Page 44 of Say You'll Stay

“Could be the virus. We don’t know what it does to babies. She could be having a reaction, maybe it’s mutating, maybe—”

“Or it’s colic.” He cuts in, trying to be helpful when she’s not in the mood for rational comments.

“What even is colic?” Her voice raises an octave as she yells into the void, competing with Lucy’s screams.

She wonders how Cole remains in the room with them at all. The fact he hasn’t escaped to the woods to go hunting is mind-boggling. They both have to be hanging from his last nerve after nearly a week of endless noise. Not that she wants him gone, she doesn’t. Dealing with this alone would be worse.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” she continues. “The books said it’s a symptom of something else, but what else? Fucking useless is what those books were. They don’t prepare you for anything.”

Lucy wails and Olivia hushes her with a soft apology, rocking and bouncing and feeling like she’s about to fall flat on her face at any moment.

“Hey come on, lemme have her a while and you get some rest, okay?”

“But she’s kept you awake, too. It’s not fair.”

He’s offered to suffer with an angry baby so she could rest more often than she can count. The cries echo through the house anyway, but his effort is there. At this point, she could fall asleep standing up, with Lucy yelling next to her head.

He holds out his hands and she gives him the squirming, red-faced baby. Guilt overtakes her the moment she agrees. He didn’t sign up for this. He’s not her father.

Lucy’s real father would have fed them both to the rotters by now to get a good night’s rest.

Cole cradles the baby in the crook of his arm, talking to her as if he’s not annoyed in the slightest, but he has to be. She birthed this child herself and even her patience is wearing thin. Every time he comes to her rescue with support, she promises herself she won’t accept again, and every time he offers…she relents. He’s good at hiding any irritation, though. When they first met, she wouldn’t have expected him to possess an endless stream of tolerance, but he’s proven time and time again that his thread is far from unraveling.

“Thank you,” she whispers, reaching out to run her hand down his arm, giving it a half squeeze before crawling into bed deep under the blankets. “I owe you big time.”

“Gonna cash in on that one of these days,” he jokes.

She mumbles an incoherent thought, half obscured by the pillow.

Maybe she won’t feel like she’s failing as a parent or like her child is coming down with some unknown illness when her eyes aren’t crossing. It takes her a few moments to drift off, but in the hazy period right before sleep, she overhears Cole talking to the baby as he leaves the room and walks down the hall.

“Let’s give your momma a break for a while, okay? Just me and you now, Kitten. Scream all you want, but we’re doing it on the other side of the house.”

I love you.

That thought emerges unbidden as her eyes water and her heart flips.

It catches her by surprise with its clarity and ferocity, but then again, she suspected this was coming. Moments like this,where he gives her a glimpse of the kind of partnership she believed only existed in fairytales, contribute to the slow and certain build of their relationship.

She’s delusional due to sleep deprivation.

Loving him isn’t an option because he’s not interested.

She should stop flirting with him so much. That nonsense only feeds the emotions she’s trying to deny. She’s rarely been the type anyway, not since her husband beat the desire to tease and flirt out of her long ago.

There is safety in rediscovering that part of herself with Cole, she reasons. That’s all there is to it.

She can’t love him. She can’t. If she doesn’t throttle those feelings now, they’ll only get worse.

* * *

It’s suspiciously quiet when she wakes. Blissful silence has replaced the constant screams. Gradually, she stretches, smiling at the tickle of fur against her face. Tucked under the covers and her arm, Flower’s purr resonates against Olivia’s chest.

They’re warm, content, and well-rested, but sudden fear grips her. Something might have happened to Cole and Lucy.

Bolting from bed, she hurries through the empty kitchen and living room, her mind overwhelmed by impossible scenarios.

Cole could have gone outside to pee and been overtaken by the dead.

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