Chapter Nine
Jona
Justine glares at me as I sip my coffee.
I ignore her jealousy over it, and sit up in bed. For a Saturday morning, I am hangover free. My bank account isn’t starving, and my heart isn’t begging to matter.
“What about Jason?” I suggest.
“Nah, too boring.”
“Jody?”
“Reminds me of that guy from Shameless.” She giggles at the memory, even though I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about. She falls over and laughs, clutching at her belly.
I smirk watching her, okay not being in on the joke. She’s laughing, that’s all that matters. “Jake?”
“No,” she denies breathlessly. “Stop with the J’s. Three J names in a row make me want to puke. Why don’t we name him after something that really matters to us?”
I roll some ideas over in my mind, but the only thing that comes to it is this second chance. “What about Chance? For second chances?”
She sits up, lips parting. I watch the name churn in her thoughts. Finally, she smiles delicately. “I love it.” She looks down at her belly. “But what if it’s a girl?”
“It’s not.” I groan at her stubbornness and take another drink of my coffee. “I’m not in the mood for this double date either. I’m a working man now. I want to do nothing all day but you.” I flash her a grin.
“Jacob’s excited. He’s been cleaning all morning.”
“She should be excited.” My brows wiggle.
“It’s huge, isn’t it?” I nod. “I knew it!” Pumping her fist in the air, she starts chanting. “Go, Jacob! Go, Jacob!” Then she sighs. “Kid has it all and doesn’t know it. Handsome, sweet, and stacked. Monika better take a fucking hint and leave what’s mine alone.” Her wide, forced smile looks crazed and angry.
“Did he call her or something?” I didn’t tell Justine that Monika had texted me a few times during the week. I hadn’t answered her—she wasn’t in trouble—and Justine’s even scarier now that she’s pregnant.
She stretches out on the bed, making a face as she does so. “I gave him her number.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My stomach hurts a little. It’s nothing. Probably just morning sickness.”
“You haven’t puked in two days, right?” I eye her.
She thinks about it. “No, actually. I’ve felt kind of good. Been great. I ate fried eggs this morning.”
“You know the funny thing about fried eggs?”
“Jona,” she warns.
“They fit perfectly in my mouth.” I nudge her still unamused body. “Funny, right?”
Her face is blank. “You’re so annoying sober.” She slides to the end of the bed and starts to rise, but she pauses, groaning and grabbing for her stomach with her face pinched in pain.
“What?”
“My stomach hurts.” Catching her breath, she continues, sashaying her ass into the bathroom. “Gotta pee, Lover.”
I scratch at my growing stubble and stare at her door, feeling a sense of foreboding. I look around my room. Nothing’s out of place. Things are good. Chill, I coach. Good isn’t bad.
My door busts open and Jacob comes in, towing in clothes after him. “What should I wear tonight?”
“Just show her your monster stick. She won’t care what you’re wearing after that.”
He shoots daggers at me. “Would you stop with the dick jokes and help me?” He holds up a suit.
“When’s prom?”
Growling, he holds up a striped long-sleeved button down and a pair of jeans.
“When you got out of prison, did they pay for your ride home?”
He throws it away, probably wanting to kick my ass, but we both know I’d own him even with my arm broken. “Last one.” He holds up a pair of black jeans and an orange shirt with a trashy abstract design on it.
“I didn’t know The Jersey Shore was still on.”
He opens his mouth to give me one, but nothing comes out before we hear Justine scream. I bolt off the bed and ignore the pain in my arm, beating Jacob to the door. I push it open to find Justine sitting on the toilet with blood on her thighs, and her hand is raised in front of her with blood smeared on her fingertips. On her face is pure unadulterated horror at what she sees.
And in my heart, I feel it, like a warning.
We will break today.
“Why are you bleeding?” I accuse, dropping to my knees in front of her.
Her eyes meet mine, and I know she’s about to break too. “Jona.”
“Why are you bleeding!” I scream, shaking her with both hands. Pain burns in my arm, but I take it. I have a feeling it’s a tiny prick of pain in my present anyway.
Her breathing shallows, becoming faster, but less. Her eyes hold mine as I watch the woman I love break.
“Justine,” I beg, not blinking the tears from my eyes. If I see clearly, I’ll see her pain, and I’ll see mine too. “What’s wrong?” In the background, I hear Jacob on the phone calling 911.
“No,” she whispers. “No, Jona.”
“Oh, baby.” I grab for her face, holding her in my shaking hands. “Everything’s fine.”
“It’s not.”
“It is. Chance is fine.”
She falls forward, mouth open with a backbreaking sob. Her cries break free against my chest. I hold her as hard as I can like I’m holding her body together, trying to fix the broken parts of our baby.
Of us.
In my arms, Justine shakes as her tears moisten my shoulder and neck. I stare at the wall, unable to understand. Or maybe I do understand. Maybe that’s why my heart pounds, why the smell of her blood is the final kink in my ruin.
When the paramedics get here, they rip us apart. I have this feeling that the space between us is just the beginning. She reaches for me, trying to grab for me as Jacob holds me back. I want my girl. I need her. She’s all I’ve ever had. “Justine,” I whisper, giving in to my tears.
“Let’s follow them to the hospital.” Jacob forces me from the floor where I sit.
I give in to everything, covering my face in my hands as I bawl into them. He pulls me to my feet after a struggle. He gets me in his car. My Charger sits there like it knows all the magic I felt buying it no longer matters. In the hospital, no one answers my questions. No one wants to hear my rage. They sick the guards on me, and they force me in the waiting room, guarding me for hours as I pace up and down the artificially lit room.
But I already know the answers to my questions. I know them in my heart, in the hollow dark places.
“Mr. Kyles?” someone asks.
I look away from nothing and bore into the nurse. “That’s me.”
“Miss Fenton is ready to see you. Right this way.”
Jacob and I follow her and into a dimly lit room. Justine is sitting up in bed in a hospital gown, staring emptily at the wall. When I come in, she starts to tremble. Won’t look at me, just shakes.
“Baby?” I grab for her hand.
“He’s gone,” she whispers.
My stomach sinks, my heart too. A cold, hot terror moves through me. I run over to the garbage can and puke up my horror. I can’t look at her either now. I stare at her feet as I sink down to the floor. She looks at the wall.
Jacob looks at us both, back and forth. “Well, are you okay?” he asks, touching her leg through her sheet. “Because that’s what really matters here. If you’re okay.”
I know he’s trying to talk to me without talking to me. Trying to comfort without comforting. Of course, I know that Justine’s important too.
She doesn’t answer because we’re so alike. We’d already lost ourselves to our kid.
Our kid.
I fight back my tears. “Jus.”
She shakes her head.
“Look at me, baby.”
Her head shakes again.
I push to my feet and go over to her, grabbing at her chin. She swats me away and turns over, lying on her side.
“Let her relax,” Jacob says. “We’re going to wait outside, okay?”
Nothing. She lies there motionless.
I already feel her absence in the same place I feel my mother’s. From deep, deep, inside. I don’t realize I’m crying until I hear her crying too. I crawl into bed with her, fight off her blows, and hold her to my body from behind, sobbing against her when she gives up and does the same.
“It’ll be okay,” I promise. “We’ll be okay. We can try again. Or we can take a break. Or we can just be us for a little longer more. But it will be okay, I promise.”
She cries into her hands for hours, hiding her eyes from me. Never says a word, doesn’t look at me, until eventually her cries quiet and she falls asleep. I press a kiss to her tear-soaked cheek and then unwrap myself from around her body.
Jacob’s sleeping in the waiting room, earphones in. I don’t know what to do with myself, so I find the same nurse who brought us back. She’s in the middle of dosing out meds, reading charts and tapping out little white pills.
I touch her shoulder. “Can I talk to you?”
“Kyles, right?”
“Yeah. Is she going to be okay?”
“Miss Fenton? She’s going to be fine. She had a miscarriage. There will be some bleeding and minor discomfort. Her hormones will settle soon. Emotionally …” She looks up at me from her chart. “Is a different story.”
“It was our first baby,” I whisper, my eyes raw.
She sighs and touches my shoulder. “I’m very sorry. I’ve had one too. They’re quiet painful things. All the hope, love, and attachment, gone. I would meet with a primary physician before trying again. But she’s free to go when she wants. She filled out her information already. The bills will be mailed to you. Does she have clothes?”
“I’ll get her some.” Feeling eerily empty, I head downstairs to the gift shop and purchase a pair of black and red Houston Rockets sweatpants and the matching shirt.
But the baby section stops me up short. Little hats and newborn clothes, and in my heart, I can’t take it. I can’t take this shit. This isn’t the same as all my other hurts. This is too new to understand, to protect myself from.
I bring the things back up with me, kicking at Jacob’s feet softly. He sits up and shoots to his feet. “What’s wrong?”
“We can take off as soon as Justine’s ready.”
“Oh, good. How is she?”
I don’t answer. I open the door to her room and set her clothes down, heading to the other side of the bed where her face is.
She’s beautiful, even resting as she breaks. I already feel her slipping away from me. She feels like a million miles away. Here, but gone. Nowhere near me. I lean over and kiss her tender swollen lips and pray for strength. I’ll need it.
“Jus?”
Her eyes snap open. They do their best not to meet mine. “What?”
“We have to go.”
She looks around, hugging herself for a moment. “I don’t want to leave him here.”
I bite my pain back. Refuse to feel it. I fucking refuse. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t want to leave him here either. But I can’t break down. If I do, she will, and I’ll never stop falling if she does.
“He was never here. He was always inside of us.”
She buries her head between her legs. “It’s my fault. I didn’t go to the doctor soon enough. I thought feeling good was good. But it wasn’t. It was a sign. I did this.”
I dig my nails into my palm to reign my emotions in. I’m used to this. Don’t feel. Run. I can do this for her. “This wasn’t your fault. You did everything right. We were trying for him. But this happens sometimes, Justine. You can’t blame yourself.”
“I failed him. Maybe it was puking too much? I should have held it in. Maybe it wasn’t eating enough? I should have forced myself to eat. Maybe it was not sleeping enough?”
I can’t stand here hearing this. I grab her hospital gown and rip it off. I swing her legs over the edge. Then I grab the clothes I bought her and ignore her bowed back as I force them on her as the sound of her sobs break what’s left of my heart. I pick her up in my arms and carry her out of the hospital, ignoring the stares and the pain.
When we get outside to the parking lot, Justine struggles to her feet. “I’m not going home to that house.” She pushes me away. “I’m not going home to play house.” She points at me accusingly. “Our family’s gone!”
“Our family is in here.” I pat my fucking chest. “Don’t do this to me, Justine. Please,” I beg, knowing where this is going.
She’s going to run. Like she always does when the pain is too much.
Only this time, there isn’t a fix. I’m her balm, and she’s my glue. Apart, the wounds won’t heal.
She spews anger at me with her fiery eyes. “There is no family! Don’t you get it, Jona? It’s gone!” She takes off, feet bare, running into the congested humid parking lot.
My arm kills me as I chase after her. I dig my heels into the ground as she leaps over the divider and fades into the open field by the hospital. Still, I chase after her, feeling the grass whip at my ankles. Sweat drips down my face, and my shirt is stuck to me. My stomach is turning with something dark and damaging.
I don’t realize where I end up until I’m pounding on their door.
Harley opens it, grinning, a soda in her hand. “You’re such a cheater, Bachmen,” she’s saying, until she sees me, and her face falls. “Jona?”
I crush her to me without warning. I need to hug someone … good. “We lost the baby.”
Her soda falls from her fingers, and her arms come around me. “Oh, Jona,” she whispers, gripping me. “I’m so sorry.”
“Come sit down, bro.” Bach tears me loose after a while, forcing me onto a sofa. “What happened?”
I don’t know where to look without seeing my memories. “I wanted that kid. I wanted him so much. We even picked out a name.”
He swallows hard and sinks to his haunches, putting him at eye level. “Where’s Jus?”
“She took off. Blames herself.”
Hillary’s there, suddenly. She sits beside me and rubs my back. Harley’s on the arm of the couch doing the same on the other side. But all I want is my girl. My Chance.
I wait up all night for Justine after Bach drops me off back in Crystal Gulf, but she never shows. I clean up the blood in the bathroom, screaming on the inside as I do so, forcing myself not to shed a tear. Don’t feel this pain.
It’s too big for me this time.
I don’t touch the baby stuff. I can’t take all the clothes folded on my dresser. His little bottles beside them. I send my good fist into the wall repeatedly, only stopping once Jacob tears me away, pulling me out of my room.
I push him off and pound down the stairs to the kitchen. But as I tear the plastic off a bottle of whiskey I find in the back of the pantry, I don’t have the heart to do this to him. To my second chance. This pain is unbearable, but it’s his pain. What kind of almost-father would I be if I did what I always do?
I pour the whiskey down the sink. Then I grab my keys and go look for my girl.
Her old man’s house is empty and rotten. The beach is bare. Where would I go if I wanted to run as far as she did right now?
Who better to leave behind than me?
***
Justine
I don’t know where I’m going.
It doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing does. I don’t matter. My love doesn’t matter. My second chance is gone.
Gone.
I can’t see through my tears, but I don’t blink them away. They’re the only thing blocking the truth.
I touch my stomach and heave. The heat is draining me dry, but I don’t see a point anymore. I have no one to take care of anymore. Just me.
It’s shocking how much I miss someone I never knew. How much I want to know who he may have been. Jona’s right. It was a boy. A chance for us to be better, different. But I ruined it like I always do.
Loud music breaches my walls. I pass into an unfamiliar neighborhood. It looks gritty and overrun. I feel the pull to forget. To fade away into a drug-induced haze. My feet move toward the music, but I get this feeling that if I go in there, I’ll be forgetting my Chance.
I don’t want to forget him.
I keep walking until I get to the beach. I settle in the sand and stare out at the calm midnight water. There should be a storm right now. A raging storm that crashes into my land, sweeping me away.
But the water’s calm.
I peel my clothes off and run into the ocean, diving underwater. The salt burns my eyes, floods my mouth. I submerge myself, floating in the cool nothingness of the Gulf at night. My ears fill with water, rushing to my brain.
I want to stay here, fighting to breathe. On the cusp of asphyxiation, I feel nothing but fear and a want to live. I thought I’d found a reason to take a breath. But really, I’d been making my fall so much worse. I hold my breath.
I close my eyes and fight to ignore the influx to relieve the burning in my lungs. The moment my eyes begin to blacken, I see his face again.
My salvation.
His light brown amber eyes and messy toffee hair. His handsome smirk, his fire, his light—Jona pulls me from the edge.
I push to the water’s surface and pull in a gasping breath, coughing salt water up with my tears. I want him so badly the throbbing in my chest is only him. How can I look at him knowing what I took from him?
How can he love me when I ruined his second chance?
The idea of doing this without Jona, of taking a breath and knowing he isn’t there to hear my influx, is pain, on top of pain, on top of pain.
I dress, my body soaking wet and covered in sand as I collapse by the water.
The stars shine brightly tonight. The sky is melting black and shimmer, like someone took a paintbrush and brushed silver across a black canvas. My heart pounds slowly, too weak to beat. I lie in the sand, but there’s no lying to myself anymore.
Ruin is me. It’s what I come from, what I give out. Jona was never my ruin. It was inside of me all along.
The best thing for both of us is for me to fade away. Go back to the destruction. The missing parts. The running. If I stay, I’ll only hurt him worse.
There’s only so much hurt one heart can take.