Willow

Gone.

I was on the verge of a panic attack when they brought me to the hospital. I cried. Man, did I cry. I’m shocked I have any tears left. I didn’t know what was happening—if I was miscarrying, if it was something serious, if I was overreacting. The pain told me something was off, and I was hoping that it wasn’t the something that happened.

I shrank into my bed, a cry escaping my lips, when they couldn’t find the second baby’s heartbeat. They checked it once. Checked it twice. Nothing. Blame wrapped around me like a blanket when Dallas walked in. I shouldn’t have been on the road in the middle of nowhere. I shouldn’t have been stressing myself out over a man when I had babies to worry about.

At first, I blamed myself.

Then, that blame shifted to Dallas.

He shouldn’t have asked me to go to his house.

It’s not my fault we lost the baby.

It’s not his fault we lost the baby.

But, sometimes, you want to blame someone because you can’t handle knowing they’re just gone. Even though I haven’t been pregnant that long, I’ve already started to fall in love with my babies, and now, one of them has been taken away from me. My heart is hurting, like someone stuck a knife inside and is twisting it until every part of me has ruptured.

I still have a baby relying on me. I’m not going to put myself into any other stressful situations. I won’t be worried about Dallas’s heart because I’m only going to focus on keeping mine sane for the baby, and trying a relationship with him isn’t going to do that.

I need space. I need to step away. I stare at the door, wondering if he’s going to come back or not, and tense up when a knock comes.

Stella peeks her head in. “Cool if I come in?”

“Yes,” I answer. I need someone right now.

She smiles and sits down in the empty seat next to me. “Have you called your mom yet?”

I shake my head. “I honestly don’t want to tell anyone. She’ll want to fly here and take care of me, which is what I don’t want. I need time to breathe on my own, to accept this, to take it in.” I rub my stomach. “Can you give me a ride home when they release me?”

She squeezes her hand over mine. “Of course.” She opens her mouth and then shuts it. She wants to talk about Dallas, most likely wants us to patch things up, but that’s impossible right now.

Like I told Dallas, I understand now. I know how it feels to lose someone you love so much, someone you thought you’d spend years with.

And I understand never wanting to let them go.

* * *

Three days have passed since Stella brought me home from the hospital.

I’m sore. Exhausted. Hopeless.

Calls and texts have gone ignored, and the only reason I’ve seen Lauren is because she has a spare key to my apartment and lets herself in, uninvited. I’m selfish because they’re worried about me, but I want to be left alone. I asked Dallas to give me some space, and except for a few texts, he has. But no words, no lecture, nothing will stop me from feeling some blame in this. I was too stressed. I wasn’t eating right. I should’ve been resting more. The guilt that my body is the one that lost my child kills me.

I called my mom the day I got home. We cried. She prayed. She begged to fly out here to be with me, and I begged her not to.

I’m reading another article on vanishing twin syndrome when I hear my front door open. I turn around on the couch and shut my laptop at the same time Lauren walks in, wearing her scrubs, going straight to the kitchen like she owns the place.

“Hey, girl,” she calls out when I meet her. “I hope you have an appetite.” She starts the oven and begins pulling out containers of prepared food. “Tacos are on the menu for tonight.”

I do a scan of all the items laid out on the counter. Meat. Lettuce. Cheese. Salsa. Guacamole. “You made all of this?” I ask. “Didn’t you have to work?”

She laughs, removing the lid from the meat and pouring it into a pan. “Sweetie, you know my cooking is shit. Although my reheating game is pretty good.” She turns the burner on. “Dallas did all of this last night before going to work and asked me to bring it over.”

I snort. “Why? Is he scared I’m not feeding myself well enough, and we’ll lose the other baby?” The words come out before I can stop myself.

She narrows her eyes at me. “No. And we both know he doesn’t think that, so quit acting like a brat.”

“Excuse me?” I snap.

“You heard me,” she says, her attention going back to the stove. “Quit acting like a brat.”

I huff. I puff. I want to kick her out of my apartment, but she keeps going, “I get you’re going through pain, but don’t forget you’re not the only one experiencing this loss. So is my brother.”

I press my finger to my chest. “He’s the one who tried to blame me for losing the baby.”

“Did he say those words?”

“Well … not exactly.”

“The only thing that’s exact about your argument is that he never said you’re to blame. Not once. You’re pissed at him because you have no one else to be mad at—because no one is to blame. No one. You heard the doctor. The miscarriage would’ve happened, no matter what.”

“I don’t blame him for the miscarriage.”

“But you blame him for what occurred before the miscarriage. You need something to blame for losing the baby, so you’re blaming it on Lucy’s stuff at his house.”

“Don’t do this, Lauren,” I mutter. “I’m not talking to you about this.”

“Then, don’t talk to me. Talk to him. Please.”

“I have. We’ve texted a few times.”

“Maven has a sleepover tonight. Let him come over.”

“I can’t,” I whisper, and my voice starts to crack. “It’d be too hard.”

“Going through a hard phase in life is a lot more difficult with no one at your side. It starts getting softer, gentler, when you have someone else with you. Trust me.”

* * *

Dallas knows food is the way to my heart. The tacos and the slice of blueberry pie he sent over are making me reconsider seeing him. Lauren’s right. We’ve barely said a few words to each other since our argument at the hospital. I’ve run our exchange through my mind hundreds of times, staying up late because I can’t sleep, and I’ve tried to dissect every word that fell from his lips.

I shut my eyes and remember what he said.

“Take a step back from the relationship we’ve been building? Take a few steps back from making love?”

He said making love. I corrected that and said we were only fucking.

I’m the only one being honest with myself, with our relationship. We were both in a sensitive place the night of our one-night stand, and I’m afraid we’re only pulled to each other because of that and my pregnancy.

But bad days, bad months, don’t last forever, and eventually, we’ll get over our bad times and realize we were only using each other as a Band-Aid until we healed. He’ll go back to being a widower mourning his wife but still be getting laid. And I’ll go back to being a woman who doesn’t want anything to do with love but still getting laid.

We’re having sex for the need of it, the connection of it, for desire. Not for love, like he said. I gulp. Not for love on his part because the more time I spent with him, the more I knew I was falling into the pit of somewhere I didn’t want to go. A hole of falling for a man not interested in falling for me other than in the sheets. I’m afraid to admit, I’m in love with this broken, beautiful, loving man.

There’s a knock at the door when I’m taking a tray of cookies out of the oven. Dallas cooked for me, so I wanted to return the favor. Making the cookies has also helped keep my mind off everything I’m going through. Granted, I used a premade box mix, but a girl has to start somewhere.

Dallas said he’d be over after dropping Maven off for her sleepover. I take a deep breath and don’t bother looking through the peephole before answering the door.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I yell.

Brett is standing in the doorway with flowers. Yes, fucking flowers again.

His blond hair is swept back in a baseball cap, and a T-shirt and jeans cover his tall and scrawny body.

My asshole ex has a history of bad timing—having a girl in our bed when he thought I was out of town, sending dick pics without putting a password on his phone, being on a date with another woman when I ran into him at the frozen yogurt shop.

I stumble back when he takes a step forward and shuts the door behind himself.

“I heard about what happened to our baby.”

“I’m sorry. What did you just say? Our what?” I’m dreaming. I have to be dreaming. This isn’t happening.

Brett is out on bail. He shouldn’t even be leaving the county, let alone the state.

He tilts his shoulder in a half-shrug and walks into the living room, placing the flowers in the middle of the coffee table and sitting down. “I’ve gotta say, I’m unhappy you kept this from me, but I’ll forgive you … for the sake of our family.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Does jail make you imagine things? I take a step closer to look him in the eyes. He has to be high to consider this to be a good idea. “Are you on drugs?”

“No, Willow, I’m not on drugs,” he mocks in annoyance.

“You need to leave.”

“I’m not leaving until we talk about our dead baby.”

“There is no our baby, dumbass.”

My breathing labors, and my fist itches to connect with his face. He just referred to my baby as dead. He gets up and struggles to grab my hand, but I fight him off.

“Leave before I call the cops. You know this baby isn’t yours. I haven’t touched you in almost a year.”

“I don’t care. I’ll take on the responsibility if it’s another man’s because I love you.” He arrogantly looks around the room. “I don’t see anyone here to help you. What’d you do? Get knocked up by some random dude while traveling with Stella?” He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shakes his head. “You know, that’s why I said I didn’t trust you working with her. You’d get mad at me for cheating when I knew you were doing the same.”

That’s a lie. He was always jealous of my job.

“Fuck you. Do you honestly believe I’d ever have a baby with you? You almost killed a child.”

He points to my stomach. “I want a paternity test on the one that’s still alive.”

God, could his words be any more horrible?

“Excuse me? You admitted the baby wasn’t yours seconds ago.”

“No, I didn’t.”

I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with this asshole today. Or ever. “Screw you. I just had a miscarriage, for fuck’s sake, and you thought it would be a good idea to fly thousands of miles and harass me?”

We look at the door at the sound of a knock. Brett goes to answer it before I can stop him. I make it at the same time Dallas walks in, bumping into Brett on his way, and his attention bounces between Asshole and me.

“Did I miss something?” he asks.

“Stella’s old bodyguard?” Brett spits with a bitter laugh. “The fuck is he doing here?”

“The better question is, why are you here?” Dallas fires back, moving into his space.

“Stop!” I hiss. “I have neighbors!” I gesture for Dallas to close the door behind him. I can’t lose my apartment because of this.

Brett points to my stomach again. “This is my baby, and I’ve come to take care of my family.”

Dallas looks straight at me. “What is he talking about?”

“How do you even know about the baby?” I finally ask Brett.

“My father told me after your mom asked the church to pray for you. Your mom wouldn’t tell me where you were, so I took matters into my own hands. I figured you were still working for Stella, stalked her social media, and found you.” He shrugs like that’s not creepy at all and then throws his arm out toward a fuming Dallas. “You never answered my question. What are you doing here, bro?”

“Don’t fucking call me bro,” Dallas snarls.

He smirks. “Jesus, fuck, this is the dude you’re banging? This is the dude trying to take you and my baby away from me?”

Dallas takes a step closer. “You better get the fuck out of here before I throw you out.”

“So, you were cheating on your dying wife with her? You guys have been fucking around this entire time.” He laughs. “This is fucking perfect. You’re not such a good man, are you? You walked around like you were this perfect husband who then left his job to take care of his dying wife, but you were cheating on her and fucking my girl.” He glares at me. “You’re nothing but a lying cunt.”

I jump when Dallas punches Brett in the mouth. Brett pushes him back. Dallas wraps his hand around Brett’s neck and traps him against the wall.

“What the fuck, dude?” Brett struggles to breathe out, wiggling to get free. “I’m pressing charges!”

“You’re not even supposed to be here!” I yell. “Call the cops, please. Let them take you back to where you belong—behind bars.”

We don’t have to call the cops because they knock on my door seconds later.

“Blue Beech Police Department!” one yells.

Dallas moves his hand from Brett’s throat to open the door, and Brett dramatically collapses on the floor, holding his throat and fake choking.

Two officers step in. A young guy and an older gentleman.

“Hi, I’m Officer Barge,” the older man says.

The younger cop tips his head forward. “Officer Layne.” He surveys the room. “We received a noise complaint about two men fighting.” His eyes cast a look straight to Dallas. “What’s going on, man?”

“He punched me!” Brett screams, stumbling to his feet and sticking out his chest. He’s a badass now that there’s protection. “I want him put in jail.”

“I punched him,” Dallas says. “Because he was harassing her. She’s pregnant with my baby, and he was giving her trouble. He’s out on bail, and he shouldn’t even be out of California.”

“That true?” Officer Barge asks.

“No,” Brett lies.

Officer Layne holds out his hand. “Let me see some ID.”

Brett flinches. “Are you going to ask him for ID? He’s the one who assaulted me!”

“Already know who Dallas is,” he answers and then tilts his head my way. “I know who she is. Now, how ’bout you let me get acquainted with you?”

“I’ll tell you who I am. I’m the son of a mayor in a very affluent California town.”

“Cool story, man,” Officer Layne replies. “But this ain’t California, hipster boy. I don’t care if your father is the president. Let me see some ID, or I’m going to have to bring you in for failure to cooperate.”

Brett pulls out his wallet and reluctantly hands his driver’s license over.

“I’ll go run this,” Officer Layne says while Officer Barge keeps his eyes narrowed on Brett.

The officer and Dallas make small talk until Officer Layne comes back.

“It appears you broke the stipulations of your bail. We’re shipping you back to that affluent town of yours where you can enjoy your time in a cell.” His upper lip snarls in disgust. “I can’t believe they even gave you bail for what you did.”

Brett throws every name at me while they cuff him and force him out of my apartment. “He doesn’t love you!” he screams before the door shuts. “He’ll always love that dead bitch!”

Dallas stalks out of my apartment, ready for round two, but the police officer stops him from getting to Brett.

“Let it go, man,” Officer Layne says. “He isn’t worth it.” He looks at me. “Congratulations on the baby, you two.”

Dallas slaps him on the back. “Thanks, man.”

He hands me a card. “Willow, you let me know if he gives you any more trouble.”

Dallas’s defeated gaze focuses on me after he shuts the door, and his jaw twitches. “That fucker telling the truth?”

“Huh?” My brain is so exhausted, I don’t catch the severity of his question.

“Is he telling the truth about him being the father?”

My heart races. “Are you kidding me? You believe him?”

“I don’t know what to believe. He seemed pretty damn adamant about it.”

“If you want to believe him, be my guest. Leave. I planned on doing this by myself from day one, and I have no problem going through with that plan. I don’t need you or Brett. I’m a woman who has her shit together. I have a good job and don’t need to fucking baby-trap a guy.” I shake my head. “Fucking trust me, it would’ve been much easier to do this on my own.”

“Don’t say that,” he growls.

I cock my head toward the door. “Leave. I’ll take care of this supposed illegitimate baby on my own.”

“Don’t.” He grabs my hand in his. “Don’t say that. You can’t be pissed at me for asking. I asked, you told me the truth, I believe you.”

I release his hold and shove him away from me. “The fact that you even doubted me is bullshit.”

This is too much to handle right now. My hands are shaking in anger. I should’ve punched Brett in the face.

Dallas throws his arms in the air. “I’m sorry. It’s been a rough fucking week. I came over to make things right with you, and that asshole was here.”

“He showed up, unannounced! It’s not like I invited him.”

He grabs my hand, leads me across the room, and situates me on the couch. I hold my breath when he falls next to me and then drags me into his chest. I relax against him, and my heart calms when he starts massaging my neck.

“Why does it seem like the world’s against us?” I whisper.

“It’s not.” He places a kiss on my neck. “People go through trials and tribulations, but we’ll be okay. We can get through this because we have each other to lean on. It fucking killed me for you to think I blamed you for losing our baby. I was hurt. Upset. Expressing my emotions isn’t something I excel at.” He chuckles. “Those words came from Lauren, not me.”

“That makes two of us.”

I drop my head back on his shoulder to see him, and my body relaxes when he kisses away the tears hitting my cheeks.

“How about we start the night over?” he asks. “Let’s act like your douche bag of an ex with bangs longer than yours didn’t come here.”

I reach up to circle my hand around his neck and bring him down for a kiss. “You have no idea how great that sounds.”

I planned on telling him we needed to stick to being friends tonight, but that’s all changed. Brett slapped some reality into me. I could turn my back on Dallas and have to deal with more men like Brett because I’m too scared to get close to someone capable of love, or I could spend my time with a man who has a heart.

Things might not work out with us.

Things might go wrong.

But being with him feels much better than being alone.

We stay on the couch and talk about everything that’s happened since we last saw each other. Maven is feeling better and is back to her usual self. She’s been asking hundreds of questions about where I am.

Dallas tucks me into bed and turns around to leave.

“Are you not staying the night?” I ask, disappointed.

He smiles. “Hell yes, I am. But I need to get rid of those ugly-ass flowers first.”

I can’t help but laugh. I needed that.

He comes back with an even brighter smile on his face, and I arch my brows in question.

“You baked me cookies,” he states.

“Tried to.” I frown. “They’re a little burned.”

“You do like me.”

We spend the rest of the night eating burned cookies in bed.

* * *

“Maven misses you,” he whispers in my ear.

It’s morning, and the faint ray of sunlight peeks through the windows as we lie in bed. My hand is in his. My legs are a wild mess across his. It feels good to have him back here.

I shut my eyes. “I miss her. Tell her I’ll be seeing her soon.” His hand tightens around mine, and I sigh. “So, this is what grief feels like.”

No wonder Dallas was so miserable when Lucy died. This pain is what he was feeling. This void in my heart is what he was going through.

“Losing someone isn’t fun.” His breathing slows. “I just wish we could’ve met him even if it was for only a minute.”

His eyes are on me when I shift to rest my chin on his warm chest and smile up at him. I sag against his body when his arms wrap around my back, and he settles me next to him, his fingers tracing my spine.

“Him?” I ask.

He chuckles. “Is it bad I was convinced we were having a boy?”

I can feel his thick breathing when I stroke his chest. “I was so convinced we were having a girl, I had a name picked out.”

“Is it Daphne?” he asks, and I can feel his laughter through his chest. “She can hang out with Scooby, and they’ll chase ghosts together.”

An even bigger roar of laughter comes from his chest when I pinch his nipple. “No!” I follow his lead, feeling it coming from the bottom of my stomach, and damn, does it feel good for something other than pain to consume me. “Can I ask you for a favor though?”

He nods.

“Let’s wait until we have the baby before choosing a name. I don’t want to get my hopes up and then have something happen.”

His arm tightens around me. “Nothing will happen.”

I reach up and run my fingers over the stubble on his cheeks. “Just in case.”

“We’ll wait. And, when you have our baby and it’s a girl, we’ll go with the name you choose. If it’s a boy, we’ll go with mine.”

I smile. “I like that idea.”

“Now, can I ask you a favor? You don’t have to answer right away. Think about it and get back with me when you decide.”

Damn it. Him and his favors.

“What?”

Sincerity takes over his features. “Consider moving in with me. I’ll do anything to make you comfortable there. Sleep on the couch. Crash in the basement. Sleep in my truck if I have to.”

“It didn’t end well the last time I was at your house. I feel like too much of an outsider.”

“I’ll make things right. Make you happy there. Give me a chance.”

I slowly nod. “I’ll think about it.”

“And …” he draws out. “Just one more serious question.”

“What more can you want?” I ask, faking annoyance.

“Why did you name your cat Scooby? Letting you name our child worries me.”

“My grandfather had a cat named Scooby. No one understood why, and he never told us.” I narrow my eyes at him with a smile. “So, consider yourself lucky to hear my reason.”

“And what would that be?”

“Because my grandfather named his Scooby.”

He nods. “Let’s keep the cartoon names to our animals.”