“I know I did.” I rush out the words, hating myself. “If I could take it back, I swear to God that I would. I don’t deserve you but it doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop wanting you. I don’t want anyone else to have you and I can’t walk away.”
Her shoulders shake with each shuddering breath. “Stop! It’s not that. Stop. Stop!”
I feel crazy and lost and reckless. Dropping down to my knees, I stare up at her. “Tell me! Please! I’m begging you,” I practically yell but I don’t mean to. Just like I don’t mean for my eyes to turn glossy. “I can’t lose you but I am. I am losing you and I hate it. You aren’t here with me and I can’t be without you. I will do anything, whatever it is. Please, just tell me.”
Breathless and in a hell that is limbo, I watch her. She’s right there, only feet away from me, but she feels so far from my grasp.
Hope stirs when she slowly drops to her knees, never taking her eyes off mine. She crawls to me and lets me hold her. That is my only salvation. It’s the only way I’ve survived this last week; she lets me hold her.
I kiss her hair as I rock her, “Please tell me what’s wrong. I love you. I love you so damn much and I can’t lose you.”
She has to know I love her. I know she already knew, but I can’t let her walk away from me without telling her. “I love you, Laura. Please, let me love you. All I want in this world is to love you.”
Laura
I will never forget the way he said it. He brought it to life by speaking the words. Seth King loves me. I’ll never let him take it back. He’s not allowed to take those words back. Ever. They belong to me now. I knew he did, I’ve always known, but hearing him say it is something else. Something bigger, something I couldn’t have prepared for.
“I love you more.” It’s all I can do to whisper the words. I cling to him, literally, holding him as close to me as I possibly can.
“Impossible,” he breathes against my neck as I hold him. “I love you so much it hurts.”
Till the day I die, I’ll remember this moment. The moment Seth King first told me he loved me. It pains me, literally, a slamming pain in my chest, that it’s because he thinks he’s lost me.
“I’m just upset.” My ragged excuse leaves me and he doesn’t let me bury my face and hide it. He doesn’t let me get away with it. I can’t figure out how to tell him that if I have this baby, I will most likely die. If I take the heart, our baby will die. If I even get a chance at a heart. I choose our child. And I don’t know how to look this man in the eye and lay all of that out for him. I’ve tried all this week to figure it out but I can’t. I can’t hurt him like that. All he wants me to do is promise I won’t leave him and here I am, choosing to go but in my place, we’ll have a child. He’ll have a baby to love and I… I don’t know what he’s going to say. It will kill me to tell him. I know it will.
“Tell me why, tell me,” he begs me, holding my arms and forcing me away enough that he can look at me.
“There’s a patient and I lost her.” I bite out the quickest excuse I can think.
“She died?”
“No, no. It was because of a court hearing and I’m sad she’s gone,” I say and wipe haphazardly at my face but my face burns with shame and embarrassment.
I can’t look at him. Not in his eyes. I should be better than this. I struggle with everything now. I don’t know what’s right or wrong and all I know is that my happily ever after is so much different than I’d planned.
“There’s nothing else? Nothing else going on?” His blue eyes beseech me and pain is there, the type of pain when you know you’ve lost someone.
I have to tell him. I haven’t had the courage to call the doctor back. I haven’t been able to fully accept it all and what will happen at the end, but I can’t keep it from him any longer.
I feel like a liar. Not even speaking the falsehood nothing else, the lies consume me. I can’t let him live like this. How could I spend this time, this short time left, allowing him to feel like I’m already gone? He’ll know soon. He’ll have to find out. It’s not like I can hide a baby.
So will Bethany. I’ve almost told her so many times, but only to have someone to lean on. It’s been a week and a half and instead of facing it, I’ve hidden. I’m not ready to tell the world and lose this little peace I have. They’ll judge. No matter what I do, it’ll be wrong. I just want to stay here, in this moment, for a little while. Knowing that I have a little life inside of me to love. But Seth should have that too. He should know.
“Seth, I’m pregnant and—” I want to get it all out. All at once. It’s my intention, my plan. It’s the only way I see it getting through to him, the gravity of it all.
He cuts me off before I can say anything else. “You’re pregnant?” Shock lights in his red-rimmed eyes. His light blues shine back at me as they change to reflect nothing but happiness. I’m lost in those eyes. A gaze I have dreamed about for so, so long. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t be so selfish, but I don’t press on when he interrupts me. I let him have that happiness. One of us should truly be happy.
His smile presses against my belly as he leans down, capturing all of me in his response. “You’re pregnant,” he says, no longer a question. The words resonate with gratitude. With his eyes closed, his lips pressed to my stomach, I lose it. I cry like I have never cried in my entire life.
“That’s why?” he asks me even through the smile on his face. “Babygirl, I’d say don’t cry, but that’s why? That’s why you’re so emotional?” he questions although the way he says it, it sounds like he’s convinced himself.
He’s so happy and lost in it, that I nod my head and breathe, “Yes.”
One lie. One lie. I can live with one lie to keep him here with me, holding me, happy and at peace. One of us should have it. His expression is filled with relief more than anything, but his smile never leaves. His handsome and perfect smile.
“I hope it’s a boy,” he tells me, wiping the corners of his eyes with the palm of his hand. “I don’t know what to do with a girl, so…” he trails off and sucks in a calming breath. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him like this. So overwhelmed with happiness. “I’ll be a good dad,” he says quickly when his smile vanishes. “I swear it to you.”
His pale eyes lose their shine for a moment and he asks, “Is that why you didn’t tell me?”
“No, no. I just…” I would say anything to make him smile again. “It was just so early. I—”
I don’t have time to finish because he cuts me off with a searing kiss. Stealing all my fear and giving me a moment with him that I thought days ago, would only be a dream. He only breaks the kiss to tell me he loves me and our baby and that we’re going to be fine. Better than fine.
“We have to get so much stuff,” Seth says as if he’s just realizing everything that comes along with a baby.
My heart is wretched as he looks down the hall, already planning. “We can use the guest room. It’s big enough for all his furniture and toys. All that… the diapers.”