Chapter 13 A Lifetime Pack of Fun,Breakdowns, Who Knows Cara #2
Instead, I stare at the box in my arms for too long before I turn around, slowly trudge up the stairs, and set the box on the bathroom counter.
I spend the rest of the day ignoring everyone, sending a single text to Olivia to tell her I’m not feeling well, that I’m not going to make it to her house to watch the game with the girls tonight.
She calls me right away, and I decline it before turning my phone off.
I make it through the game without touching the pint of ice cream that mysteriously shows up on my doorstep, along with Skittles, M&M’s, and Milk Duds.
I make it through the game with my phone burning a hole in my pocket, begging me to check that email, to put myself out of my misery.
To prepare myself so that if I have to tell Emmett the worst, that our final IUI didn’t work, that we need to move on to IVF, I can do it without falling apart.
Instead, I take myself to bed as soon as the game ends. I lie there for one hour, then two, my hands on my belly, willing a baby into existence. Begging my body to cooperate. Promising a tiny soul I’ll take the best care of it, that I won’t ever let it down if it just chooses me.
“Please,” I beg, over and over. “Please, choose me. Choose us. We’ll love you better than anyone ever could, I promise. Please. Please. Please.”
And then I drag myself out of bed. I tear through every cabinet in the bathroom, and then the kitchen. I look in the TV console, and in the mantel above the fireplace. I even look in the fucking garage, but it’s not until I tear apart Emmett’s sock drawer that I find the box I’m looking for.
I curl myself over the bathroom counter while I wait for the dye to run through the test, and my heart stops when I bring it to my eyes.
“Is that a line?” I whisper, clapping a hand over my gasp.
“It’s a second line. Th-th… there’s two lines.
” I bring the test closer, convincing myself I see it, the faintest second line, and happy tears run down my cheeks as I tear another test open, submerge the tip in the cup of pee still sitting on the counter for ten seconds before setting it on the ground where I seat myself, legs crossed as I bring up my Pinterest board, the one where I’ve saved all my ideas on how to tell Emmett he’s going to be a dad, finally, after all this time and heartache.
I snot all over myself, tears cascading freely as I laugh to myself, the pain already forgotten.
And then I look at the second test.
And there’s… one line.
Only one.
“But…” I pick up the first test again, blood pounding in my ears as I search for that second line.
The one that was there just five minutes ago, I fucking swear it.
“No, because it was right… It was right there. There were two lines. I know there were.” I scramble across the floor, reaching for my phone again.
My tears turn angry, the beat of my heart violent and relentless, until it’s all I can hear.
The world around me fades away, reduced to two plastic tests and a waiting email as I swipe through my phone, looking for the results I can’t wait for anymore, the ones eating me alive from the inside out.
“There were two lines. I saw them. I fucking saw them.”
I find the email, my eyes tearing through the words, the results. The damnation.
“No.” My chest heaves so violently I can’t fucking breathe. Everything hurts, when just a minute ago nothing hurt at all. “No. No. I—I… I saw it. I fucking saw it!”
“Cara?”
My head snaps up, finding Emmett standing in the doorway of the bathroom, dressed in his suit, shoes still on, eyes roaming over me, the mess on his bathroom floor.
“Baby, what’s wrong?”
“I—I—I…” My chin trembles as he moves toward me, cautiously, like he’s afraid to scare me. But it’s me who’s afraid. Afraid of a life without him. One that’s never, ever felt like a possibility. Until now.
I’ve failed him. Again, in so many ways. Taking the tests, looking at the blood results without him. Not being able to make a baby. Having a worthless fucking uterus that can’t do the one thing it’s supposed to do.
I’ve failed him.
With quivering hands, I hold the tests up, trying to swallow through the fear, the grief.
“I… I did this one, and it…” I show him the first one, pointing at the screen as tears fall harder, faster.
“There was a second line. There was, I swear.” I scramble to swap the tests, dropping them both, launching myself across the floor to retrieve them.
I hold up the second one, watch as Emmett’s eyes drop to the violent shake in my hand.
“So I took another, but it… it didn’t… there was only…
” I shake my head, so many tears I can barely see through them as I grip the tests tightly to my chest, fumble for my phone.
I hold it up for him, still open to the email, but he doesn’t take it. Doesn’t read it.
Instead, he falls to his knees before me, prying the tests from my hand, setting my phone down.
Without a word, he pulls me onto his lap, wraps me in a love so tender, so secure, and for the first time in my life… I’m not sure I’m worthy.
When he shakes beneath me, when his tears mix with mine, soaking my neck, I shatter.
And I cry out the only words I can seem to find.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”