29 - Devastation
Logan
From where I am, I’ve got a perfect view of her.
In that tiny black skirt and figure-hugging t-shirt, hopping around the gym hall like she’s not fourteen weeks pregnant.
To anyone observing, they wouldn’t think it.
She’s not started showing much yet and does a good job of masking all her symptoms. But the slight swelling of her baby bump is obvious to me, and I can’t say it doesn’t make my dick twitch in my shorts.
Despite the growing bump, she’s losing weight.
Those rosy cheeks that were once plumping beneath the skin appear hollow and sunken in, like she’s permanently sucking in air.
Her long, shapely legs, which always had precisely the right amount of muscle covering them, now appear ‘twiggy’ and too long in proportion to the rest of her.
It’s glaringly noticeable as she bounds around the hall, stopping when she gets hold of the ball to unleash some near-perfect footwork.
When I grabbed her arse in the showers, it didn’t hold the same bite as usual, wasn’t as fleshy or squeezable in my palm. Still fucking glorious, but different.
I’m going to have to have words with her about it.
Ever since I’d met her, I’d never seen her consume much; bar my cock, but in terms of actual nutrients and substance—no.
And considering my gym-rat-health-freak status, I pick up on these things.
Cordelia’s excellent at hiding shit; hell, she should start giving lessons to school kids and earn some money from her talent.
Only those skills don’t work with me.
“Calm down, Cox. You look like you might eat her for lunch.”
Ezio keeps up a steady pace on the treadmill beside me, far less erratic than my HIT training, that jumps pace and incline sporadically.
“I just might,” I mutter, returning my gaze to the glass wall.
The concept of having the men’s gym located above the sports hall always baffled me. Until now. Put a pretty girl on the other side, and suddenly the guys get competitive; pushing themselves past their limits; harder, faster, stronger. Better motivation than any coach, in my opinion.
Cordelia catches my eye through the glass, one side of her lips quirking in a coy smile.
Tilting her head, she flutters her long lashes, lifting her shoulders so her chest sticks out.
Deliberately. And bugger me, I instantly lose my footing, nearly flying off the end of the belt.
I jump just in time, landing with my feet on either side of it, panting heavily as heat flushes up my neck.
Ezio snorts, spewing spittle all over the front console.
“You good? Want me to pick your dignity up off the floor?” He taunts, cocking a sarcastic brow, eyes flitting to the window to see what had me in such a chokehold.
I hammer the emergency stop button and lift my gaze just in time to find Cordelia giggling behind the glass. She turns, catches the ball, and gets a straight shot on the goal. It slips through the net, bouncing off the gym floor.
With a glance over her shoulder, she peers up at me, innocence in those baby blues.
Oh, it’s on, my little vixen.
“What are you planning?” Ezio eyes me suspiciously.
I let out a chuckle as I step down. The weight bench is directly next to the cardio machines, laid out in a line by the window.
Standing in the middle of the mat, I widen my stance, keeping my focus on the game below.
Cordelia’s watching me now with curiosity, whilst the other girls jog around her passing the ball between them.
Throwing her my best shit-eating grin, I grasp the bottom of my wife-beater with my fingers and peel it off over my head.
Her pretty eyes widen at the sight of my sweat-slicked torso. Her lips part as if she’s going to speak, but then she gets handed the ball. Flustered, her attention gets dragged away.
“Ah, I see now,” Ezio laughs lightly, shaking his head when he realises I’m toying with her. “I thought you asked her to lay off the physical exercise?”
“I did,” I reply, bending to grab a pair of twenty-kilo dumbbells. “But I don’t know if you noticed, my girlfriend doesn’t like doing as she’s told.”
Ez smirks, leaning his hands behind his head in a power pose.
“So, it’s official, then?”
“We’re having children together,” I state, the words still foreign on my tongue. “Pretty sure that’s as official as it gets.”
We’ve not had a specific conversation, and I’ve never actually asked her out, per se.
But the presumption was there. After finding out she was carrying my children, the semantics of our relationship status became trivial.
That’s the thought process I’m going with, anyway.
Besides, we’ve fucked on more than one occasion now, so it’s pretty much a given.
I plant my feet hip-width apart and draw the weights down in front of my crotch.
Cordelia freezes, gawking up at the glass, her brows lifting in surprise, eyes round and unblinking.
I curl the dumbbell up to my biceps slowly, my forearm bulging under the intensity, muscles contracting deliciously against the strain of the weight.
Her pink lips hang open in an ‘O’ shape that makes me want to shove something between them.
Fingers, tongue, dick. The third option, especially after she gave me a taste of her cocksucking skills in the showers.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and it was a good two weeks ago.
Cordelia may have been a virgin, but a virgin to oral sex she is not.
Which in turn has me grinding my teeth until my jaw burns.
I’ll slaughter every bastard that she’s ever dropped to her fucking knees for.
Right now, though, I have her undivided attention.
I repeat the exercise, alternating between each arm, before switching up to shoulder presses.
Each lift sends her chest rising with a sharp, uneven jerk.
Behind me, the clanking of metal and hissing of hydraulics echoes throughout the hall.
There’s the faint sound of a ball being bounced off the floor and the glug of the water cooler, as students refill their cups between reps.
But my concentration is on my technique and flexing as much muscle as possible to get her hot and flustered, in time for when she comes over later. Closing my eyes, I squeeze out one final rep.
When I open them again, my heart plummets to the floor.
My breath catches in my throat.
A scorching heat soars through my windpipe.
There’s always that time in everyone’s life when you’re drowning, yet there’s not a drop of water in sight.
When you gasp for air, despite being surrounded by it.
The world shifts on its axis, and in that very moment, you can’t be sure if it’ll ever right itself.
You’re dragged to your own personal hell where hope and faith, and every other positive affirmation cease to exist. And you see nothing but pitch-black.
Cordelia lies motionless on the floor; hair sprawled around her like a golden halo. A pool of red liquid seeping between her pale limbs.
Blood.
Ezio secures the weights from my grasp, which is lucky, as I would have surely dropped them straight onto my skull.
I’m hurtling down the stairs, tearing open doors, and by the time I reach the sports hall, the female teacher is crouched down beside Cordelia’s lifeless body.
Skidding to a halt, I drop to my knees with a hard thud, pressing two fingers against her neck.
“Mr Cox, you can’t— “
“She’s fucking pregnant!” I roar, unable to fixate on anything but the blood. Her mouth opens, eyes wild with shock whilst she fumbles for her phone. “Call an ambulance!” Raw panic seeps into every single word.
I slide my hand under her chin, tilting her head back gently, in case her airway’s blocked.
“Cordelia, can you hear me?” Ezio shakes her shoulders, but there’s no response.
I study her chest, rising and falling at a steady pace, the polar opposite to my own right now.
It’s not often I feel powerless. I’m usually in the position of yielding it.
But as the paramedics hoist my girlfriend onto a stretcher and bundle her into the back of the ambulance, I’m left feeling broken and hollow.
Ezio wastes no time jostling me into the back of the ambulance.
With my back rigid against the folding chair, all I can do is stare at my bloodied hands.
Seeing my sassy princess hooked up to machinery, wires protruding from her arms, and lifeless grey eyes shocks me to my core.
Cordelia’s eyes are never anything short of vivid flames of blue wildfire, usually burning holes in my damn head.
I’d do anything to see that defiant spark she wears like a bloody trophy.
Right now, her skin looks translucent, which only magnifies the crimson stain soaking into the white sheets between her thighs.
The crew transfer her to a hospital bed with rapid efficiency.
When I refuse to leave her side, it takes Ezio, Clarke and a whole lot of brute strength to drag me away long enough to enable the medical staff to attend to her.
Kicking and screaming and cursing at anyone and everyone who happens to walk by.
I pace up and down the hall like a man possessed, gnawing at my fingers until the skin swells and the nail tears to the flesh.
My hands look like they belong to someone else.
Someone who’s trying to claw themselves out of their own skin.
It feels like an eternity, but finally they allow me access to the room. I rush to her bedside, swallowing the lump lodged in my throat.
“You gave me quite a scare there, little one,” I whisper, blinking away tears.
When I reach to clasp her hand in mine, Cordelia does something very out of character.
She flinches away from me. The rejection strikes like a harpoon piercing through my icy heart.
I won’t force her affection, even if all I want to do is grab her face with both hands and ravage her pale lips.
Instead, I let my arms hang limply at my sides.
That loneliness she asked me about the night of the party—that’s hitting hard right about now.
As my brain flips over multiple scenarios in my head, I try not to think the worst. I’d demanded answers from the staff, only to be fobbed off with pathetic excuses.
When the doctor’s solemn face appears around the edge of the door, I have my answer before she even steps into the room.
Her grey eyes bear this awful presence of joylesslessness, only visible with the knowledge of having to deliver impending heartbreak.
The fragile girl sitting beside me seems to understand too, because her grip on the railing intensifies, and her free hand flies to her belly.
“I am so sorry to bring you this news,” the doctor begins, and a heart- wrenching sob explodes from Cordelia’s throat.
I throw my arms around her body, encasing her in a shield of protection, hoping that some of the little strength I have reaches her.
This time she lets me take her pain, lets me share in her grief.
Because we need each other. Now and forever.
“Your scan has shown that one of your babies doesn’t have a heartbeat. ”
Now, I’ve experienced a lot of trauma in my life.
My mother being killed whilst I was forced to watch, I thought, was the worst thing I would ever endure.
And it was excruciating watching the essence of life drain from her eyes before me.
As a child, the memory seared itself into my brain, shadowing my teenage years every waking day.
But something about this hit differently.
Perhaps it’s the soul-shattering tears that stream down Cordelia’s sunken cheeks as her shoulders tremble uncontrollably beneath my fingertips.
Or maybe it’s the belief that the hopes and dreams for our future have been crushed in the space of a minute.
Or the sheer love we shared for our unborn child, despite never meeting them or holding them in our arms.
“Please believe me when I say this isn’t your fault,” the doctor edges closer to the bed, a box of tissues outstretched in her shaky hand, as if that’s going to absorb a lifetime of tears.
Her eyes flit to mine. “Neither of you could have done anything to stop this, and you haven’t done anything wrong,” she stifles a breath like she’s struggling herself not to cry.
“I’m sure you have so many conflicting emotions right now, guys.
But your baby boy is healthy, thriving, and we see no complications in the future, if you’re monitored closely. ”
For a moment there, I’d forgotten we were having two.
The devastating news blanketed my reality, and all I could focus on was the loss.
The doctor’s words trigger a flutter of hope, a butterfly with a single wing, cutting through the pain and sorrow like clouds breaking through a storm.
A sliver of light in the sea of incompossible heartbreak.
Our baby boy. It wasn’t in our plan to find out the gender, but the moment the nurse uttered those words, my heart flipped.
Cordelia stilled in my arms; she felt it too— the unbreakable bond born from despair.
A younger version of myself to teach and show the ropes.
To guide and mould into a respectful, honourable man.
And to ensure he doesn’t make the same stupid mistakes I did.
“Thank you,” I mutter through dry lips, accepting the tissues and plucking several out for Cordelia. She scrunches it up in her tiny fingers, holding it like a lifeline, not bothering to wipe her tears away.
The doctor nods and exits quietly, leaving the two of us alone. I don’t cry. I force myself not to for her. I must be strong for both of us now. Cordelia is so small and fragile; I must keep her and our boy safe.
“Cordelia,” I whisper gently in her ear, but my voice is lost to her sobbing. “Sweetheart, I- “
Who am I kidding? Nothing I do nor say can make any of this better.