Chapter 48 - Tessa
There are so many things’ people don't talk about when it comes to grief.
The fact that it isn't one thing. Sometimes it can be loud and aggressive; sometimes it can be numbing; sometimes it can be a solitary thing, and then everything at once.
You can grieve as a family, as a group, or it can pull you away from everyone and everything.
But the quiet. The quiet is dangerous.
The silence that wasn’t real silence, more like cotton shoved in my ears, dulling everything except the sound of my own pulse, too loud and too fast. A kind of quiet that allowed it to be easier to be numb than to feel.
After the funeral, Kenzie led me to the guest room in Chase's house, her hands gentle, careful, like touching me too firmly might crack something open she couldn’t put back. She didn’t ask me to talk. She didn’t ask me if I was okay.
She just sat on the bed beside me and stayed.
Hours passed, I think. Maybe minutes. Maybe days.
Someone, Adam, maybe, came by with food. Something warm, something that smelled like rosemary and garlic. My throat locked every time I brought a fork near my mouth, like my body was disgusted with the idea of food, so the plate sat untouched on the nightstand until someone quietly took it away.
Kenzie didn’t force it. She tried once, just one small spoonful of soup lifted gently toward my lips, but I flinched so hard I almost knocked it out of her hand.
She only whispered, “It’s okay, Tess. We’ll try later.”
She didn’t try again.
I lay on my side, facing the window. Snow kept falling outside, slow, constant, peaceful, and somehow that felt cruel. How could the world keep doing soft, beautiful things when mine had collapsed in the middle of a frozen road?
Someone knocked.
The door opened, and Maggie slipped in. She didn’t speak. She just walked around to the other side of the bed and sat behind me, her knees touching my back through the blankets. Her hands hesitated, then gathered my hair gently, slowly, like she was lifting a fragile thing from wreckage.
She brushed it. She brushed it as she talked to me in soft, hushed tones.
God, the tenderness of it…
I almost cried.
But the tears wouldn’t come.
It was like something inside me had shut off a valve to stop me from drowning, not realizing the silence was worse.
She braided my hair and told me she would be back tomorrow.
I don’t know if I thanked her.
I don’t think I did.
When she left, she squeezed my shoulder and whispered, “Try to rest, sweetheart.”
Rest felt impossible.
Because every time I closed my eyes, I was back on that icy road.
Back on the ground.
Back to his chest, stuttering under my palms.
Back to the way his eyes lit up for just a second when he saw the ultrasound photo.
The nightmares weren’t scenes, they were sensations.
Like the cold, the blood were swallowing me.
The words “That’s our baby” echoed and scorched like a live wire.
I woke gasping, drenched in sweat, hands shaking so hard I curled them into fists to stop them. Kenzie sat up instantly, every time, like she wasn’t sleeping at all.
“Hey,” she whispered, rubbing my back. “You’re okay. You’re here. Breathe.”
But breathing felt too heavy.
At some point in the night... or morning? I couldn’t tell... Kenzie climbed under the blanket and pulled me into her chest. I lay stiff in her arms for a long time. Eventually… my body softened. A little. Not much. But enough to stop shaking.
Days passed, I think. I heard Chase talking to someone in the hallway about what he could do to help me if I kept refusing food.
Then Maggie was there in front of me. The curtains had been pulled back to show the blinding winter sun against the freshly fallen snow.
I forced myself to sit up, my body achy and tired despite being in bed for.... I didn't know.
“John and I stopped by your place, Tessa. To grab you some things. I got your prenatal vitamins,” she said gently. “You need to take them, and you need to eat.”
I nodded numbly and took one.
Time passed in shadows and light.
People filtered through with it, asked again if I’d taken my vitamins, if I had drunk enough water.... I couldn’t remember.
Time didn’t feel real.
It slipped.
It tilted.
It rewound and froze and lurched forward without warning. At one point, I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor, staring at the grout between tiles, not knowing how I got there. Someone was knocking on the door, worried, but the knocking sounded distant, like I was underwater again.
“You’re scaring us,” Kenzie said when she finally got in.
I wanted to say I was sorry.
I wanted to say I didn’t mean to.
I wanted to tell her how horrible and guilty I felt that Nate's family had to take care of me, even in their own grief.
But my tongue felt heavy, useless.
Eli drove me to my doctor's appointment.
The waiting room smelled like lemon cleaner and snow.
People glanced at me and then away, as if they recognized me but weren’t sure they should. Or maybe it was that they could feel the waves of grief coming off of me like a physical thing.
The ultrasound tech spoke softly, her hands warm on my skin.
“There’s the heartbeat,” she said.
I heard it, rapid, strong, alive, but it didn’t reach me. It sounded like something happening to someone else. She called my name and asked me a question. The numb didn't let it through. But then I heard, ".... a Girl!"
The doctor came in next, a worried look on her face.
“Tessa… you’ve lost weight,” she said gently. “More than I’d like to see at this stage.”
I nodded.
“You need to eat. And rest. Get some fresh air if you can. Your body is under a lot of stress.”
I nodded again.
She asked if I had support.
Eli’s hand squeezed mine.
“Yes,” he answered for me. “She does.”
But I felt alone.
Surrounded, but alone.
Like grief had wrapped itself around me in layers no one else could peel back.
Back at Chase’s place, I crawled into bed without thinking.
Kenzie followed, lying down beside me again, one hand resting lightly on my back.
“Sleep if you can,” she whispered.
But sleep didn’t come.
Only the slow ache of a world that used to have Nate in it and now didn’t.
Only the sound of my heartbeat and another, quieter one under it, a heartbeat that deserved more than whatever this half-version of me was.
I knew I needed to do better. For the baby. For the Carsons and everyone else around me who were too afraid to grieve, too scared to take their eyes off of me.
But right now…
Right now, I was drowning too deep to reach for anything or anyone.