Page 77 of While You're There
“I don’t know about the what ifs, babe. I do know that I messed up a lot. I’m not going to try and apologize again tonight, but I’ll never stop regretting the pain I caused you.”
“You really love her, don’t you?”
“Chandler,” he warned. He didn’t want to go there. He could talk about Tori in the abstract, but confessing his love for his wife to his ex felt too intimate.
She sighed, and he knew she wouldn’t bring her up again. She inched closer instead, her head resting against the solidness of his chest as he continued to rub her low back.
“Tell me something true, Rhett.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know it’s never going to be you and me… never was, never will be. But even if it was never going to be you and me, what we almost had… what I lost…” She choked out a sob that lit up every frayed nerve in his body. He was trying so hard to stay strong—to let her feel her grief while trying to push down his own—but her tears slid right past that armor.
“No one else in my life even knows I was pregnant. Once you go, this is all over for me. I’ll be okay. I know that. But right now, while you’re here, I’m going to let myself be sad. So tell me something true, so I have something to remember when I’m alone and missing our baby that we never got to meet.”
A silent tear rolled down his cheek. Watching Chandler mourn their shoddy relationshipandmourn the child they lost shrouded him in a kind of grief he had never felt before. Sadness exuded off her aching body and found a home in him. The intensity of her grief spoke to the darkest parts of his being.
He didn’t know if he’d ever be a dad. They planned to freeze embryos before Tori had her hysterectomy next month, and he had assured her they were walking that path without expectation. He had promised Tori he didn’t want or need kids if he had her. That was his truth. But knowing he had so abruptly lost something he never even allowed himself to dream of still carved out a pit in his stomach and an ache in his heart. How did anyone recover from the loss of something that was never theirs to lose?
“Rhett?” Chandler implored.
He cleared his throat and tried to come up with something, anything, to help her through this. He would tell her anything he could think of if he could bring her some semblance of peace tonight.
“You would have been a really good mom.”
Chandler let out a soft sob.
“And we would have figured things out. Not as a couple,” he clarified, “but as a family.”
Her shoulders shook against his body as she continued to cry. He held her tight and tried to absorb as much of the pain as she’d give him.
He kept talking, desperate to change the subject, trying to prevent both of them from drowning in the possibility of what could have been and what now would never be. “I remember the first night we met. You walked into Chippy’s like a woman on a mission.You were wearing pink, and you smelled like vanilla. You were the sparkliest girl in the bar.”
“I remember that night, too,” she sniffled. “I Googled you before we met up.”
“You Googled me?”
“Of course I Googled you. Your dating profile looked too good to be true. My friends were sure you had stolen a picture off the Internet and were some creeper who was going to kidnap me that night. But nope. Lo and behold, I showed up, and you were the real McCoy. Everhett Wheeler: handsome. Charming. Polite. Future CEO. Just cocky enough to be sexy. Basically every Easton University sorority girl’s wet dream.”
Rhett chuckled at her assessment.
“Will you promise me something?” he asked, his tone more serious now. “Obviously you don’t owe me anything, and I know I’m not the model of great life choices lately, but I want you to make me a promise if you can. Don’t let this destroy you, Chandler. Don’t let what happened between us or this loss make you fade away. I know it feels horrible and all-consuming right now, but I promise someday things will feel better. You’ll get better. And you’ll find better.”
“I know that, and I won’t. I promise,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry I lost our baby.”
He was gutted by the simplicity of her words. He was also perturbed that she was allowed to apologize to him, but she refused to hear any repetencies from him.
“It’s not your fault, Chandler. You heard what the doctor said. There’s nothing you could have done differently or not done to change what happened.”
She nodded then yawned. “I know you already said you’d stay, but can you stay in here with me while I sleep? I don’t want to be alone right now. I don’t even know what time it is, but I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“I’ll stay,” he confirmed. “I’ll stay, and I’ll do anything else you need while I’m here. Just sleep for now. You’ve been through hell, and you need to rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Chapter thirty-two
Rhett
