Page 37 of Lost and Found

“Yes,” he murmurs.

I step over to him and pat his shoulder. “I’ll give you a minute, and then we can run to the store.” I need the minute to myself now, anyway.

By the time my next days off roll around, Silas is headed back to work for three shifts in a row. Therefore, I spend every free moment setting myself up for injections to the best of my ability. I carry my phone with me throughout the house when I’m home, watching every video Francine sent over, overwhelming myself when I tiptoe into all the IVF Reddit threads. I set up a calendar on the bathroom mirror and input alarms for every medication over the next month. I think I must see all the IVF videos on all the YouTubes, thousands and thousands of needles piercing flesh. I cry with crestfallen strangers as they stare at test strips, and cry again with happy ones holding up their positive tests.

After what I estimate is forty seconds of sleep the night before, I awake on the twelfth as prepared as I possibly can be.

And I immediately fall to pieces.

I don’t have a phobia of needles that I know of. I felt fine watching all the videos, other than mild alarm over the size. I’ve got ten piercings between my two ears, had my nipples pierced years ago, plus one tattoo, and I don’t recall feeling anything other than the standard nerves when I had them done. But I am now more than thirty minutes into trying to administer this shot to myself, alternatively staring at the bathroom mirror and pacing back and forth, and every time I pick up the syringe, myhands shake so badly I worry I’ll somehow break this needle off in my ass cheek.

I take a few quick breaths and pick it up again. The vial next.

“Don’t be a bitch, bitch,” I say to my reflection. I want this. I can do this. This is the next step. This is how I get closer to meeting my person, that person I know exists even if I can’t picture a damn thing about them. It’s like I’ve been moving blindly through dense fog and now Iknowsomeone is waiting for me on the other side. This is the next step toward bringing the best kind of love into my life. A little family I get to make.

And if I can’t do this one small thing, this one tiny shot . . . do I even deserve that? When a million other more difficult things will surely come after?

When nausea rolls again and a metallic taste fills my mouth, I get angry. Like hell am I giving up.

I find myself in the hallway outside Silas’s bedroom. My fist hovers in front of his door—damp, clammy, still trembling.

Just knock, Bea. You’re already living with the man. He’ll give you what you need.Now it’s Merritt’s voice ringing through my brain.

And how do you propose I open this conversation, exactly?I ask her specter.“Good morning, Silas. I know you’re likely physically and mentally exhausted after saving infrastructure and life for the last seventy-two hours but, super quick, would you mind helping me get pregnant? In and out and on with our lives.”At least I know he’d appreciate my irreverence.

God. How did it come to this? How did I get here?

CHAPTER 13

Now

Silas

Pulling up to my house in the early-dawn light after a long string of workdays makes me instantly, outstandingly sleepy, like my body has a Pavlovian response to knowing my bed is within range. It’s not even that things at the station were wildly busy, either. They’d been mind-numbingly slow, in fact. Great for local health and property, but not so great for preventing me from running circles in my mind.

My brain keeps skipping and replaying Bea in my house. Bea over the years. Bea in my arms and filling my hands and flashbacks of her against my lips.

Emphasis on Bea in my house. Under the same roof. Wondering what she’s doing at any given time. Wondering what the hell I was thinking doing this to myself. Setting myself up for a world of hurt again. Fuck, I need to slip inside and get to sleep so I can get my head on straight.

I roll my body out of my truck and drag my lead feet up the steps, eyelids sticking together too long when I unlock my door.

My shoulders jump when I spot Bea’s outline in the unlit hallway. I expected her to still be upstairs getting ready for work. She gives no indication that she’s noticed me, at first. Just mutters to herself with her fist raised.

Her head turns my way at the sound of my steps. “Silas! I thought you were already home.”

“Morning. We got held over a little long.” I’m so tired it comes out slurred.

I empty my pockets into the trash—gum wrappers and receipts—and feel my body pull taut when I notice the way her scent has already filled this space. She’s moved into the kitchen and is wringing her hands. I drag my eyes up and notice hers are red-rimmed and glassy.

“What’s wrong?”

She gnaws at her lower lip. “Nothing. I’m fine. I just wanted to ask you something.”

But then she steps around the counter, andIam the one who is not fine at all. I’m the opposite of fine.

“What are . . . What are those?” My heart does a skip-and-roll over a concrete median.

“What are what?” she asks, following my line of sight. “Oh, my shorts?”