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I give him a weak nod and wait for him to leave before trying to clean up. I pad my panties with toilet paper, knowing that it isn’t enough.
When I’m dressed, I step back into the room. “I’m ready.”
Cole has our bags packed. He strides over to me, cupping my face tenderly. “It’s going to be okay, Dove. I know it.”
My heart breaks all over again.
This will kill Cole, and part of me isn’t ready to lose him. So I paste on a weak smile and say, “I’m sure it is.”
Cole managed to get us to the hospital in record time. He may have run a few red lights to do it, but he had nothing but steely determination in his eyes as he maneuvered the unfamiliar streets of Colton.
By the time we reached the hospital, my leggings were soaked with blood. Cole rushed inside to get me a wheelchair, and now we’re sitting in the ER, waiting to be seen.
Cole clutches my hand in his, holding on as if it’s his lifeline. I feel numb, completely and utterly numb.
I can’t help but think it’s the universe’s way of saying we’re not ready—that I’m not ready. But it doesn’t ease the ache I feel in my heart.
I thought I’d lost Cole once, but we worked our way through that.
We won’t survive this, though.
He’ll blame himself.
When the doctor makes him understand what I failed to, he’ll blame himself and then he’ll pull away. And I’ll be alone again.
Maybe it’s better that way.
Maybe Cole and I are destined to drown in the darkness, not live in the light.
Silent tears drip down my cheeks.
“Hadley?” A nurse with kind eyes looms over us.
“Yes,” I say.
“Why don’t we get you somewhere a little more private and we can see what’s happening.”
But the sympathy in her eyes tells me she already knows.
“Okay, thanks.”
Cole shoots up and she adds, “Maybe Hadley would like some privacy?” She asks me quietly.
“No, he can come.”
Cole expels a sigh of relief, wheeling my chair behind the nurse as she leads us down a long hall, into a side room.
It’s cold and clinical—four walls, one bed, a trolley filled with an array of medical supplies.
She grabs a roll of white paper towels and covers the bed with it. “Hop on up, sweetheart.”
Cole helps me onto the bed, treating me like a fragile bird. His hands tremble as he strokes my arm. “It’s going to be okay,” he says, as if he thinks saying the words will make it come true.
I don’t have the heart to tell him it won’t.
“You think you’re about eight or nine weeks?”
I nod. “I have my first appointment with the OB-GYN next week.”
