Page 68 of Waiting for Her

“A part of me knew. I have no excuse. I could say it was pregnancy hormones, having so much happen at once, or just plain stupidity.”

“I’m clinging to that last one,” he says but smirks, and I relax. Marginally.

“Yes. Let me put it out there. I know I was the largest form of idiot for breaking up with you in the first place.”

“Go on,” he says, presenting me with both hands like he’s ready to hear more of my self-criticism.

I roll my eyes. Ha. Ha. Ha. Hilarious.

He smiles and leans back, ankle crossed over his knee. “I don’t want to fight with you. And I really don’t want to continue holding onto this anger. I know you. There’s more to this story so please, put me out of my misery already and tell me the rest.”

“After Mom pulled me out of my funk, she and Andy sat me down and reminded me I couldn’t treat my body the way I was. The boys, even they got in on it. They were worried, saw I was self-destructing. They pretty much had an intervention. Anyway, remember that week? You had left with Cole. You’d gone to Andy’s cabin. I’m pretty sure our parents had a hand in that.”

“Yeah, Cole saw that I needed to get away from Liberty and pretty much didn’t give me any other choice but to join him. Dad called Andy and asked if we could go hide out at his cabin for a while.”

“I pulled up my big girl britches, realized this was a blessing. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, obviously. I spent the next few days gathering my thoughts, trying to take better care of myself. Not wanting to run to the cabin and interrupt your time, I stayed home, decided I would tell you as soon as you were home. But then, life had other plans.” I wipe a stray tear. “I woke up one morning and had horrible cramps. I knew something was wrong, but since I’d never been pregnant before, I also had no idea what exactly was happening. Then I went to the bathroom and there was blood. And the cramps kept getting worse, the blood heavier. Even not having experienced it before, I knew I’d lost the baby. Mom took me to the doctor anyway, had them test my blood. My HCG levels were still up, but they said that was normal until my body…”

“HCG? And, what? Your body what?”

“HCG is the hormone detected in pregnancy. And until my body absorbed the fetus.”

The look on his face says how horrified he is by the sound of it. I was, too. “What? It does that?”

“Apparently.”

He stands up, paces around the room. “I don’t understand.”

“Me either. According to my doctor, many of the miscarriages that happen can’t be explained. Of course, I didn’t hear what they were saying. I only heard I lost our baby. The baby that you and I had created together. It might not have been planned, but we loved each other, even though I had broken up with you, and I knew we’d somehow make it work. My emotions, they were all over the place. I hadn’t been taking care of myself. I let my health suffer—”

“For a few weeks, Bri. I hardly see that being a reason anything could have happened.”

“Yeah, well, my headspace wasn’t necessarily in the right place to see that reasoning. My mom and Andy, though, they were great.”

He stops a few feet away from me, hands on his hips. Rocky lifts his head and watches as his master fights a battle within himself.

“I need you to know something. Everything you’re telling me, I’m grateful for. I want to know all the details. Ineedto know. But the more I hear, the angrier I am I wasn’t there. You didn’t trust me enough to let me take care of you, to be there with you.”

“Grady, nothing you could have done would have changed the outcome.”

“You don’t know that,” he says angrily.

Ah. Another layer is peeled. Grady isn’t just angry I failed to let him know about the miscarriage. Actually, I would dare to bet that’s only a small part of it. Grady’s a fixer. He’s a person who’s there for everyone around him; he’s always in control. There’s a reason he was given the job to lead an entire team of college students on the football field. Because he’s capable of it.

This is something he can’t fix.

Couldn’thave fixed.

And that not only drives him crazy, it pisses him off.

I stand and slowly make my way to where he’s standing next to a fireplace. I reach out my hands and grip his in mine. “It happened. If you were with me, the only thing that would have changed is you would have had to experience the same sort of heartache.”

“I’m experiencing it now,” he tells me, eyes shining.

My throat feels like it’s closing up, seeing his sadness, his heartache splayed right out there in front of me.

“I know. And I hate it for you.”

“What else?”

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