“Is this because of my weight?” I asked, feeling shaky. I heard Jeff in the back of my mind, telling me how the loss of my previous pregnancies was my fault. “Did I do this?”
The doctor smiled as he shook his head. “Actually, there can be many causes for preeclampsia. All that matters is we caught it early enough, and we are able to monitor it from here on out.”
“And by bedrest, do you mean staying down completely or…?” Damian asked.
“Good question. Yes, we are going to request full bedrest based on Stella’s levels and blood pressure,” the doctor said.
My chest tightened. “I’m only five months pregnant. You’re saying I need to be on bedrest, in my bed, for the next four months?”
He frowned, knowing it wasn’t the most ideal idea. “I know this can be a lot to handle—”
“Are you kidding? I have a job. I have commission projects. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that,” I explained. “And will this even help the baby? Is there still a chance I’ll lose it?”
I felt a squeeze of my hand and looked at Damian. His blue ocean eyes locked with my panicked stare. “We’ll figure it out.”
“But…”
“I’ll take care of you, Stella,” he whispered.
I parted my lips to respond as tears streamed down my cheeks. No words came. I closed my eyes, feeling overwhelmed by the idea of losing said baby.
“I’ll take care of you,” he repeated, sending a wave of comfort through my system. He then spoke to the doctor, asking for a list of things we should watch out for during the next few months.
When the doctor mentioned the possibility of blood clots in the legs from laying down so much, Damian smiled, trying to ease my worries. “I guess it’s my turn to be the one giving massages.”
He’ll take care of us, I thought to myself, taking in as many breaths as I could.
Damian drove us home, and the whole time I was silent, yet my thoughts were screaming. When I did speak, my words weren’t the positive ones that Damian was probably used to from me.
“I can’t believe I did this to the baby,” I softly spoke.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Stella.”
“I did. I know I did. Just like with the ones before. It’s my weight. It’s always been my weight. If I didn’t… If all those years ago, I would’ve listened to the stepmothers who told me to get in shape. If I would’ve just—”
“You’re more than enough,” he said, reaching out with one hand and rubbing my leg. “Don’t do that, Stella. It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.”
It was almost impossible not to do just that.
After we made it home, Damian parked the car and turned to me. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I stared forward. Frozen. Unable to answer.
Unable to do anything.
He climbed out of the car and walked over to my door. He opened it and reached in, lifting me into his arms. He carried me into the house, into his bedroom, and laid me down in our bed. I rolled onto my side, and he lay across from me. Our eyes locked, and he moved a piece of fallen hair from in front of my face.
“It’s not your fault,” he repeated.
A lone tear rolled down my cheek. I wasn’t certain that I had any more of those left within me.
He leaned in and kissed it away, then he rested his forehead against mine.
“It’s not your fault,” he said once more.
Four words.
They were the only four words he spoke for the remainder of the night. He repeated them as if he were a record that played on an eternal loop. He played them while my inhalations were a struggle and my exhalations were packed with pain. He played those four words as my eyes grew heavy. He played those four words as sleep found me slowly, and his body intertwined with mine.
He gave me those four words, and before darkness overtook my soul for the night, I gave him four words back. They were quiet, and broken, and scarred, but they were all I had to offer him after he stayed so close for so many hours.
With my eyes closed, I parted my lips and whispered, “I love you, too.”
I’d been sitting in a pool of unease, unable to shake off the nerves of something being wrong. There was a heaviness in my chest that made me so fearful of the future. My mind went to the darkest place. Something was wrong with the baby. I knew it was. I felt it deep in the pit of my stomach that something was wrong with the thing I cared about most.
I couldn’t be alone.
I felt awful about that fact, but my anxiety was too high when I was alone. I worried about something going wrong and no one being there to help me. I worried about having a panic attack in the middle of the night, and Damian not being around to calm my soul.
My artwork was suffering due to my panic attacks. I couldn’t create the way I was supposed to, which sent waves of guilt through me, which only sent me through a loop of more panic about falling behind with my commission pieces. Which, in turn, only sent me through another level of panic attacks. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I feared being pregnant. Honestly, I thought it would never happen for me again after the last time. That was what the doctors told me, at least. The terrifying fact that anything I did could harm another being.
My being.
My baby.
I can’t do this. I’m not enough…
34
Damian
* * *
Watching Stella on bedrest was the hardest thing to witness. Not because she was unable to move as she wished, but because she was stuck in such a mindset of despair. She hadn’t allowed her mind to rest at all, and her light was gone.
I wished I could bring it back to her. I wished I could wrap up her pain and push it deep into my own chest. People like her were not meant to hurt like this. She was pure and didn’t deserve to know this type of darkness.
She wasn’t meant to suffer.
“I’ve lost everything that meant the most to me,” she whispered, exhaustion sitting heavily against her eyelids. She hadn’t been sleeping well, and I couldn’t blame her, but still, I wanted her to rest her eyes. I wanted her to unplug from the wildness of her mind. I wanted to take her suffering and place it against my own soul.
“First my mama, then Kevin, my previous pregnancies…now I might lose my baby…it hurts, Damian,” she said, trembling in my grip. “It hurts to breathe.”
“I’m so sorry, Stella. But the baby’s okay…everything’s going to work out.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
She was right…but I needed everything to work out. I didn’t think she would’ve survived if it hadn’t.
She snuggled closer to me as I held on to her for dear life. She finally shut her eyes and lay her head against my chest. “Promise me you’ll stay,” she said, buried so deep against me that I wasn’t even sure where I began and where she ended. “Promise me you’ll be here in the morning and then beside me at night.”
“I promise you.”
“Forever?”
“And ever.”
She fell asleep, and I kept making that promise repeatedly in my head.