Page 64 of While You're There
She reached around his body and picked up the empty tumbler. She let the crystal lowball glass fill her palm. The weight of it distracted her momentarily from the heaviness of everything that was crashing down around them.
Rhett’s eyes moved from her face to the glass in her hand. He stared at it for a few beats as she saw a deep, guttural sadness return to his expression.
A tiny bubble of panic formed inside her as the full reality of what they were about to do settled in her gut. There was no ideal outcome to this scenario. There was nothing to even hope for based on the little she knew of what was going on. Rhett had already been so on edge. He had been toeing an invisible line for weeks. This was going to break him.
But she’d be damned before she’d let him go through it alone.
“I’ll drive,” she repeated more confidently this time, taking control of the situation the same way he would for her if their roles were reversed. “Go pack a few things in case we have to stay overnight. Bring your work stuff, too, just in case. Plug your phone in now so it’s charged. We can be on the road in the next twenty minutes.”
Rhett stared at her for another breath before nodding once to acknowledge what she said.
“Tori…” he started as he reached for her. He wrapped one hand around her shoulder, then peeled the lowball glass out of her grasp. He held it in his hand and stared down at it for a beat, and then another, before finally lifting his head to meet her gaze. There were tears threatening to spill over, regret radiating off him. “I’m so fucking sorry, V.”
Tori closed her eyes and shook her head slightly, grasping at straws and trying to find the strength to do what they were about to do. She opened her eyes to find him staring right at her still, his brow furrowed as shame and regret consumed him. Seeing her husband break down was going to break her. But she had to hold on. She had to hold on for him.
“I can’t believe this. How is this even happening right now?”
Tori kept her eyes fixated on the road, focusing on the overhead streetlights as they passed under them in quick succession. Light would fill the car and she’d inhale. Then they’d be cast back into darkness until they reached the next lamp post, and she’d blow out a slow breath.
Light. Breathe in.
Darkness. Breathe out.
Rhett had been fidgeting in the passenger seat for the last hour. She knew it wasn’t about her driving, but with each jerked movement, she found herself sitting up a bit straighter or tightening her grasp on the steering wheel of the Prelude. She was singularly focused on getting him where he needed to be. She couldn’t bear to let herself think about anything else right now.
Light. Breathe in.
“We don’t know anything yet, Ev. Let’s just get there, and then we’ll figure out what’s next. Don’t let your thoughts start spiraling.”
He groaned in frustration. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to think right now.”
Darkness. Breathe out.
She didn’t know what to say. The GPS said they still had more than an hour until they got to the hospital in Columbus. She couldn’t get them there any faster, and yet she knew Rhett needed to be there now. She couldn’t imagine a worse scenario for him to have to endure. Every part of this cut into the core of who he was as a person, what he stood for as a man.
Mr. Dependable. Mr. Control. Mr. Take Care of Everyone.
“I hope she doesn’t lose the baby,” he confessed in a broken whisper.
The baby.
His baby.
Tori gulped down the noise that threatened to rise in her throat. She wouldn’t judge him. She couldn’t hold it against him. All she could do was honor how he was feeling right now, knowing that his desire was completely unaligned with everything they had dreamed about for their future together.
Light. Breathe in.
She kept her eyes on the road and nodded. She had to stay steady.
“It’s okay to feel that way, Ev. Of course you want your… your baby to be okay."
Darkness. Breathe out.
"Did Chandler send you anymore updates?”
He blew out a long breath as he pulled out his phone. “She texted me when we first got on the road. She said she was still waiting for an ultrasound. She’s bleeding a lot, and the first doctor she saw said she was probably miscarrying. They just haven’t confirmed it yet.”
“I’m so sorry, Ev.” And she really was. She was all too familiar with the acute pain of anticipatory grief. Of knowing the direction that things were headed, but not knowing the details of that final destination. Of knowing that things were only going to get harder, that soon everything would feel even worse. She knew what it was like to be at the lowest low and know there was still further down to go.
