my doctor said it wasn’t that and it was most likely my body’s response to the traumatic event and that it could take me a while to get on course again.

  “I can tell you the gender too, if you want to know.”

  I glance up at Ollie. This isn’t something we’ve talked about since neither of us had any clue we’d be this far along.

  We’d planned to find out the first time but …

  “I want it to be a surprise,” I confess softly, scared he’ll disagree.

  He smiles and nods, brushing my hair away from my forehead. “A surprise sounds fun.” He grins and bends to kiss me.

  “Let me get some pictures for you, and congrats, guys. You’re almost halfway there.”

  “Halfway there,” I repeat. It seems surreal. “And everything looks good?”

  “Everything looks perfect.” Dr. Hawkins assures with a kind smile. “Nothing’s one-hundred percent, but I feel confident saying you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Good.” I breathe out a sigh of relief then promptly breakdown into tears again.

  Ollie wraps his arms around me as best he can with me lying down.

  The doctor finishes and hands us our sonogram pictures.

  I can’t stop staring at them. At the perfect little nose and pouty lips.

  “That’s our baby,” I whisper, touching my fingers to its fingers where it looks like it’s waving.

  Ollie bends his head to look at them better. “Beautiful,” he murmurs. His lips press to the top of my head a moment later.

  Dr. Hawkins tells me I can get dressed and we can head out.

  I feel a huge sense of relief now that we’ve seen, and heard, the baby.

  I feel even better knowing I’m eighteen weeks along. That’s nearly five months. We’re past the scary part.

  It’s like everything’s falling into place perfectly.

  After the storm comes the rainbow.

  I close my eyes,
hearing Ollie’s voice as he spoke those words to me.

  “Our rainbow.” My voice shakes as I clutch the photos to my chest. I lift my tear-filled eyes to his. “Everything’s going to be okay, isn’t it?”

  “Everything’s already okay. Everything’s going to be perfect.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “Me too.” He grins. “Now get your cute butt down from there and dressed. We have to go visit our first baby.”

  My breath falters. I’m scared, but I know I need to do this.

  I listen to him and get down, handing him the sonogram photos so I can change. Once I’m dressed, we head out to the car and over to the cemetery. Thankfully, it’s not a long enough drive for me to go into freak-out mode.

  Ollie parks the car on the street and I hop out before I can talk myself out of it.

  The cemetery was the nicest one we could find. It doesn’t have a cold metal gate like most do and it’s surrounded by lush green grass and trees. It felt peaceful, and that’s why we chose it.

  He meets me at my side of the car and takes my hand, guiding me onto the property.

  We’ve only been here once, but we move toward the grave like we’ve done it a million times before.

  When it appears before us, a sob bursts free of my lips.

  Cheeto McGruff

  Our friends thought we were absolutely nuts when they saw we’d had the stone inscribed with Cheeto McGruff, but Ollie called the baby Cheeto from the moment we found out I was pregnant, and it seemed right. We didn’t know if it was a boy or girl and we didn’t want to only put the last name, so Cheeto McGruff it was. It was weird, sure, but it was us.

  I drop to my knees and trace my finger over each letter in the name and then the letters and numbers birth and death day.

  I know it’s not typical to have a stone and bury a child of a miscarriage when it happens early in the pregnancy but given our circumstances, it was what we had to do.

  Our baby deserved to be remembered by more people than us.

  “Hey, Cheeto,” Ollie says with a soft chuckle. “What’s it like up there? I bet it’s nice.”

  I press a fist to my mouth, quieting the sounds coming from my throat.

  Ollie stands, his hand on my back rubbing soothingly as I kneel.

  “Are you watching over your brother or sister? I hope you are. This will be the luckiest kid in the world, because it has you up there watching over.”

  My sobs grow harder then and my whole body shakes uncontrollably.

  I knew this would hurt, but I guess I wasn’t prepared for the magnitude in which it would hit me.

  Ollie kneels beside me, wrapping his arms around me. I dive into his chest, holding on tight as I lose it.

  I realize how much I’ve needed this. I’ve kept these tears and emotions bottled up inside for way too long. It’s time to purge myself of them.

  Ollie tucks my head beneath his neck and rocks me back and forth. He whispers sweet words, but I can’t hear them over the sound of my sobs.

  He lets me cry until I have no tears left and then he simply holds me while I gather myself.

  I dry my face on the back of my hands and speak.

  “I really only have one thing I have to say to you.” My voice is thick and throaty sounding from all the tears I’ve cried. “And it’s that I love you. Nothing in this world will change that. You might not be here in our arms, but it doesn’t matter, because you’re in our hearts, and we’ll love you every day of our forever and we’ll love you after that too.”

  I stay for a moment longer, my hand pressed to the ground below the stone, before I stand.

  I lean into Ollie as we walk away, our arms wrapped around one another.

  I glance up at him with a small smile. “You and me against the world?”

  He smiles back down. “You and me against the world,” he echoes.

  Our life isn’t perfect; it never will be. We’ll face more struggles in the future, but we’ll always come out stronger in the end, because a love like ours is everlasting. I know our future holds many years of laughter, silliness, and outright craziness.

  And I’m looking forward to every second of it.

  Two Years Later

  I watch them from a distance.

  Ollie has no idea I’m watching them, which makes it all the better.

  “This, River, is a surfboard. In order to be a good surfer, you must become one with the board. Come here.” He lifts our son onto the board. “Feel the board. Love the board. Be the board.” River looks up at him with what I know to be the biggest blue eyes on the planet. His blond curls tumble over his small forehead and he gives his daddy a toothy grin. He looks adorable in his blue board shorts with gray sharks printed on them. They were a gift from Liam and Ari.

  “Dada.” River giggles and falls onto the board. He smacks his hands against the board and Ollie sighs.

  “Son, that’s not what I meant when I said be the board.” Ollie shakes his head. River reaches over the side of the board and grabs a handful of sand. I know exactly where this is going. “River! No! Don’t eat that!” Ollie hastily grabs up River and swipes at his hand and mouth to get rid of the sand.

  I make my presence known then.

  “What are you boys up to?” I ask, stepping around the tall grass I was hiding behind.

  Both of them grin, twin dimples winking in their cheeks.

  “Nothing,” Ollie says.

  “Nufing, Mama,” River giggles.

  I’m in so much trouble with those two.

  I used to think Ollie and I were partners in crime, but Ollie and River are a whole other story.

  “You two look like trouble,” I joke, striding over to them. I kiss each of their cheeks when I reach them. River’s arms immediately stretch out for me to hold him and Ollie hands him over. “Hey, cutie.” I tap his nose and he giggles. River has the cutest laugh I’ve ever heard, but I might be biased since he’s my son.

  River Liam McGruff came into the world with a war cry and flailing limbs and he hasn’t stopped moving since.

  And he’s utterly perfect.

  “Down, down,” he cries, pushing against me so I’ll put him on the ground.

  As soon as his feet touch the sand he takes off running, his blond hair blowing in the wind, and his giggles music to my ears.

  Ollie winks at me and takes off after him.

  He lets him run for a bit, but when he starts to get too close to the water, he grabs him and lifts him onto his shoulders.

  River laughs harder and his hands latch onto Ollie’s hair.

  Ollie turns around and walks backward so he’s facing me.

  “Are you coming?” he calls.

  “Always.”

  I jog to meet up with them and together we walk down the beach toward our home.

  The sun sets over the water, bathing it in a fiery flame of oranges and reds.

  “The sun is setting, River, you know what that means?” Ollie asks, pausing to take in the sight.

  “Wha?” River prompts.

  “It means tomorrow is a whole new day. Anything bad that happened today doesn’t have to carry on to tomorrow unless you let it. Tomorrows are promises of better things. As long as we have tomorrow, we have forever.”

  He grins over at me and I smile back.

  We have forever.

  COMING SOON FROM MICALEA SMELTZER

  Beauty in the Ashes (re-release)

  December 2016

  Some stories are a fairytale...but this isn't one.

  Caelan Gregory’s life fell apart the night he went home and opened the door to find his whole family murdered. Since then, his life has held no meaning. He’s angry. He’s bitter. He’s barely human anymore. There’s nothing left to remind him of the straight A student, and football quarterback he once was…but he wasn’t a good person then, and he’s certainly not a good person now. He’s retreated into a world where all that exists is numbness and his passion for painting.

 
When Sutton Hale moves into the apartment across the hall from Caelan she’s not prepared for her reaction to him. Something in his broken blue eyes calls to her—after all she’s always had an irrational need to fix everything.

  But Caelan doesn’t do relationships or feelings. He does drugs and alcohol. However, he can’t ignore his desire to get to know the raven-haired woman across the hall.

  Two broken souls trying to mend one another.

  But not everything can be fixed.

  In the end, Caelan and Sutton will have to learn that there is beauty in the ashes.

  Also, don’t miss:

  Dark Hearts (Light in the Dark #3)

  Jace & Nova’s story. Can be read as a standalone.

  Early 2017

  An Excerpt From

  Replica

  by Regina Bartley

  PROLOGUE

  There was a party, a we-are-graduating party at Amber Gold’s house. The night was warm, and there was a thick smell of bonfire in the air. Amber was head cheerleader, and it was a senior’s only event, which meant anyone who was anyone would be attending. My sister Elise however, wasn’t “anyone,” far from it actually. She was at home preparing her valedictorian speech, and shopping online for the perfect comforter set for her new dorm room. It was typical weekend behavior for her. I on the other hand, was living life to the fullest and partying my butt off with the rest of the senior class. I mean, you’re only a senior once right? We were preparing for the real world with red solo cups and a splash of vodka.

  I personally despised every person at the party, but with a little liquor they were growing on me.

  The fun was just beginning at Amber’s house when things took a turn for the worse. Bobby was flipped upside down over a keg when someone yelled, “COPS!” The sirens were growing louder and people were running like their feet were on fire. Trashing my cup on the ground, I snuck around the back of Amber’s house and hurried through the thick brush covering the ground. I could feel it scratching against my ankles. The farther I ran the darker it was. I could no longer see the back porch light from where I stood, only the small white beam casted by the moon. I perched behind an old tree and pulled out my cell phone. Thankfully, I had some battery left because I knew for certain that I was too damn chicken to walk home. I called Elise to come and pick me up, and she answered on the second ring. She fussed, but agreed. She was always there for me when I needed her. No matter what the circumstances or how badly she wanted to say no. She never would.