Chapter 52
AVA
It’s annoying that Anderson is always right.
My body feels rejuvenated when I get out of the bath, my limbs loose, the tightening in my belly settling—but I can’t get my thoughts to calm.
There’s something in the way Anderson carries the weight of everyone he loves that feels achingly familiar, because I’ve been doing the same my whole life. And I can only imagine how he felt when he got the phone call about Auggie.
I recognize the quiet weariness behind his steadiness, the way responsibility is so carved into his soul.
Maybe that’s why loving him feels so natural—because I found someone who understands the burden I’ve always carried, and somehow makes it feel lighter.
And I want to do the same for him.
Except I have to be fucking pregnant.
Carefully stepping out of the bath, I drain the water and throw on my robe, going through my night routine to ensure a few uninterrupted hours of sleep.
Pregnant people really don’t complain enough.
I had no idea how impossibly hard it would be to lug my own body around in these last few days of pregnancy. And Anderson was right to tell me to stay—I would’ve just made him worry more if I was wobbling around behind him.
Baby girl has been lowering into my stomach, which has offered some relief.
But overall, I feel heavy and swollen and exhausted, and the thought of this pregnancy ending is enough to make me ugly cry.
These last nine months have not only been healing but have marked a time in my life I never thought would come.
A time in my life where I feel lighter and loved, where I have the family I always wished for, and I get to watch the man who loves me in ways I didn’t know possible love my daughters.
And I hate that I’m not with him right now.
Grabbing a pair of underwear and a pajama set, I sit down on the bed, taking a breather before getting dressed—simple tasks like putting clothes on have become the equivalent of an Olympic sport, and it doesn’t help that my mind won’t stop racing.
After a few grunts and expletives, I finally get into my pajamas, my exhaustion becoming too intense to ignore.
Climbing into bed, I close my eyes just to open them a few minutes later, sleep evading me even with how tired I am.
I’m reminded of how the bedroom feels so lonely without Anderson. I have to deal with an empty bed every two days when he’s at the station, but this extra day feels like it’s adding an additional month rather than just a few hours.
Reaching to my nightstand, I grab my phone, re-reading the messages he’s been sending me since he left. His hometown is at least a two-hour drive, and since it’s way past rush hour, he should be able to get there quickly.
Stopping for gas and now getting on to the highway
I’ll text you when I’m at the hospital
I love you
Love you more
When I finally fall asleep, it’s restless and segmented, filled with those thoughts you only have when you’re in that weird place between being awake and dreaming.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping, and I instinctively reach over to the other side of the bed, expecting to find Anderson.
When I don’t feel him, I open my eyes, confused until the events of the night come back to me.
Checking my phone, I find it’s only been an hour since I got into bed and two more texts from Anderson.
They came in no more than a minute ago—the vibration probably being what woke me up.
At the hospital
Heading to Auggie’s room now and hopefully find a doctor to fill me in on what happened
Using all my effort, I roll over onto my side and push myself up, lifting from the bed and heading straight for Anderson’s T-shirt drawer, shuffling through the drawer to find something of his to sleep in.
I don’t know why I’ve never thought to do it before.
I’m about to pull one out when I notice a little plastic bag in the back corner.
Letting curiosity get the better of me, I grab the corner sticking out, pulling out the bag, and my breath hitches.
Matchboxes?
I haven’t even thought about my collection since moving here, not with everything that’s happened in the last ten months. The bowl of matches I started collecting last year is on my desk at work, having put it there when Emerson brought it for me a few days after I moved out.
Apparently, I forgot it on the coffee table where I kept it.
Very out of character for me, until I realized how occupied my mind has been.
I have been so focused on the future—my marriage with Anderson, Georgie’s adoption, this pregnancy, this baby’s birth. I haven’t really stopped and remembered all the little moments worth collecting, the memories worth holding on to.
Opening the plastic bag, I pull out one of the matchboxes and find the Record Head logo, which I recognize from the sticker on the records Georgie has brought home from her trips to the record store with Anderson.
The familiar record on fire has lips curving.
I pull out two more—these ones a little faded, like they’ve spent a lot of time in the back pocket of someone’s jeans. The iconic Las Vegas sign is printed on one, and the other has the name of one of the casinos that was by our hotel.
He must have gotten these ones at the thrift store—is that why he wouldn’t let me look in his bag?
I pull out the last few, finding one from the concert venue that we went to in Vegas and from the bar we went to for the after party.
There’s one from Lenny’s and the ice cream shop we went to after Georgie’s soccer game—the day I told him I loved him—and my vision is so blurry I can barely make out the familiar logo.
It’s like all of the memories I forgot to hold on to are right here in this bag, in Anderson’s T-shirt drawer.
I pull out my phone, needing to know why he has these, even though I think I know the answer.
Since when do you collect matchboxes?
You weren’t supposed to see those
I’ve been meaning to give them to you for months now
You didn’t answer my question
Since I saw your collection
I don’t bother trying to continue this conversation over text, pressing Anderson’s contact and holding my phone to my ear.
He answers on the first ring. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“I didn’t tell you I collected them,” I counter.
“I saw the bowl in your apartment. Took an educated guess.”
“And also took it upon yourself to grow my collection?” I ask, biting my bottom lip to stop from smiling.
I can picture the way he grins, shrugging his shoulders as if to feign nonchalance, as if finding matchboxes from some of the most monumental moments of the last ten months and holding on to them for safekeeping was no big deal, something he barely thought about.
And maybe he didn’t.
Because that’s the kind of man he is.
The kind that doesn’t have to think about the ways he wants to show you he loves you.
He just does it.
“I know what it’s like to collect something tangible in the form of memories,” he says, his voice hushed. “I also know what it’s like to stop feeling like there are memories worth collecting.”
“Your records?” I ask, and he reads between the lines.
“I hadn’t added to that collection in years. I couldn’t even remember the last time I turned that record player on… Until G.”
My heart clenches, and my hand goes to my chest to make sure it didn’t just cause a crack in my sternum.
“I wasn’t sure the last time you added to your collection, so I figured I would do it for you. Just like Georgie did for me without even realizing.”
A tear escapes the corner of my eye, trailing down my cheek and falling into my lap, right next to the pile of memories.
Our memories.
“How’s Auggie? What did the doctor say?”
“I’m getting into the elevator now to find out. I’ll text you updates, but please, love. Go back to sleep. I’ll be there when you wake up.”
When I wake up the next morning, I’m surprised to find the bed empty.
And cold.
Grabbing my phone from where it sits on my nightstand, I find a text from Anderson asking me to call him when I wake up, but it doesn’t settle any of my uneasiness.
The familiar prickling begins in my fingertips, the need to count—my breaths, my palms opening and closing, the amount of times I turn my phone on and off, finding the same message every time—along with the empty bed.
Count with me, Ava. The paramedics will be there any minute, okay? Just focus on your breathing. Ready? Breathe in. Good, that’s one. Breathe out. Good, that’s another one. Keep going. Two, three, four…
The unwanted, unwarranted memory clouds my vision, causing my thoughts to begin spiraling.
It feels like something is wrong, but is it my gut or is it my OCD?
I can’t trust either right now, not with the way my anxiety has me picturing Anderson’s car wrapped around a tree, his body flung from the driver’s seat, his blood spread across the grass.
While it’s most likely that he might have fallen asleep at the hospital, my brain doesn’t let me think like that.
If I don’t count, if I don’t get to seventeen, something’s going to happen to him.
If it hasn’t already.
Just like with Rumi.
Just like the fire.
I push myself up, my feet finding the floor when I feel a gush of warmth between my legs.
Standing up, it turns into a rush of liquid pouring onto the floor, uncontrollable and momentarily stunning me, forcing my mind to focus on the moment, not what my mind is so desperately wanting me to focus on.
“Georgie!” I call out, immediately falling into action, into what I can control.
I dial Anderson’s number, holding the phone up to my ear when my sister comes through the room. “What’s w—” her words die on her tongue when she sees the puddle of liquid at my feet.
“Call Rumi and Emerson,” I instruct just as I get Anderson’s voicemail, but I can’t fall into the spiral of where he is and what’s wrong.
The baby’s coming.