Chapter 7 #2
I hadn’t known I was pregnant. I wasn’t even sure I’d wanted children of my own.
But the moment the doctor said he thought it was a miscarriage, I was devastated.
It was a piece of Leo that I didn’t know I still held, and losing that tiny piece destroyed me.
What would they have been like? What traits of Leo’s would have been genetically passed on?
His beautiful brown eyes, his steadfast personality, or his stubbornness?
What about the shape of his nose, or his loyalty?
Would Leo’s child want to join the military, too?
The miscarriage wrecked me, physically and emotionally.
It felt like a penance. Like it was the universe serving me up a plate of reality for breaking Leo’s heart.
I didn’t deserve to have a child. To bring life into the world, when all I was responsible for was breaking hearts.
I didn’t deserve to have anyone love me.
“Hey, El? Can you help me for a sec … are you okay?” Leo’s voice reaches me, but it’s hollow. I sense a shadow covering me as he kneels before me. “Ladybug. Look at me.”
I can’t. I’m lost to horrid memories.
Feeling the moment when I was no longer pregnant. The emptiness. The melancholy. Struggling to even breathe as I mourned the last connection to the only man I ever loved, and feeling like it was all my fault.
He doesn’t even know about the baby. About the year that followed, when I was at my lowest. When I almost ended it all. No one would miss me. No one would notice.
“Baby,” he whispers, the sound so full of sorrow that I clench my eyes tightly closed. I can’t get out of the past. I feel the tears slide down my cheeks, and when he reaches up to gingerly wipe them away, I lunge to the side. Don’t touch me. You shouldn’t show me compassion. I don’t deserve it.
“I need you to say goodbye to Oliver,” I stammer. “I need you to go right now. Please.”
“Ella. Tell me what’s wrong.”
I shake my head vehemently. “No. Please leave. I — you can’t be here. I can’t do this right now.”
Leo hesitates. “I’m not leaving you alone like this. I don’t even know why you’re upset. Is it me? The kids? Something else?”
An odd ball of laughter bubbles up inside me as I push Leo away. “I’m fine. I’m always fine. I’ll be fine. Please leave.”
He falls backward onto his ass, staring up at me incredulously. “No.”
“Leo, please. Just go.”
“No! I’m not leaving.” His voice rises considerably, and a cry comes from the baby’s room. “Fuck. Was she asleep?”
“Yes, she was,” I snap, trouncing around him. As I approach my bedroom door, where Violet’s crib is, I whirl around to find Leo right on my heels. “Do not follow me in here!”
I barely make out his expression due to the tears, but he listens.
I pull Violet from her crib, snuggling her into my arms, as I hear Leo murmur something to Oliver.
When I don’t hear the front door open and close, I know he’ll stay until I come back out.
He won’t leave Oliver unattended. As much as that fact frustrates me, it allows me to relax for a moment, knowing my nephew is cared for.
As Violet slowly falls back asleep against my chest, I cry silently.
I cry for the Ella of eight years ago, who thought she was making the best decision.
I mourn for the Ella at her lowest, who knew she was unlovable.
And I sob for the Ella of today, who feels lost and alone.
I’m raising my niece and nephew, barely making ends meet, and I don’t know how much more I can take.
An hour later, I quietly open my bedroom door, not knowing what I might find.
Leo and Oliver had been almost completely silent, and I’m shocked to find them playing with a container of Play-Doh toys on the floor of the living room.
Not acknowledging them, I carry Violet into the kitchen to make her bottle, then pull out a frozen pizza to put in the oven for Oliver.
After preheating the oven, I shuffle into the living room, quietly easing onto the well-worn leather couch.
Leo speaks first. “Are you okay?”
I sigh. “I’ll be fine.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I sigh again, rolling my eyes. I push my hair out of my face, wondering how awful I look. “No, Leo. I’m not okay. But I’ll be fine.”
He carefully extricates himself from the Play-Doh toys to come sit beside me on the couch. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“No.”
“The last thing I said was that you walked away.”
I don’t reply. We both know it triggered everything that just happened. Leo isn’t dumb. Years of learning how my mind works tells me he can put two-and-two together.
“What happened after I left, El?” he finally asks.
It takes me a while to respond as I struggle to formulate the words. I could go with sarcasm. Tell him it was all death and despair. Or, I could be somewhat honest. I struggled more than I thought, and really went through a depressive period. I’m definitely not telling him the full truth.
I’m unprepared for what he says next. “Did you know my family kept tabs on you for me?”
“What?” I gasp, my head swiveling to gape at him.
He has the decency to look chagrined, rubbing his hand through his hair.
“I didn’t like how things ended. I knew something was eating at you, more than just moving.
I was worried about you. It wasn’t just about leaving your mom or Ember.
Then I saw you a few years ago, with a baby on your chest, and I told them I never wanted to talk about you again. ”
“Oh,” I whisper. “That was Oliver. I was babysitting.”
“I realize that now.” Leo pauses, clearing his throat. “When did your mom die?”
“About a year after we broke up.” I close my eyes in pain. God, I forgot how easily he could see through me. “What does it matter now? That was years ago, Leo.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “It matters because you can barely look at me, and I want to know why. I need to know why you ended us. I felt like it came out of nowhere.”
“And I felt like it was inevitable,” I admit with a whisper.
“I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t watch you deploy again.
It destroyed me every time. If you’d convinced me to move with you, I’d have been in your home.
Alone with your things. Praying you survived.
Away from my entire family, with no one, and depending completely on you. ”
“Had the nightmares gotten worse?” he asks softly.
My head jerks to look at him. “I figured you’d have forgotten about them.”
He smiles painfully. “I remember everything. I know you were really struggling with finding a balance between fear of the unknown and trusting nothing would happen to me. You’d said you dreamed about one of my brothers having to tell you I’d been killed, but I don’t think I fully understood how you suffered. ”
“A lot of good that did, huh,” I say bitterly. “I was still a basket case when I found out you were hurt.”
Leo’s quiet for a few minutes. “I told my parents not to tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want you to be upset.”
“We’d been broken up for quite some time, Leo. That doesn’t make any sense.”
He leans back against the couch, placing his forearm behind his head. “I’d never wish ill will on you, Ella. Contrary to how we broke up, I still knew your heart. I knew you’d be upset, and I wanted to keep that pain away from you.”
“Your parents didn’t tell me,” I confess. “I saw it on The Eagle Has Landed.”
Leo growls. “That stupid fucking website. Did they at least get the facts correct?”
“I don’t know.” I look at him with my eyebrows cocked. “Does anyone actually know what happened to you over there? Full facts, Leo. Not whatever bullshit story you’ve told people, making it out to be less than it was.”
Leo bites his lip as he struggles to hide a smirk. “It appears you may still know a little about my heart as well.”
I know how he’d always chosen to protect his family. Lessening the details to make things seem safer.
When I read that he’d been injured, and that he’d had multiple surgeries at a military hospital in Germany, I knew it was worse than the article suggested. I knew that he was severely hurt, and part of me felt it was all my fault.