Page 103 of Red Flagged
I sat on the bed beside her. She didn’t stir in the slightest, not even when I reached out with trembling fingers and brushed the backs of my knuckles over her cheek.
She was burning up. My heart plummeted.
There was no color in her face, her lips were chapped and pale, and sweat clung to her neck and temples. Her breathing was steady buttoodeep. She looked… emptied. Hollowed out. Like someone had scraped the light from her and left her here to survive it alone.
And I hadn’t been here.
I didn’t even fuckingknow.
“Aurélie,” I murmured urgently.
She didn’t wake.
“Baby, wake up.”
A tiny, pained noise left her lips, but she didn’t open her eyes.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Panic closed its hand around my throat. I forced myself to look around her room, my eyes landing on the bedside table with pill bottles next to it. My heart stopped beating for a moment as I reached for them, turning them toward the light from the bathroom to read their labels.
One of them was Vicodin, which I knew about. The other two were prescribed to her last year, neither of which I had any idea she took. A sleep aid and an anxiety medication.
I had no idea why she’d been prescribed these, but if she’d mixed them, no wonder she was out cold.
I rose to my feet, setting the pill bottles down and contemplating what to do. Should I try to wake her up and see if she needs something? Should I crawl into her bed with her and keep her company? Should I find the source of all this goddamn blood?
That sent me to my feet. I went straight back to the bathroom, pushing down the bile that threatened to come up at the terrifying sight of it all. Upon closer examination, I saw bloodied feminine products in the trash, and it all made sense. So itwasher period.
Thank God.
Thank God?—
My relief fractured mid-thought, because there, half hidden under a hand towel streaked with red was something I didn’t notice before.
I took a step closer, my hand shaking as I lifted the towel, revealing white plastic sticks.
Pregnancy tests. Three of them, to be exact, and they were all positive. One with two blue lines, the other two with pink plus signs.
My mind scrambled to put the pieces together.
Positive pregnancy tests. Blood. Sleep aids. Painkillers.
“Oh, Jesus, Auri,” I whispered, voice cracking in the empty room. “You didn’t tell me.”
Was she…miscarrying?
I braced my hands on the edge of the counter, an unknown emotion crashing into me, burning the backs of my eyes. For a moment, my body just… stopped. My heart didn’t know whether to beat or break.
My fingers closed around the tests, knuckles whitening. Plastic clicked together as I gripped too tight. My knees hit the tile before I even realized I was going down.
This hadn’t just been a sub-drop. Maybe it started that way, but this—this was loss. She was losing something.Ours.
Had I… had I done this to her? Made her feel like she couldn’t tell me for some reason? That she had to do this alone because she didn’t want tobotherme? Jesus fucking Christ, I’d failed her.
Anxiety thickened into full-blown panic.
