Page 109 of When We Crash

“Is it someone else? I don’t care. I can forgive you,” he said.

I stood, leaving him and the box on the couch. He wouldn’t forgive me for this. “Open it.” I kept my back turned for a few moments until I couldn’t bear it anymore.

The blanket was in his hands and he looked confused. Confusion turned to anger when he saw her documents with her birth date. And anger turned to absolute sorrow when he saw the pictures of me holding our dead baby. Pictures Miranda took of me in the same black dress I was currently wearing, sobbing as they lowered my sweet baby girl’s casket. Pictures of her headstone with his last name on her grave.

He sifted through all of them before sitting back on the floor, his head between his knees. His shoulders shook and I let him cry.

Silence. The dreaded silence went on and all through the shrieking in my head. I’d done this. Dexter aimed the gun and I pulled the trigger, killing all chances we ever had of loving each other. I didn’t dare wonder if we could survive this.

“Why?” he asked. When I didn’t answer, he roared the question and I flinched.

This is what it feels like to be ripped in half.

I reverted back to my old ways, pretending I couldn’t be bothered while tears dripped from my chin onto my chest. “You left,” I said.

His tears made me want to run, but I stood there and took his hate. It was as real, if not more real, than his love. Dexter had crossed that thin line between the two emotions, and I was still on the other side. Hewasmy love.

“No. No. Why didn’t you find me and tell me? I deserved to know, Noa. God damn it, I deserved that much!” He stood and I backed away. He wouldn’t harm me. Not intentionally. But his eyes…those bright blue eyes pierced me like knives.

I shrugged. He got closer. He was pushing me, always pushing me. And he knew I would crack underneath the pressure.

Crack.

Silence.

Crack,as he stepped even closer.

“I want to knowwhy!”

Crack.

The final crack broke me.

“Because it was my fault!” I screamed. “My body couldn’t make her stay. It was my fault.” My hands were shaking, and my mouth felt dirty with the words I kept in my head all these years. I couldn’t keep her safe and give her what she needed. My broken body wasn’t a fit place for her because I hadn’t even known how to love myself. She knew and she left me. Like Dexter had.

“Is that what the doctors told you?” He heard my hurt and it softened him.

But I wanted his hate.

I looked away at the scratches on my wood floor. They reminded me of moving in and setting up her precious crib.

“They didn’t have to, Dexter.” My eyes were trained on the scratches, and when he left, I didn’t cry. I didn’t call his name. I didn’t beg.

It didn’t hurt any less than it did the first time.

Noa

There were things a woman knew,no matter what. She knew when she’d gone too far, which I had.

She knew when she was getting her period, which I wasn’t.

And she knew when she was pregnant, which I was.

I looked down at the stick that revealed two pink lines.

Fucking fuck.

How could this happen to me again?

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