Page 185 of Bleed with Me

If she didn’t want to talk about it, it wasn’t important, right? My job was important. Saving lives was important. Whatever she needed could wait. That’s what I told myself until one day, about two months after I’d accepted the promotion, Caroline’s brother brought her into the hospital.

I ran to the emergency room like crazy, finding her on the bed, crying. Her shorts and T-shirt were covered in blood; she trembled uncontrollably, and her blood pressure was dropping. At first, I thought she'd been attacked, but my assumption was quickly proven wrong. Caroline was pregnant.

My world collapsed when the doctor came out of the operating room and told me the worst news any man could hear. They couldn’t save the baby. Actually, the damage was so severe that they had to remove Caroline’s reproductive organs. She would never be able to have kids.

It was a hard blow. I tried to be strong for her, support her when she reached the absolute bottom, but I was failing spectacularly. Mostly because I couldn’t understand why she would keep her condition from me; she just kept repeating that I was always at work, that I ignored her attempts for a conversation, that I chose my patients over her, so eventually, I stopped asking because her answers hurt more than a knife into my heart.

At that time, I didn’t want to believe it. I wasn’t a man who would choose my job over my family. I would die for Caroline if it were the case. But all she saw was that I wasn’t there with her when she needed me. And eventually, I started to see it, too.

When she yelled at me that I didn’t love her enough, I didn’t argue because if she didn’t feel my love, it probably was the truth. When she threw things at me and physically hurt me, I didn’t defend myself because I deserved it, right? I was at work the night she lost our baby when I should’ve been with her. What were a few punches compared to the pain she experienced?

What I didn’t register back then was my own pain and guilt. I focused on her, on her attacks and accusations instead of trying to process my own feelings.

I lost my baby, too. I was a father, and I didn’t even get to see the ultrasound because she burnt it. And to top it all off, no one truly cared about me. Everyone asked about her. How was she doing? How was she holding up? Was she feeling better? But nothing about me, like my feelings didn’t exist. Like I had no right to be devastated by the loss. People just expected me to move on while she grieved.

But it was my baby, too! I had every right to mourn.

Not around Caroline, though. She turned every mention of the baby into an argument, into an endless cannon of accusations. One night, I simply left because I couldn’t bear it anymore. When I returned, she was crying in the living room, kneeling on the carpet, hugging a stuffed animal. I approached her, intending to hold her through it. I wanted to be close to her, but she started yelling.

Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! As if I had an infectious disease.

I tried to calm her down, but she just cried and yelled at me. I remember how helpless I felt, how completely useless I was at helping her. She was so broken, so devastated, and I just stood there like an idiot, unable to relieve her pain.

The situation escalated to massive proportions. The more I tried to calm her down, the more upset she was. Eventually, she grabbed the car keys and wanted to leave. I stopped her, but she kicked me and again yelled, Don’t touch me, bastard!

Those were her last words to me. Fifteen minutes later, when I followed her car on my motorcycle, she drove under a train. At first, it looked intentional. A huge red light signaled the incoming train, and the loud honk carried for miles. But she ignored all of that, and her car collided with a locomotive.

I was the first one at the scene. The vehicle was completely smashed, and I struggled to reach her. She was barely responsive, her pulse was weak, and there was a lot of blood everywhere. I did my best to stabilize her, and when the paramedics arrived, she was still alive. But two hours after the crash, she died.

And with her, my ability to operate evaporated, too. Every time I picked up a scalpel, I saw her bloody face in the car. Every time I looked at my hands, I saw them pressing against her body, trying to stop the massive bleeding on her abdomen. Whatever I did in the OR was cursed by her. Until seven months ago, when Zyon was shot, and I had to perform surgery to save him.

A shaky exhale escaped me, and I realized I was crying while still glancing at the white ceiling in my house.

“A week after her funeral, I tortured and executed seven men, convicted child rapists, in four days,” I admitted quietly. “Malin destroyed the evidence and disposed of the bodies. But it never helped me feel better. After that, I just tried to survive.”

I wiped the tears with the back of my hand.

“So, that’s pretty much it.” My entire body trembled from the rush of emotions that consumed me. Decade-old guilt and pain rushed to the surface like searing lava, burning my lungs, my throat, clogging my windpipes.

“It wasn’t your fault,” the gentle, familiar, hushed voice reached me through the thunder in my ears. Nina lifted herself, glancing at me with wet eyes full of sympathy. “You didn’t kill her, or your baby.”

“Didn’t I?” I breathed, barely able to breathe.

“No,” Nina stated resolutely. “You didn’t.”

“She tried to tell me she was pregnant.” My voice cracked. “I was too busy saving someone else.”

“You didn’t know,” she claimed in a firm voice.

“I should’ve.”

She shook her head.

“You should’ve been there for her.” The words hit harder than if she had lied. “You should’ve listened. You should’ve gone home earlier.”

I closed my eyes.

“I know,” I mumbled, barely audible.