Page 15 of I Promise You
I can’t help it, and it might be wrong. It might even be selfish, but I blame him for everything.
“My baby! Not my baby!” I yell and bawl against Danny’s arms. I’m using all my strength to fight against his hardened muscles until I finally surrender to him. I give in to my need to feel the pain instead of trying to fight away from it, and I’m crying into his chest, clutching onto him like it’s my last few minutes on this earth. I give up trying to push him away and let him hold me. My mouth is open as I wail my broken heart away.
This feels a little like déjà vu.
A mother losing her child. Something I thought would never happen to me.
I sound like my mother.
I sound like my mother when she lost my brother. When those two uniformed men showed up at our door.
All of my thoughts sink in and that’s when I feel an ugly emotion pulse through me.
I resent this military life with all my heart as I try to catch my breath.
I can’t control myself. This pain is more excruciating than a stab wound. I’m grieving uncontrollably, and I can feel a dull pain where I was attacked by Shane and Nora. My side, my back, and my lower abdomen feel sharpened with raw pain, stinging like needles.
“Baby, you’re going to rip open your stitches,” he tries to console me by holding me tighter, protectively creating a haven enclosed inside of his arms. “Focus on my voice.” He tells me as his deep voice softens, and it’s helping me relax slowly…bit by bit. More tears escape from my eyes as his strong, large hands snake through my hair. “I’m sorry, Ari. I’m so fucking sorry. Cry, hit me as hard as you can, scream at me, hate me. I can take it. WhatI can’t takeis you opening your stitches and bleeding again.”
A nurse bursts through the door with syringes in his hand. His emotions are written all over his face, and he looks terrified or broken for me, or maybe both. He must be new because that’s one of the first things you learn in patient care. Control your face.
I don’t care if the whole hospital can hear my cries… I just lost my baby.
“We have a sedative for her,” he starts in a shaky voice, but Danny doesn’t let him finish as I continue to mourn and shed heavy tears in his chest.
“Get the fuck out. She doesn’t need it,” he snarls at him, ordering him to leave, downright explosive, before turning backand kissing my cheek as I hold on to him tighter. I stop thrashing, but I’m still breathing hard as I try to let the news sink in when I don’t want it to.
My mom goes full mama bear on the nurse and starts cursing at him in Spanish, demanding him to give us space and shooing him out of our room. She follows the nurse out and closes the door behind her, slamming it shut.
We sit on the hospital bed while I focus on slowing my breathing. The scent I love so much,Danny’s scent, slowly anchors my hysteria away, grounding me. We sit there, and my sniffling is the only thing we can hear for the next ten minutes, but he doesn’t stop holding me. After a few long moments, he lifts my chin to see him like he always does, and the familiarity of his version of love warms me.
I’m sure I look horrifying, snot running down my nose and reddened eyes, but I don’t care.
“The doctors said you lost too much blood. There was nothing they could do to save our baby,” his deep voice murmurs, and I can tell as each word leaves his mouth, it’s painful for him.
I rub my nose with my knuckles and blink.
“So, they cut me open? While I was asleep?” I whisper.
“Yes.” Devastation flickers across his eyes as he tightens his jaw.
That explains the dull pain I feel below my stomach.
“How long have I been out?” I ask, dreading the answer.
He brushes my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear. He does the same on the other side, watching me intensely.
“Three days.”
Oh my gosh.
“Shane? Nora?” I shiver when their names leave my mouth. Their manic faces reappear in my eyes, and I hold on to Danny tighter.
“Shane is dead. Nora’s in jail.”
“H-how? You killed him?”
He nods.
