Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Stevie
The therapist’s office smells like citrus and paper. It’s clean in a way that makes me uncomfortable. No clutter. No distractions. Just a couch that looks too soft to trust and a box of tissues placed deliberately within reach, like they already know what I’m going to need.
I sit on the edge of the cushion with my hands folded in my lap, spine straight, and legs crossed like I’m bracing for impact. This would be easier if Angel were here. That thought hits hard and fast because this is exactly why I’m here alone.
Dr. Meyers doesn’t look intimidating. Mid-forties, calm eyes, the kind of voice that doesn’t push.
She sits opposite me with a notebook resting loosely on her knee, pen idle.
She doesn’t rush me to talk; she waits patiently for me to gather my thoughts.
The silence stretches, but not unkindly.
It’s space. Real space. The kind I asked Angel for.
“So,” she says finally, her tone steady. “What brings you in today, Stevie?”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out; the answer is too big. It will spill everywhere if I don’t keep a lid on it. Because if I start, I’m not sure I’ll know how to stop.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I say at last.
It feels like dropping something fragile on the floor and waiting to see if it shatters.
Dr. Meyers nods. “That’s a good place to start.”
I almost laugh at that. A good place. It feels like the worst possible place. Like standing in the middle of an empty field with no landmarks.
She leans back slightly. “When did that feeling begin?”
I don’t answer right away. Because it didn’t begin all at once. It crept in.
“I think…” I swallow. “I think it started after the second loss. The first one felt like bad luck. The second one felt like a pattern.”
She nods gently. “And what did that pattern tell you?”
“That something was wrong with me.”
The words come out flat. Practised. I’ve said them before, just never in a room this quiet.
I tell her about the losses. Not the medical details; those feel rehearsed, clinical, and safe.
I tell her about the waiting rooms. The way nurses tilt their heads when they’re trying to soften bad news.
The way my body stopped feeling like home.
“It was like my stomach became a clock,” I say. “Everything revolved around it. Every twinge meant something. Every ache was either hope or doom.”
“And your world shrank,” she says.
“Yes.” My voice cracks. “Until it was just me and the numbers.”
Temperatures.
Ovulation windows.
Luteal phases.
Hormone levels.
Charts glowing in the dark at 2 a.m. like they were holy scripture.
“I thought if I just did everything right,” I say, staring at my hands, “my body would cooperate.”
“And when it didn’t?”
“I blamed myself.”
The room feels heavier after that. Dr. Meyers doesn’t rush to reassure me. She doesn’t say it’s not your fault like everyone else does.
She asks instead, “What did blaming yourself give you?”
I blink at her.
“It gave me something to control,” I whisper.
There it is. The ugly truth. If it was my fault, then maybe I could fix it, my failure, then maybe I could correct it. Admitting that feels like peeling skin back.
“And Angel?” she asks gently.
I close my eyes for a moment.
“He tried to save me from hurting,” I say. “And I needed him to sit in it with me instead.”
She tilts her head slightly. “Those two things are often mistaken for each other.”
I exhale shakily. “He thought he was protecting me.”
“And you?”
“I thought he didn’t understand.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.” The word surprises me. “He did. He just didn’t know how to show it.”
“And did you?”
My throat tightens.
“No.”
Because I was so busy drowning in my own fear that I didn’t see his. I didn’t see the way he stood in doorways watching me spiral. The way he swallowed his own grief so mine could take up the room.
The hardest question comes halfway through the session.
“If you never have children,” Dr. Meyers asks gently, “who are you?”
It feels like the air gets thinner. “I don’t know,” I whisper.
She doesn’t flinch. “That’s not an answer to be ashamed of. It just means the question matters.”
I stare at the wall behind her. At a framed quote about resilience, I can’t quite focus on. Who am I without this dream? I start listing things in my head. I’m Angel’s wife, someone’s daughter, and the woman who keeps the clubhouse calendar from imploding.
I’m the one who remembers birthdays, who sends care packages when someone’s mom is sick, who organizes Christmas toys without anyone asking. I love music too loud, coffee too strong, and cry at stupid commercials. I’m stubborn, loyal, and softer than I let people see.
None of those things disappear if I don’t become a mother. The thought terrifies me. Because it means I still exist even if this dream doesn’t happen. It also frees me in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
“You don’t have to decide that future today,” Dr. Meyers says. “You just have to widen your identity enough that it isn’t the only thing holding you together.”
Widen your identity. The phrase lingers. When I leave the office, the sun feels brighter than it has in weeks. Not hopeful. Just real.
I sit in my car for a long moment, hands resting on the steering wheel, breathing through the echo of the session. I don’t feel fixed but more aware.
Angel texts while I’m still there.
Hope today was okay. No rush to reply.
I smile despite myself. He’s trying so hard to respect the space.
It was hard.
I type back.
But I think it mattered.
Three dots appear almost instantly.
Proud of you.
My throat tightens, but the tears don’t come, and the pride doesn’t feel like pressure. It feels like support.
That night, alone in my sister’s spare room, I unpack a box I haven’t touched since I arrived. I’ve been living out of a suitcase, like this separation was temporary, even in my own mind. Inside the box are pieces of me I forgot about.
Old notebooks filled with half-written lyrics from years ago. A scarf I used to wear constantly. A stack of CDs I haven’t played since Angel, and I first moved in together.
I sit cross-legged on the floor and put one in the old stereo in the corner of the room. The music crackles to life. It’s familiar. Comforting. I hum along without realizing it, my voice rusty but still there. Still mine.
I press a hand to my stomach out of habit, then let it fall away.
Not because I don’t want it, but because I don’t want everything to live there anymore.
I think about how small my world became.
How every conversation filtered back to babies.
How every outing felt like a reminder. I stopped being Stevie and became Trying-To-Conceive Stevie.
And that version of me was exhausted. Before bed, I pull out a notebook that isn’t a chart. No temperatures, cycles, or countdowns. Just blank pages. My hand hovers over the paper. Then I write.
I am allowed to want a child.
I am allowed to grieve the ones I lost.
I am allowed to be whole even if my body doesn’t give me what I hoped for.
The words look strange at first. Too simple and forgiving. I stare at them for a long time. Then I add another line.
I am more than my womb.
My breath catches. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to see that in ink.
I close the notebook and turn off the light.
The ache is still there. The wanting hasn’t vanished.
But it no longer feels like it’s swallowing me whole.
And for the first time since I asked for space, I think about Angel without guilt and anger. Just… love.
I picture him on that old clubhouse couch, stubborn and loyal and probably pretending he’s fine. I know him well enough to know he’s pacing; he’s blaming himself and trying not to text too much.
And for the first time, I see something clearly: he’s grieving too, not just the babies, but the version of me he watched disappear, the version of us that got replaced by numbers and fear.
Maybe this space isn’t about pulling away; it’s about learning how to come back without losing ourselves again.
I don’t know what the next chapter looks like or if my body will ever cooperate. Or if we’ll adopt, or foster, or remain just us. But for the first time in a long time, that uncertainty doesn’t feel like a threat.
It feels like a possibility. And maybe that’s the beginning of something new. Not a baby, a guarantee. Just… me. Still here, whole, even in the waiting.