May 12, 2016

Loss.

It ate at my soul. It dwelled in my blood, pumped through my veins like a life-sustaining fluid. And some days, hurt really was the only thing keeping me going.

Other days, it was the whiskey.

“Honey, can you please take out the—ah!” Bella squealed as I grabbed her around the waist, lifting her up in the air. Our lips met, and I melted into the kiss. I could never get sick of kissing her. Never get sick of tasting her.

“Cam, you need to put me down.” She giggled, planting her hands on my shoulders.

“No,” I teased, holding her tighter. “I’ll never let you go, Bella.”

She tucked a strand of long red hair behind her ear, her green eyes softening. “I’ll never let you go, either.”

“You all right, bud?” Someone slapped my shoulder—Mack. Of course.

“Fine,” I grunted. I weighed the tumbler in my palm, knocked the contents back. “Another.”

“Cam, I think you’ve had en—”

“Another,” I growled.

My best friend held up his hands. “I didn’t ask you out so you could drink away my bar tab. I know you’re still in pain, but you need to move on. Go out, see—”

“Move on?” I stumbled off my chair, grabbing the table for support. “I need to move on?”

Mack’s shoulders heaved as he shook his head. “Not literally, Cam. I just meant you can’t stay in your apartment forever. Aside from work, you haven’t left the building in six months.”

“Don’t need to.” The apartment was where she was. Where I felt her the most.

I placed her gently on the ground, her long, white dress tickling my ankles. “I couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone but you. You know that, right?”

She nodded once, demure, then picked up the pregnancy test again, shaking her head as she stared at it. “I just can’t believe it, Cam. It’s a miracle.”

“Cam?”

I blinked, shaking the memory from my mind. Damn it. “Yeah?”

“I was sayin’ that you need to get out more, leave the building.”

“And I was sayin’ I don’t.”

Hands roaming up her body, my finger tracing over that soft yet easy smile. “I’ll never let you go.”

“But this isn’t right. It’s not you. Do you think this is what Bella would want—”

“Don’t. Please …” Pain stabbed at my insides. God, I missed her. I missed her with a physical pain, one that hollowed out my chest, my heart.

Mack didn’t know what Bella would want. She would want to be here, with me. To be preparing to give birth to our child.

She needed me. I needed her.

That was why I needed to do everything in my power to remember. Even if remembering hurt. Even if remembering meant I needed the numbing power of alcohol to take away the vicious pain.

“Look, I gotta go.” Alone. If I was alone, I could focus on those memories.

I turned and headed to the exit.

“Cam, wait!”

“No.” My eyes struggled to focus on him.

His gentle smile fell. His voice softened. “I’ll walk you home.”

“I’m thirty-two years old, Mack. I can make a few blocks by myself.” I sighed, exhausted. “Just … just, please, give me some space.”

“Okay.” He held his hands up in absolution. “Okay.”

I staggered onto the street, the chill of the late autumn air creeping into my bones. The yellow glow of speeding vehicles blurred into a long, never-ending light.

“I’ll never let you go.”

I rubbed my thumb against the ring on my finger. Today was the day. The day he would have been born. The day our baby …

And then I saw her.

Red hair curling down her back.

A white dress, billowing in the breeze.

She was about ten feet ahead with two other women I didn’t know.

My chest tightened. My throat constricted.

I grabbed at the wall of the building next to me, but my hand couldn’t make purchase. It slammed against the ground, my body’s weight behind it, but I didn’t feel the sting, didn’t feel the pain.

Bella.

“Wait!” I pushed to my feet, darting between the shadows of people, my eyes on the red hair moving so far in front. “Please!”

I ran, my breath coming shorter. Too much whiskey. Too much love—both were the culprits and I didn’t give a damn. Because I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know why, but she was here. My Bella. She’d come back.

My feet pounded against the pavement, my soles slapping on the concrete. People turned to look, but for once, I didn’t care. Let them look. I wanted to laugh, a crazy, maniacal laugh. Let them look all they want.

Bella.

It was her.

I was sure of it.

It was her—

And then she turned around.

And for one glorious second, it was her. The woman I loved.

The woman I saw every time I closed my eyes, and sometimes when they were open, too.

The woman who’d own my heart forever.

“Hey,” she said.

Her voice—it wasn’t right.

I shook my head. No.

“Hey.” She tried again, but her smile was big. Too big.

Bella never smiled like that.

Nausea churned in my gut.

“Aren’t you that guy from the—”

Bile raced up my throat. I doubled over, clutching at my waist, and emptied the contents of my stomach into the gutter. Acid burnt the back of my tongue, and I coughed and spluttered, wiping at my mouth.

It wasn’t Bella.

No matter how many times I thought I’d seen her during the last six months, it was never Bella.

And as I stared at my own vomit, wanting her to be there, needing her to be there, I wished that just once I could pretend she was. That for one night, I could hold her in my arms, stroke her long, red hair, and tell her everything would be all right.

“You guys go ahead,” the redhead told her friends. She placed a cool hand on my back, bending to my level. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I croaked. “I was s’posed to be a father. Today.” I would have met my baby. Our baby.

She gave a smaller smile this time, and damn, she looked like my wife. “My name’s Giselle.”

“I’m Cam.” I straightened, the world sliding as I overbalanced, then corrected myself. “I have to go …”

“No.” She linked her hand in mine. “Let me take care of you.”

And I shouldn’t have. But I was so tired of fighting, of blocking out the past, that I let her lead me to her hotel room, let her pour me another drink, let her take off my clothes. I let her take advantage of me while I took advantage of her, because sometimes, as humans, we needed to pretend. We needed to pretend that everything would all be okay, even when we knew that there was no way in hell it could be.

“We’re so incredibly lucky, babe.” I pressed a kiss to the soft skin of Bella’s neck.

“The luckiest.” She smiled up at me, tossing her hair out of her eyes. “The luckiest people in the world.”

Only it turned out that we weren’t.

Because seven weeks after that positive pregnancy test, Bella died. Bella let go.

It was just me holding on after that