She climbed into her car and sped away. My limbs wouldn’t move as shock filtered through my body.
I promised I’d fight for us until we made it, but I thought we already had.
Iwas the fucking idiot.
36
Thea
Four years ago
“Come on,kiddo. One foot then the other.” Moira smiled as she tried to make a joke.
I clutched her shoulder as I slowly lifted one leg into a pair of sweatpants that she held open for me on the floor. Moving any part of my body, even a centimeter, made my eyes tear up. Who knew that having abdominal surgery would be so painful all over? I craved some relief from the agony shooting across my stomach and squeezing my heart.
Exhaling when I slipped my other foot in, Moira gingerly pulled the pants up my legs and adjusted them at my waist.
“How’s that, little sister?” Her sad smile made my eyes cloud up once more.
“Hey, don’t cry,” She kissed my forehead. “No shame in asking for a little help pulling your pants up. What are sisters for?”
I nodded, not uttering any words in reply. I hadn’t spoken much since they wheeled me into the operating room.
Maybe if I hadn’t been so out of it the past month, I would have realized something was wrong. I’d lost my appetite right after Dominic and I had broken up, but didn’t suspect it was due to anything but bone-deep sorrow.
Dismissing what I was feeling as either a stomach bug or residual feelings from a broken heart, I cried into my pillow at night and somehow got out of bed the next morning and made it through work the next day. When the pain on one side of my abdomen shot up toward my shoulder, my mother forced me to come with her to the emergency room.
The baby I hadn’t known I’d made with Dominic before he left over a month ago couldn’t survive, and had to come out as soon as possible or else my life could be in danger as well.
Before I’d known it, I was signing consent forms and being wheeled off to surgery. When I opened my eyes after the anesthesia wore off, I searched for Dominic next to my bed, holding my hand and making me laugh. But that Dominic didn’t exist anymore, and neither did the baby he’d left me with. The realization made me sob so hard, I hiccupped around the nose cannula giving me oxygen and had hardly uttered a word since.
Not suspecting I was pregnant until I was told it had to be terminated I’d decided was an odd sort of blessing. It hadn’t made me love the baby I was about to lose any less, but at least I hadn’t been teased with false happiness before I had to let it go.
Moira helped me with my T-shirt before we heard a knock on the open door.
“Dad? I thought you were picking us up in front of the hospital?”
“Your mother is parked on the corner in front. I wanted to speak to your sister for a minute before we left.”
My eyes clenched shut. My parents had to be disappointed in me. It was one thing to look the other way at me going on trips with my boyfriend and spending nights at his apartment. They were intelligent enough to know I hadn’t been a virgin in a long time, but it didn’t matter. I was sure getting pregnant like this had disappointed them both, no matter if I was a twenty-seven year old adult or not.
I had so much to be sad about and be sorry for. The weight of all the emotions combined with the pain still ricocheting across my mid-section made it difficult to stand up straight.
Dad inched closer to me as he spread his arms wide.
“Let it out, little girl.”
The sob I was holding in bubbled out of my chest until I folded, falling into my father’s arms as I finally let the tears fall without trying to will them back in.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
He cradled my face and lifted it off his chest. “Honey, I need you to stop beating yourself up about everything. This is tough, yes, but it will get better. I promise you. I miss the light in your eyes, but I know it’s just dimmed, not gone.”
“At least one of us believes that,” I coughed out a humorless laugh before clutching my stomach.
“Come with me,” he helped me into the wheelchair the nurse left for me and rolled me to the window. “What’s the sun doing?” He pointed at the horizon behind the row of tall buildings.
“It’s…setting,” I searched his gaze, wondering what he was trying to tell me.
