Begin Again (Beautiful #2) (14 page)

The nurse walked around the counter and her eyes grew wide when she saw me. I was pale and when I looked down, I saw blood trailing down my leg.

“Who’s your doctor?”

“Dr. Bates,” Huntley replied quickly. I was in too much pain and too scared to say anything. I was losing my baby.

The nurse hurried to the phone and after a quick phone call, she came rushing towards us with a wheelchair. I sat down, crying out in pain, and I was wheeled to the Maternity floor where we found Dr. Bates waiting for us. Without saying I word, he escorted us into a delivery room. Nurses started hooking me up to all kinds of equipment and I started panicking. Dr. Bates pressed my hard belly and I cried out.

“We’re going to do an ultrasound,” he said. The expression on his face was of no comfort and only added to my distress. A nurse squirted a col
d gel onto my skin and Dr. Bates wasted no time. He pressed the wand onto my belly and moved it around.

“Dammit,” he muttered. He turned to face me, looking forlorn. “Miss. Rosemead, I’m sorry to have to tell you this but I can’t find a heartbeat.”

The floor dropped from beneath my feet and once again my world came crumbling down.

“W-why?” I asked, “What’s wrong.”

“I’m afraid you have a case of placental abruption, and if we don’t deliver your baby now, you could bleed out.” He didn’t give me time to respond before a nurse separated my legs and removed my panties. My dress was lifted up to my waist and I leaned up on my elbows to see what he was doing.

“She’s already dilated, and we don’t have time for a C-section,” he said to a nurse. He turned his gaze back to me. “You have to deliver your baby naturally Miss. Rosemead, but you’re too far dilated for an epidural - “

“Is the baby okay?” I asked, cutting him off. When he didn’t answer immediately, I yelled, “Tell me!”

“No,” he paused, “I’m afraid your baby has died.”

I stared at him and felt the life drain from my own body. My baby was dead. It couldn’t be. It had to have been a nightmare and I would wake up any second. It wasn’t real.

“Oh God,” Huntley cried next to me. I looked up at her and burst into tears. My baby. Dead.

I screamed when a sharp pain shot through my abdomen.

“Doctor,” a nurse said, “We’re ready.”

He nodded, and took a seat at the end of the bed between my legs.

“Okay, Miss. Rosemead, I’m going to need you to push. Now.”

“No,” I cried. “Please, it hurts too much.”

Huntley squeezed my hand reassuringly but it didn’t help. I was devastated, and now I had to deliver my dead baby.

“Push,” Dr. Bates ordered. I shook my head, and cried harder.

“Please, no. I can’t do this. I can’t.”

Huntley cried next to me and I realized that while it was a nightmare, it was in fact real, and I wasn’t going to wake up.

“Please push Demi, you have to do this,” Huntley pleaded with a tear streaked face. I took a shaky breath and started pushing. The pain was excruciating and it felt like I was being sliced through the middle. Dr. Bates ordered me to stop but the reprieve didn’t last.

“Please,” I sobbed, “make it stop.”

“We’re almost there, Miss. Rosemead. Push.”

I gritted my teeth and bore down, giving it my all. It wasn’t until I saw Dr. Bates lift the baby that it all really sunk in. When a nurse took the baby from him, I waited for the cry. It never came.

“What is it?” I asked.

Dr. Bates looked up from where he was cleaning me up, sadness marring his face. “A girl.”

“A girl,” I whispered.
A little girl.

She was wrapped in a pink blanket when they handed her to me and for a short time I had no idea what to do or say.

“Did you have a name?” I looked up at Huntley and then back down at my daughter.

“Gracie,” I replied, struggling to get the word past the lump in my throat. “Her name is Gracie.”

Her eyes were closed, but I imagined they were brown like Brody’s. She had a sprinkling of hair on her head, light and blonde. At only five months she was already her daddy’s girl. Only that wasn’t true, because she was gone. With teary eyes I pressed a kiss to her forehead in the hopes that she knew she was loved, no matter how short her time on Earth had been. She was made up of the best parts of me and Brody, something I would always remember. I suddenly felt exhausted. So very tired. I couldn’t understand why my heart was still beating, and my little girl’s wasn’t. It was cruel.

My eyes
started to flutter shut my limbs started going numb. I whispered a ‘good-bye’, because really, that was all I had left to give, and the last thing I remembered was Dr. Bates yelling, “Miss. Rosemead, stay with me!” Everything went dark after that, and I felt nothing. I was consumed by a darkness that never ended.

IT WAS A few hours later when I started regaining consciousness. The harsh light above me hurt my tired eyes and I cowered away from it. My head was in a hazy fog and I fought it.

“Demi?”

I opened my eyes slowly, and saw that Huntley was standing above me, her face still red.

“What happened?” I croaked, rolling to my side to face her.

She sniffled and I saw relief flood her stormy blue eyes. “You passed out because of the amount of blood you lost, sweety. They had to do a blood transfusion. It was touch and go there for a while.”

“And the baby?”

Huntley looked down and started crying again. “She’s gone.”

“So it really happened?” I asked, feeling the onslaught of tears coming again. Huntley nodded and in that moment, it felt like the fight had left my body.

Huntley crawled in next to me and wrapped her slender arms around my shaking body. She carried the weight of my loss with me, and in some ways it helped lighten the burden. I found myself stuck in the darkness again, only this time I saw no way out. There was no light left. It was just an abyss of endless…blac
k
.

Demi crumpled to the floor in a sobbing mess and it took every bit of inner strength not to go to her. The need to comfort her came as naturally to me as breathing, but I’d decided that just this once depriving myself of that was the right thing to do.

“
My
baby?” I asked, my voice barely audible. Her head hung low but she still nodded. I fisted my hair and inhaled deeply. It was all I could do not to fall to floor myself. I looked around the dark house and tried to wrap my head around Demi’s admission. I thought back to all the times I’d seen her this week, remembering that I hadn’t once seen her with a baby. She cried harder and I took a step closer. A brown puppy was pawing at Demi’s legs, but even then Demi remained on the floor while her body shook. Her broken cries taunted my ears and as much as I wanted to pick her up and hold her to me, I wasn’t going to.

“Where is it?” My tone came out harder than I intended. “The baby, I mean.”

When Demi finally looked up at me, I saw the light leave her eyes and it made me afraid of the answer. I could tell it wasn’t going to be good. “Tell me, Demetria,” I pressed.

“She died,” Demi whispered. Time stopped just then, and I felt the air leave my own lungs.
She?

“We had a daughter?” I swallowed and felt my eyes grow wet. When Demi didn’
t say anything more I fell to my knees in front of her and gripped her forearms. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I yelled. Tears started sliding down my face but I didn’t care. I’d just been sucker punched and betrayed by the woman I’ve loved more than life itself since I was six years old. I think I deserved to fucking cry. Demi flinched, and looked away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I yelled again, “I deserved to know!”

“Brody,” she cried, “I’m s-sorry. Y-you w-would have s-stayed for t-the wrong reasons if I had told you. I c-couldn’t keep you here, so I l-let you go!”

A sense of loss overcame me and collided with the anger and duplicity coursing through every fiber in my body. My blood boiled with it, my bones ached with it.

“I can’t believe you would hide this from me,” I said. Looking at her felt like looking at a complete stranger. I didn’t know her, not anymore, and that hurt me almost more than learning about our child.

She shook her head and I loosened my grip on her arms, still afraid that I’d hurt her. I was pissed, but I wasn’t about to hurt her physically.

“I t-tried to t-tell you,” she sobbed.

“When? I never heard from you!”

“I w-went to Chicago two months after she…” Demi swallowed, struggling with the words, “died, but I saw you with Sienna and thought you had moved on.”

I sat back and wiped my face. The gravity of the situation hit me square in the chest. It wasn’t only her fault. If I hadn’t left none of this would have happened.

“How did she die?”

“Oh God, Brody, please, I can’t take anymore right now!”

“Do Huntley and Grayson know?”

Instead of replying, Demi just curled further into herself and I realized that I wasn’t going to get the answers I wanted.

“If you can’t tell me, I’ll find someone who will,” I said standing up. Before I left, I turned around and looked at her one last time.

“I felt like shit for months after what I did. I was consumed with my guilt for months. Now, I find out you kept our child and her death from me! You are no better than I am, and
you
have to live with this. There’s no coming back from this, and this time it’s on you.”

I slammed the door shut, drowning out her cries, and walked with determination to her red Lexus. There was no way in hell I was going anywhere until I had some answers.

I pulled up the hand break and the car screeched to a halt on the dusty gravel of the parking lot next to Lake Dixon. There were fewer cars now, but when I spotted Grayson’s truck, I knew he was still here. The fact that it was his wedding didn’t stop me. Nothing would.

I found him standing on the side, talking to Huntley, Jeff, his parents, Coach Morgan and his wife. They all laughed, and smiled, but when Grayson spotted me his smile fell.

“Brody, what’s wrong?” he asked, right before I knocked him on his ass. I ignored the pain, since I’d hit him with injured hand. It didn’t compare to what I was feeling inside.

“What the fuck?” Jeff yelled, moving to pin my arms behind me. Huntley bent down and helped Grayson to his feet while everyone glared at me.

“You
sonofabitch! How could you not tell me?”

“Tell you
wha - ” Grayson snapped his mouth shut and I saw realization flicker across his face. I would apologize for hitting him later, when I wasn’t so angry.

“She told you,” he said quietly, barely above a whisper.

Everyone went quiet, and their expressions morphed from shock to a combination of sheepishness and sympathy…

“You all knew, didn’t you?”

No one replied and they could barely look me in the eye.

“Fuck,” I muttered, pulling away from Jeff. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“No,” Huntley replied. She opened her mouth to say something more but I cut her off.

“I called you,” I looked at Grayson, “every day for three fucking months, and you didn’t think to mention any of this to me?”

“It’s not that simple,” he replied.

“Why not?” I shouted. “You’re my best friend, and you betrayed me! Every fucking one of you betrayed me!”

“Demi wanted to be the one to tell you,” Jeff said from behind me. I spun around to face him, itching to hit him too.

“And how would
you
of all people know that?” I snapped, stepping closer. Coach Morgan and Grayson’s father, Richard, also take a step forward, flanking Jeff on either side. I didn’t care. I would punch all of them if I had to.

“She flew to Chicago to see you, but she saw you with someone else.”

I snorted. “So that’s when you decided to swoop in and rescue her, right?”

He inched closer until we were toe-to-toe. He was only an inch taller than I was, so I’d have no problem taking him. The fact that we’d been friends for most of our lives didn’t seem to matter to either of us.

“She was a mess because of you and she needed a friend. I won’t apologize for being there for her when she needed me,” he growled.

“Does she know you’re in love with her?”

Jeff went quiet and looked down. I wasn’t an idiot. A blind man could see he wanted to be more than just friends with Demi. He thought I hadn’t seen them together on the dance floor earlier, or the way he’d stormed off. He was wrong. My eyes had been on Demi all night and my guess was the conversation hadn’t gone the way he wanted it to.

“That’s what I thought,” I snarled.

“Will you stop?” Huntley said angrily. She stepped next to Jeff and fixed her glower on me. “Jeff was there for Demi when she needed
you,
but you weren’t there - ”

“And whose fault is that?” I threw my arms in the air. “You can’t blame me if I had no idea what the fuck was going on.”

“She did it for you,” Huntley said. Her face fell slightly and I saw sadness in the depths of her eyes. “You wanted to leave, so she let you go.”

Huntley’s words sunk in and my vexation gave way to the insurmountable sorrow that had settled in my chest. I was only now starting to see the aftermath of my decision to chase after more than what I had, when the truth was, I had everything I wanted right in front of me. I grabbed the nearest chair and sat down, resting my head in my hands. “She couldn’t
even tell me what happened,” I said softly, struggling with my own emotions. I couldn’t tell which way was up.

Huntley and Grayson exchanged a few words, and then she was gone. Grayson took a seat next to me and sighed deeply before turning his gaze my way.

“Look man, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but Demi asked me not to and it wasn’t my secret to tell. I feel like shit for keeping it from you, I really do, but Huntley and I had a hard enough time keeping Demi together as it was.”

I contemplated pressing him for more answers and as enraged and anguished as I was, I needed to hear them. It was my own form of torture, knowing how destroyed Demi was, knowing how much she’d gone through while I was gone. I knew I wasn’t entirely to blame but I still carried the responsibility of throwing away more than I could’ve imagined.

“I need you to tell me what happened,” I said, finally looking at Grayson.

“Shit,” Grayson muttered, pulling his fingers through his
hair, “I don’t know if I can.”

“Please,” I begged, “You owe me that much.”

“I guess you’re right,” he paused, and then continued, “but are you sure you want to this now? Here?”

I nodded, preparing myself for only God knows what.

“From what Huntley told me, Demi was twelve weeks along when you left. She was excited, and scared, but asked us not to tell you because she wanted to be the one to do it. One night, Demi called us, and looking at Huntley’s face I knew it wasn’t good. Huntley said Demi was in a lot of pain, and she was bleeding a lot, so Huntley took her to the hospital. She was only twenty weeks along at that stage so we were all worried.” Grayson stopped for a second and I could tell he was struggling, obviously trying to figure out how to tell me the rest. “Demi was rushed into the delivery room and the Doctor said she had what they call a Placental Abruption. I don’t know specifics but apparently it could be fatal to the mother, but when they did the ultrasound, they saw that the baby had already died. Demi had no choice but to deliver the baby naturally, and afterwards,” he swallowed hard, his voice thick with emotion, “she almost bled out. She was in the hospital for a few days, and then she had to go for grief counseling. They had her strung on all kinds of pills to help her with depression and not sleeping. She stopped eating too, until Huntley made her realize that we didn’t want to lose her too - ” when Grayson saw me face, he stopped midsentence. He remained quiet and simply put his arms around my shoulders. My body shook and I didn’t care if people saw. I was a grown man, crying like a baby, because of what the woman I loved had endured. Alone. I felt like a coward, and more importantly like I’d failed Demi, and our child. I had nothing left of myself to give, so I gave in. I surrendered to the desolation that had annihilated my heart and soul. Was I being punished for leaving Demi in the first place? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I could feel my heart breaking, feeling every piece slip away until there was nothing. In the end, I walked away from everything I’d ever wanted, and now I would never get it back. That last thought took what little fight I had left in me, leaving me bereft. I had no idea what to do, except weep. So I did.