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"Plans are good." I smiled.
"I'm just glad we're good, Bay."
I slid over to him and snuggled to his side. He put his arm around me. "Me, too."
BEING PREGNANT BREATHEDnew life into me. I had moments of giddiness when passing the baby aisles in the stores. I was tempted to buy stuff, but I still had two months to go. My due date was June fourth, exactly one month before my twenty-third birthday. We decided to let the sex of the baby be a surprise, but if it was a girl, we were going to name her Tessa. We were still going between boy names. This baby had given us all purpose and faith in the future.
Grady and Brandt were finishing the legal documents to take over the restaurant Grady found, and they were both working long hours on the surf company. It had thrived in the last six months, and they were starting to make a profit already. Things were slowly getting better. I still had breakdowns, but they were less frequent and only took me down for a day or so instead of a week. I hadn't been back to visit the graves since we left, but I wanted to after the baby was born. I wanted them to meet her or him.
Grady and I had found our strictly platonic friendship again. He was moving on, too. He stopped drinking and was dating. Maybe not so much dating since he never saw the same girl twice, but he was getting out there, which opened possibilities for love in the future. Our exchanges were fun and light again, and we never brought up that day when he kissed me. It was a forgotten moment.
"I still think you should name him Grady Junior if it's a boy!" Grady yelled from the sand as he approached.
He had been surfing and overheard Brandt and me talking about baby names as we sat on the patio eating breakfast. Our bungalow was right on the beach, which was perfect for two dedicated surfers.
"It's on the top of our list." I laughed.
"I'm being serious."
"Oh, we know," Brandt chimed in.
A sudden pain stabbed the side of my stomach, causing me to cry out. Grady threw his surfboard onto the sand and ran to my side where Brandt already was.
"What's wrong?" Brandt asked.
"I don't know. It's probably nothing." Another wave of pain hit me, making me dizzy, and I cried out again.
"We're going to the hospital." Brandt picked me up.
There was a dull ache between the stabbing pains, and it was difficult to breathe. "I'm scared," I muttered. I was losing consciousness.
"Baylor, stay with us."
I tried to keep my eyes open, but I couldn't, and their panicked voices faded.
I opened my eyes to a fuzzy world, and Brandt's beautiful outline hovering above me. I felt like I was floating. I knew whatever was happening was bad.
"I'm here, Bay. I'm here," Brandt said desperately.
His voice came filtered like a movie in slow motion. I couldn't feel my body from the chest down, and just before I passed out again, I caught sight of Grady on my other side.
MOMENTS DEFINED YOU,and moments lifted you up, but they could also destroy you. Meeting Brandt was a defining moment in my life, Tessa's miscarriage changed the fate of her relationship with Grady, and the train wreck was the defining moment that destroyed me…until now.
I felt a hand in mine, pulling me out of my sleep.
My eyes fluttered open and I tried to speak, but the way Brandt looked at me with bloodshot eyes and a broken heart spoke a thousand fractured words.
"No, no, no,” I pleaded. “Please, Brandt. Please. Not this." I cried hard, the incision on my stomach burned like hell with every convulsion. Brandt's tears matched mine as he crawled onto the bed and took me in his arms. He held me firmly as if that was all he needed to do to keep me together, like all the shattered pieces of the last year could be glued together with just one squeeze. This was it. This was my defining moment that took the last piece of me.
I had nothing left.
Nothing to give.
Nothing I wanted to take.
I was empty, and all I could do was cry, and all he could do was hold me because he knew, too.
He knew this was it.
