Chapter 13
Thirteen
Stone fell asleep, his hand still resting on her belly. He’d never felt so fucking happy in his whole life. He needed to get a ring.
A real ring. And a real proposal. Because she’d turned him down.
But he knew she would say yes. They were meant to be.
And they were having a baby. A little girl who would look just like Mae, with striking brown eyes and dark, silky hair.
Or a little boy, who’d love his mama more than anything else in the whole world, just like Stone had when he was a kid.
She’d fallen asleep while he whispered all his plans to her.
Not just of the house, and the dogs he would learn to love.
But of afternoons spent in the park, pushing their baby in a swing.
Of nights spent together in the nursery, laying their baby down in the cradle he would carve for them.
She’d fallen asleep before he really got to tell her about that, but he could see the intricate wooden swan design already in his mind.
It was going to be something they could lay all their babies in, and pass down to grandchildren one—
His eyes popped open the instant a scream shattered the silence in their room.
“Shit! Mae?” He sat straight up in bed, feeling for her, but she wasn’t there. Instead, his hand came away from the sheets wet. Had she gotten sick in bed right beside him and he hadn’t woken up?
His brain finally caught up, the light from the bathroom flooding into the room. Was the shower running? What the fuck was going on?
Stone walked as fast as he could, ignoring the way his body protested at the sudden movement as he turned on the lights for the bedroom.
His feet slammed against the floor until he stepped inside the bathroom and was met with rolling waves of steam.
The sight of her curled up in the corner of the shower, still in her nightshirt, on the tile floor with crimson red swirling all around her, stopped him in his tracks.
“Michaela! Oh shit…” That’s when he finally looked down at his own hand, his heart pounding painfully in his chest as he saw the red staining his skin. The pain in his chest pulled as he stepped fully clothed into the shower, trying to figure out the source of the blood so he could stem the flow.
“I thought the water would h-help,” she sobbed. “I didn’t know… I…”
He stepped into the shower, careful not to bump her as he moved towards the tiled wall.
“Ow,” she cried, her arms banding tighter around herself. “It hurts. S-So bad.”
Frantic, Stone ran his hands all over her body. “What is this, Mae? What’s happening?”
“I’m losing the… I’m… Stone…. help.” Her whole body shook under his touch, but he didn’t know whether that was from the pain she seemed to be in or the fact that she was crying so hard. “I can’t lose our baby. I d-don’t want to lose her…”
He reached out to check her pulse. Fuck, it was thready at best. Stone reached up, turning down the hot water to a more temperate setting. If she was dizzy, or lightheaded, or having an issue with her blood pressure, the hot water would make the symptoms worse.
“Sweetheart…” His voice was so thick with fear he felt it suffocating them both. This was his expertise — helping someone who needed medical attention— but it had never been the woman he loved bleeding at his feet before. And fuck, he felt so unbelievably helpless.
Mae shook her head, and it was hard to tell where her tears stopped and the water running down her body started. He brushed the droplets from his own face before trying to get an answer again.
“This…” Stone sank against the shower wall, waiting, silently begging her to give him an answer. “I’m going to pick you up, Mae. I’m going to get you both help. That’s all… that’s all I can do. Can I do that? Is that what I should do?”
He never expected her hand to reach up and move his over her belly. She pulled at her sleep shirt, soaked and stuck to every curve of her body, before she settled his hand on her skin. Over the hard swell.
“Our baby….” she cried.
His worst fear, laid bare at his feet. It had only been a few hours since Mae told him she was pregnant, and now she was sobbing on the shower floor that was covered in her blood. She had told him, and it was only just registering.
She was miscarrying.
She was losing their baby.
A baby he had only just found out about.
A love he’d only just opened his heart to.
Stone’s breath was stolen right out of his lungs at her confession as his hand remained glued to the spot where she had placed it.
“We need to get you help. There’s got to be something… anything… You’re pregnant and—”
A sob ripped from her throat. “I don’t… think I am… anymore.”
“Okay. Oh, god. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” He barely choked out the words before his own throat constricted with emotion.
“I don’t know what to do. It h-hurts. I…” Her belly went hard under his hand, a strong contraction working to clear her body as she groaned and writhed beneath his touch.
“We need to get you to the hospital. Can you stand? I have to get you help.”
“No.”
“Mae, now isn’t the time to be stubborn. You’re bleeding and in pain. I can’t just sit here—”
“You have to! Please. I thought I could… on my own. But I can’t. P-please don’t leave me, Sully.”
“Okay. Okay. Shh. I’m not going anywhere. I’m never leaving you again, Michaela, you hear me? Never again.” His lips pressed down over her wet hair at the crown of her head. “Is the water helping? Is it easing the pain?”
“A little,” she cried.
“I’m going to shift you a little, just to get you up off the floor. We can stay here however long you want to, Mae. Okay? Until the pain is better. Until it’s over.”
She lifted her eyes to meet his, her chin quivering as she shook her head back and forth. “I don’t want it to be over. I don’t want to lose our baby.”
His heart shattered. “I know, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. I'm so sorry this is happening.”
She’d lost the baby.
In the arms of the man whose child she was carrying.
In the arms of the man who she only just told about the pregnancy.
She couldn’t have known that it would end like that.
In blinding pain, with so much blood. So many tears.
So much heartbreak. She couldn’t have known that the last time they’d ever cradle their baby was through her belly as it was slipping away between her legs.
She’d stolen every happy memory he could have held onto in the overwhelming shadows of sadness that night cast over them.
Stone returned from the closet in dry clothes, carrying sweatpants and a shirt she immediately recognized were his.
Before she could reach out for them, he was there, pulling the soft fabric down over her head.
Mae was just about to stand up off the toilet when Stone moved to the sink, crouching down to pull out her package of pads she always kept in the corner.
“I can do that,” she whispered, her throat still raw from all the tears she cried.
“No. I’ve got it.”
Stone unwrapped the outside packaging before bending down to slip her legs into a pair of his boxer briefs. Then he meticulously situated the pads inside the underwear before helping her stand and slipping them up her body.
“Is that okay? Are you comfortable?”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. How would she ever feel comfortable in her own body again? “Yes.”
He nodded, his eyes full of too many swirling emotions. “Okay. We’ll need to check on the bleeding over the next few hours. But for now, let’s finish getting you dressed.”
And that’s what they did. One leg into the sweatpants.
Then the other. One foot into warm, thick socks.
Then the other. Somewhere deep inside, she knew they were facing the most daunting task in partnership.
To move through loss like that together, and yet, he was there.
Steady as a rock for her as she was blown about in the eye wall of a hurricane.
She didn’t remember walking, leaving the bathroom behind, but in a blink, they were back in the bedroom. The overhead light was blinding. A painful assault on her already frayed and hypersensitive nerves.
“I’m sorry. I’ll turn off the light in one second. I just need to remake the bed.”
“Remake the bed?” Her eyes landed on the comforter, rumpled and pushed all the way to the bottom. And that’s when she saw the large crimson spot. “Oh god. I’m sorry. I can take care of it…”
“Mae. Stop.” His warm hands rested softly against her shoulders. “You need to sit down. I’ve got this.”
“But you’re hurt, too. You shouldn’t…” she winced as a deep ache rolled through her belly. She’d never been in labor before, but she knew it had to in some way feel like what she was going through.
They weren’t normal cramps. They shook the very root of her existence.
They called to some primal part of her soul that knew she was experiencing a pain as old as mankind itself.
She’d been inducted into an eternal, celestial sisterhood of loss through blood and sweat and more tears than she ever thought possible. A sisterhood of hope and heartbreak.
And her body knew. Even in the freshness of their loss, she knew. Her body would remember that soul-shattering pain for the rest of her life. “I should take care of it.” Mae swiped a fresh tear from her face.
“I’m fine. Remember? Moving around is part of my rehab. And since you don’t want to go to the hospital, I need you to rest.”
Mae nodded, letting Stone lead her to the large hope chest at the bottom of the bed.
They’d picked it out together nearly a year before on a day trip to Lark Lake, her initials carved into the top with his, surrounded by dozens of intricate flowers.
She sat, her fingers tracing over the carved pattern while Stone moved almost silently around her, until another cramp started to take hold of her empty womb.