Page 201 of Breathe Like Hell

The waffles popped up, so I wiped my tears and put them on a plate. I felt nauseous. My feet carried me upstairs, where I grabbed her water bottle off the nightstand.

I stood outside the bathroom door for a long minute, listening to her cry quietly, hearing every choked sob and gasp for air like knives in my chest. Ivy. I knocked on the door and her crying stopped.

Slowly, I pushed the door open.

She didn’t speak to me while she ate her waffles, but I stayed sitting there on the floor with her. When she finished her breakfast, I set the plate on the counter.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she said, cutting through the quietness, her arms wrapped around her midsection as she bent forward. “I just sit here?”

“You could wear a pad if you want to go lay down. Are you bleeding a lot?”

“I don’t know.” Her lower lip wobbled. “I think I’ll just stay here for a few hours. Did Micah say when he was coming back?”

“No, he didn’t.” I moved closer to her, reaching for her hand. “I want to help you.”

“I think I’m kinda scared,” she said, her voice trembling. “Like, I don’t think I want to look in the toilet. Is that bad?”

“No, baby. You don’t have to. Do you want me to look?”

“I don’t know. I’m scared. I don’t know if I want you to see me like that. Maybe I want to look. But you have to close your eyes.” She was gripping my hand like a lifeline.

I shut my eyes, then heard her shifting.

“Um,” she started. “It just is like blood clots, or something. I didn’t want to look very long. And some ichor with them. I’m going to flush it. Is that fine?”

“Perfectly fine. You do whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll do it later. I’m just going to keep sitting here for now.”

“Okay.” I squeezed her hand.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

MICAH

Wind tore over my face, cold and brutal, but not as brutal as the blade I dug into my forearm. Still, neither thing was helping.

I knew this was coming. I thought I’d prepared myself for it.

I’d repeatedly told myself not to imagine it. I’d been so careful not to say the hopeful words out loud. I even would’ve been fine had she decided to get rid of it herself.

But seeing that much blood on my sheets this morning was a sight I never could’ve prepared myself for, as much as I’d tried to believe otherwise.

I hadn’t realized how quickly my empty future had filled itself in.

Dakota.

Then the baby.

Then nothing again.

I was a fool for ever allowing myself any amount of hope, for ever believing for a split second that I might be granted something so beautiful with her.

I was sitting on the cliff’s edge now, feet dangling over into the void, eyes staring out at the ocean but not seeing anything other than those red stains on my sheets. It felt like all I ever did was come to this cliff. So many times over the course of my life I’d been here, and it was only getting more frequent now.

I’d tied all my ghosts to this piece of the Earth where forest met ocean.

Haunting my own origin story.