I nodded, feeling speechless.
I had a follow-up on Tuesday. To do another blood test and make sure the miscarriage was progressing as expected.
Because, believe it or not, when you lose a pregnancy, everything you’ve been carrying doesn’t simply vanish.
It was as physically devastating as it was emotionally.
“If you want me to sleep on the couch, or in the bathtub, or on the goddamn porch, I will,” Sully continued. “Whatever makes you the most comfortable, I’ll do. I don’t give a fuck where I sleepin that house, but I’m going to be there. I’m not leaving this time. Not when you’re like this. Not when?—”
His throat seemed to close again, and then my throat was closing, and all I could do was nod until I managed to say, “You can have your bed back.”
A shuddering sigh worked through him when I didn’t argue. “No.” He shook his head. “I want you there. I’ll stay across the hall, if that’s okay.”
It was only marginally okay. Because I wanted to suggest he stay with me. Right next to me. Under the covers with me. Wrapped around me. I almost said it. Wassecondsaway from saying it, my mouth opening, ready, when Sully’s lips spread in a hint of a smile, even while his cheeks were red and tear-stained.
“It’ll be like it used to.” He curled a piece of my hair around his finger. “Sleepovers in the summer. We just swapped places.”
And because I liked the thought of that so much, and in some ways, it was more comforting than anything else, I closed my mouth and forced myself to smile back at him.
Sully encouraged me out of the car after that, leading me toward the front door but seeming unbothered by the rain pelting down on us when I walked slowly, unable to drum up any bit of urgency.
Once inside, I headed upstairs while Sully went to talk to Theo, who I could hear moving around in the kitchen. I forced myself into the bathroom to brush my teeth and change my pad, trying to keep my head above water when I saw the reminder, the visual evidence, of what I was losing. The movement also reignited a flair of cramps as I dragged my feet back to bed.
But before I crawled back under the covers in Sully’s childhood room, I still managed to rotate the blankets and pillows, putting my head at the foot of the bed.
There.
By the time Sully’s footsteps alerted me of his return, I was already snuggled under the blankets. He stopped by the door tohis room, did a double take when he saw what I’d done, and then just stood there for a long moment.
His gaze met mine, and it was filled with so much unnamed emotion that I felt my eyes well again.
When he finally tore himself away, it was to go grab a book from the shelf in the corner of his room.
Minutes later, I closed my eyes to the sound of his deep voice.
“In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.”
seven years ago
SULLY
“I tried to pay attention in the hospital, but there was so much going on, and I didn’t like looking at anything that wasn’t her, and fuck?—”
“It’s okay.” Blake gently extracted the medication from my hands. “I’ll show you, and then you can take care of her next time.”
I nodded, grateful, following him down the hallway at Maple Street.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I said.
“What?”
“Drive all the way from Chicago.”
He was sitting on the porch when we got home from the hospital, illuminated by lightning bugs.
“I haven’t been home from school in a while.” He cast a brief look over his shoulder—deep brown eyes that looked nothing like my own found me.
“Missed me, huh?” I tried to joke.
