Page 56 of Bae

“Uh, Rome,” someone said, and I straightened.

One of the guys slapped me on the back and turned me toward the giant screen broadcasting the game.

Oh. Shit.

I lifted my arms and signaled for a timeout.

Rimmel

Sometimes a bitch just snaps.

I wasn’t a bitch.

Far from it, actually. But there was also a limit to how much a fairly mild-tempered girl like me could take.

I was damn near that point. Like a rubber band being forced around a too-fat stack of papers, I was thinking about snapping.

I guess that’s how I knew I wasn’t a bitch. I highly doubted bitches thought about it before they snapped.

That probably stung harder for whoever was on the receiving end. No matter. I could sting, too. I was married to Romeo after all, and my big brother was a hothead.

I felt stronger today. And the day before. And the day before that.

I glanced over at Valerie. She noticed me and smiled.

Ever since that day I’d shown up at her door and we had tea, I’d felt stronger. It was like just getting permission from someone who wasn’t me, who wasn’t my husband who loved me so unflinchingly it wouldn’t matter what I said or did, lifted a weight off my shoulders.

Permission for what?

To forgive myself. To understand that maybe, just maybe, Evie’s loss wasn’t my fault. It was okay to hurt and cry. It was okay to want so desperately to try for another piece of Romeo but just as desperately not want to, also.

It was okay to be a mess.

I am allowed.

My goodness, I hadn’t noticed just how sore my shoulders were from carrying such a load. How bruised my heart had become.

It was worse than even I’d known.

Was I better now? Completely healed?

No.

I still ached for my daughter. Some moments I still blamed myself for the loss of that little baby. I still looked at Romeo and wondered if he thought I failed him, even though he told me I hadn’t.

I was still scared.

Those were moments now, and as all-consuming and engulfing as they were, I was able to tell myself those moments would give way to new ones.

And they did.

Now, along with those dark times, there were lighter ones. I thought of my mother rocking my daughter in her arms. I thought of her singing her the songs she’d sung to me. I thought hopefully of the child Romeo and I would be blessed with, the one whose eyes I would look into and see his father reflected back.

I was stronger.

Not healed. I would never be “healed.” I didn’t think there was such a thing for a person who’d lost a child. It was simply learning to live incomplete.

I still had a very long way to go, but Valerie helped me realize I didn’t have to go that distance alone. It was one of the reasons I was here today. I wanted my husband. To gaze into the bottomless azure of his stare, to feel his lips beneath mine and be calmed by a presence only he provided. I wanted to show him I was coping and to support him in everything he did.

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