Eleven Weeks (26 page)

January 12

People talk to me. They say things like me being lucky, fortunate, that my injuries are surface.

They don’t dig deeper.

They don’t see the depth of the wound in my body that is eating me alive.

“It’s for the best,” Mum says. She and dad have come to visit me, each time with these sad eyes that could speak volumes. They don’t, though. They rarely say a word. They pat my hair. They hold my hand. I wish they could hold me closer, try to heal my pain, but they stopped caring for me that way a long time ago.

Still, they come, and when Mum squeezes my arm I remind myself to thank my lucky stars that she’s still here.

If only she could squeeze the hurt right out of me.

January 28

I
CRY
, and I cry, and I don’t stop. I cry for a whole week. I cry when I’m awake. When I sleep,
if
I sleep … I wake up, tears still fresh on my cheeks.

And I’m alone. I have no Michael. No family.

No baby.

I lost my small human.

Everywhere I look, there’s a reminder of it. It’s in my search history on my computer. In the stupid supplements are still sitting in my top desk drawer.

It’s in my hair, the hair I cut so I could try and make a new life as Stacey, the achiever. Stacey, the good freaking mum.

Ha!
What a laugh that turned out to be.

“Stacey?” Mum pokes her head inside my room. The light hits her hair, giving her a halo effect. It’s the middle of the day, but my room is dark. The curtains stay shut now. I don’t need the light.

“This came for you.” She places a small package addressed to me at the end of my bed and leaves the room, clicking the door shut behind her as she goes.

I reach over and open the package, wincing as the pain from my fractured ribs shoots through my body.

It’s a shiny plastic thing, about the size of half a pillow, and I press against it, the shapes squishing against my fingers.

What in the world …

Then it hits me.

I know exactly what this is.

With shaking hands, I tear open the foil and tip the bag upside down, its contents vomiting onto my legs.

One jumpsuit.

One stuffed toy.

One pair of booties.

I don’t know that I can go on anymore.

I cry because I can, for the mean man that Evan is, for his wife and kid who likely don’t know that he’s a cheater. For Kate, who is still in her self-imposed missing Lachlan exile, hiding in her house.

But most of all, most of all I cry for the little human. My small person.

And then the dam runs dry.

And that’s worse than the tears. Because now I have no physical show of how devastated I am.

Dear Small Human,

It hurts, and it doesn’t stop. I’ve failed you. I killed you.

How could I hurt the only good thing I have? I wanted to be your everything, and instead, I deserted you. I should have looked. I should have freaking done MORE!

I pause in my writing and hurl the notepad across the room.

Everything hurts.

And it just won’t stop.

January 29

Me:
I know you probably don’t want to hear from me. I’ve left it so long, and I have a reason, but you deserve better than an excuse.

I screwed up.

I’m sorry.

I want to make this work.

I realise that all this time, you were right. I wasn’t giving us a chance. I wasn’t chasing this, because I guess somewhere, deep down, I didn’t think we would work. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, or was ashamed of you; never that. I just didn’t think I was good enough. Not for you. Not when you’re so smart, and talented, and you have
groupies
, for crying out loud, and I have no career and a baby.

Had
a baby.

Had.

I came to see you, that day. The day you left, I was on my way, but something happened.

I got hit by a car.

I lost the baby.

I
broke.

I want to try, Michael. And this isn’t just because I feel like I don’t have anything left, and you’re the last option.

It’s because to me, you are everything. You’re the first and
only
option. The only one I ever had, and the only one I know I’ll ever want.

And I hope that’s enough.

I hit send and stare at my ceiling. I’ve been doing that a lot this week; with two fractured ribs and a swollen ankle, there’s not a heap else I can do.

The doctors say I’m lucky. I’m lucky I didn’t do any more serious damage, lucky I didn’t get hurt more seriously.

They forget about the scar inside me from losing the baby. The one I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from, the one that stings like a knife—that stops me from sleeping. Sleep, that elusive beast, lurks behind the door, in corners, lulling me into a sense of belief that she’ll take me, but she never does. Or, if she manages to grasp hold of me, pull me under, it’s a brief, teasing embrace that ends with me waking in a cold sweat, flashes of forgotten dreams slipping from my mind. Flashes of the past. Flashes of what the future could have been, if I hadn’t screwed it up.

When it’s two a.m. and no one else is awake, and it’s just me, and my hurt, and the night—the deep, dark, desolate night—it’s lonely.

So freaking lonely.

So lonely that when my door creaks open, I shoot upright in my bed and gasp, part from shock, part from the pain caused from the sudden movement and subsequent breath intake against my stupid fractured ribs.

“What the hell?” I screech. My heart is pounding, and I can feel my pulse shooting at my wrist. I shove the stuffed rabbit I’ve been clutching under my pillow.

“Stace, shut up, it’s just me.”

I blink at the inky-black figure shadowed in my already black doorway. “Shae?”

She creaks the door closed behind her and comes to sit on my bed. I inch backwards, leaning against the headboard. “If you’ve come to kill me, I should warn you that even though my ribs are broken, my lungs are still well in order, and I swear to God, I will scream like a banshee on heat.”

“You are such a freaking drama queen.” Shae sighs, but there’s a smile in her voice. I feel her slide over the top of my feet and rest against the wall to my left, her legs left lying casually over the top of mine.

“So … couldn’t sleep?” I ask, after what feels like an hour’s worth of silence. Well, okay, a minute. But it’s midnight; shit feels long.

“Nope.” More silence.

“Shae, I’m sorry about … Evan.” I say the name, but even speaking the words makes me feel like my tongue has swollen. I think I preferred it when he was just some faceless guy who’d had sex with me. “It’s not like it’s any consolation, but I was really,
really
drunk. I … I didn’t remember it when it first happened, and now? I kind of have flashes, but that’s it.”

Lips, rough against mine. A subtle push to his chest. Sucking on my neck.

Pain.

Crickets screech outside my window, the soundtrack to summer by the lake. Our breathing is the underscore, quiet and steady, backing it up.

“I …” Shae shifts her weight, and I feel it on my ankles. “I don’t think you’re a dumb slut.”

The way she says it, so resigned, as if it almost hurts, makes me laugh. Laughing makes my ribs stab against my lungs, though, so it ends up more of a choke. “Gee, thanks.”

“You know what I mean.” I can practically hear the movement of her rolling her eyes. “I mean … I said some pretty stupid things the other day.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I did some pretty stupid things. “I slept with your boss.”

“My
married
boss.”

“Your
married
boss,” I correct myself. “And … I’m sorry.”

“Stace—”

“Seriously, I’m sorry. I was out of control! And I know I’ve made some stupid choices, and screwed up a whole heap of things, but I didn’t mean it. And I’m going to try to make things right.” I choke down the sob in my throat, and again, my ribs burn. I wince, leaning forward, which only makes the pain more intense. Seriously, what doesn’t hurt a fractured rib?

“Do you remember when you were fourteen? I was eighteen, and I brought Danny home after school that time,” Shae asks.

I nod, even though she probably can’t see me. “Yeah. Mum and Dad were working late, and we drank some of their vodka, then filled the bottle up with water.”

“Yes.” Shae’s voice is firm, solid. “I took him home, hoping that we would … you know … that we’d …”

“Have sex?” I supply.

“Yes,” she says quickly. “But the second he saw you, the second you walked into the kitchen, no matter what I said or how suggestively I said it, he wanted to stay there and hang out with you.”

“But I was fourteen.” I grimace.

“Exactly.” Shae sighs. “Imagine how it feels when the guy who is supposed to be in love with you chooses to hang out with your blonde little sister over having sex for the first time.”

I swallow. It’s a bitter pill to take.