It wasn’t okay, but that had nothing to do with him.
I should have called Sully as soon as I’d begun cramping earlier. I’dpromisedto call him, but every time I picked up my phone, I’d thought about what it would be like to tell him, and I couldn’t get myself to do it.
“I’m never going to be ready to talk to him,” I whispered, and then felt myself crumbling again as I continued to think about it—about crushing Sully in this way. I hated that I’d dangled this future in front of him, and now I had to take it away. I hated that I felt helpless, like I didn’t have control over my own body, like it had betrayed me, and now, I was betraying him. “He’s going to be so?—”
I covered my face with my hands, overcome by this new, sudden reality.
This morning, the future had carried so many possibilities, and now…
“Hey.” Theo’s face was beside mine now as he kneeled on the floor. “Hey. I don’t know what you were going to end that sentence with, but I can promise you he will not be mad. Not at you, Ellie.”
“But this was—he’s always wanted—I?—”
I couldn’t finish any of my sentences, devolving into sobs. I wasn’t even sure what was terrorizing my mind more at this point: the thought of losing a child that I’d come to want so, so badly or the thought of losing Sully for a second time.
“No.” Theo was shaking his head, and I had no idea how, inhis quietness, he sounded so certain. “There’s only one thing in this world that my brother has always wanted.”
“But—”
“Eleanor.”
A flicker of hope, of calm, lit my insides at the sound of that rough, familiar voice. It filled the hollow bits, the parts of me that felt so suddenly void of life, even when that wasn’t fully logical.
He was here, but I didn’t know how to look at him. How to face him.
“El,” he breathed, and he was close now, prying my cold hands off my face. His touch was the warmest it had ever been. “Baby.”
It was so tender, the way he spoke. But still, I sank further into the bed—hisbed—squeezing my eyes shut. I shook my head, rejecting…this. Not him, never him. But this reality, what I had to tell him.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Sully’s hands were on my face, feeling my cheeks, my forehead, searching for clues, his tone increasingly frantic. “What’s going on?” When I didn’t immediately answer, he beckoned his brother. “Theo?”
I opened my eyes enough to see that Theo had backed away and was standing near the door. His empathetic expression looked torn, like he was desperate to put his brother out of his spiraling misery, but he knew he couldn’t be the one to say it. And it was that look that made me realize there was no hiding from this.
“Sawyer.” I put my hand on his arm, and he whipped back around, all his fierce attention on me again. A breath hiccuped out of me, and I’d never wanted to crumple into a ball more. “I—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
His hands moved to cup my face, like he could hold me and protect me and keep away all the bad things. God, how I wished.
“Why are you apologizing, El?” Desperation dripped from his lips, and the pads of his fingertips pressed into my skin withequal amounts of it. When my tears fell, he brushed them away. “Tell me so I can fix it.”
I shook my head. He couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix it. No one could fix it, and I—I just didn’t know what to do about it.
Between gasps of breath, I whispered, “You can’t.”
“Try me.” He’d moved to rearranging my bangs, brushing them from my face. “Try me, baby.”
“I—” My voice caught as I stared up into Sully’s bright blue gaze—as I stared at my home. He was home, and this was home, and I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay, I wanted to stay, stay, stay. But I— “I think I’m miscarrying, Sawyer.”
I wanted to close my eyes again, but I forced them to stay open. To stay in this moment with him, even though it meant watching the blood drain from his face.
“What?”
Swallowing, I braced myself.
“This afternoon, I started cramping and spotting, and I—” I breathed, my voice breaking. “Something’s wrong. And I know…” He was shaking his head now, not wanting to believe it, so I nodded, trying to convince him. My words scraped my throat as they came out. “I know, Sawyer.”
Expression fractured with lines of grief, Sully dropped his head to mine, even while it shook.
And all I could do was whisper, “I know.”
