Page 1 of Beyond Oblivion

Chapter One

Trenton

“Can you just please, please stop? I love you so much, but please,” Camille called from the bathroom.

I skidded to a halt and then slowly leaned back to peek in, in case I’d missed anything in the last four seconds. My wife, my everything, was perched on the toilet lid, face-palming like she’d just sent a spicy text meant for me to the family group chat. The look on her face made me want to keep pacing until my feet wore a trail into the floor, but I channeled my inner Diane Maddox instead. The digital clock on Camille’s nightstand cast a sharp, glowing light in the dark. Any second now… she was going to tell me I was going to be a father. I could feel it in my underperforming testicles.

“Have you looked yet?” I asked from the far side of the bedroom, practically glued to the spot. Not because I wanted to be, but because the queen herself had just declared all movement illegal.

“No.”

“CanIlook?”

“No,” she groaned, annoyed with me.Already has the preggo grumpies. This is it.

We were waiting for a little pink line to tell us if our whole lives were about to change… or a blue line… or that little digital screen that saidPregnantor a bigHey, Fuck You. I couldn’t remember, we’d tried them all.

A baby—literally the one thing she wanted more than me, besides maybe unlimited nachos, and I hadn’t exactly delivered yet. I squeezed my eyes shut, picturing her standing up, grabbing that little plastic pee stick from the sink, and then—boom—tears of joy, followed by me sprinting over like a dramatic rom-com hero. If I focused hard enough, maybe I could will it into existence. Because, hey, that works in the movies, right?

I’d tried it the old-fashioned way. The ol’ one-two, where I give Camille the best night of her life and as an extrayou’re welcome, leaving behind a mini me inside her little oven.

God? It’s me, Trenton. Yeah, I know, I’m a dick, definitely not your favorite person and we don’t really talk that much, but please.Pleaselet her see a line.

The toilet creaked when she stood. I waited for the gasp that would precede the happy tears I so desperately wanted to see running down her face, but there was just silence. My shoulders fell, and I walked over to the bathroom doorway, leaning my head against the door jamb. The emptiness in her eyes told me she was holding another negative test.

“Next time,” I said, standing behind her and wrapping her small frame in my arms.

She dropped the test into the sink and hugged my hands to her chest. “Next time.”

A year and a half post-wedding, Camille had ditched birth control. Back then, ournext timeswere full of optimism. Now? Well, now we were running the baby-making Olympics—timing, tracking, testing. Scheduling sex like it was some weird fertility-themed advent calendar. IVF? Yeah, that was looming like Pizza the Hutt inSpaceballs, but we’d need second jobs just to afford it, and we were already working fifty, sometimes sixty hours a week.

Infertility: the gift that keeps on giving.

Camille looked up at me with her big, blue eyes and a sad smile, wiping a tear with her finger. “Happy anniversary.”

“I know,” I said. “A baby would’ve been way better than the stupid earrings I got you.”

“Hey. You outdid yourself. I looked it up. Year four is fruits or appliances. I wasn’t supposed to get diamonds until our 30th.”

I pressed my forehead against the back of her dark hair. For a long time, I’d just tried to be strong but leaving her alone in her grief made things worse. We needed to mourn each new heartbreaking negative test together. Console each other. It wasn’t just the disappointment; it was the whole damn process. Lab work… check. Ovulation trackers… check. Every fertility tip, trick, and old wives’ tale… double check. The doc gave us a shiny diagnosis of “unexplained infertility,” which basically meant,everything looks good on paper, but I hope you like failure or this isn’t going to be one fucking bit enjoyable.

Her eggs? Golden. My swimmers? Michael Phelps could never. Hormones? Call ’em Goldilocks because they were just right. We even swapped out our old lives for new, ‘responsible’ ones. We quit smoking, quit drinking, bought matching black vehicles—one truck, one soccer mom SUV—and ate organic, rich people food. We were ready, damn it. Had been ready. But nope, nothing. And the real kicker? Watching my brothers crank out kids like their wives’ vaginas were clown cars was enough to make me wanna punch a nun selling Girl Scout cookies.

Taylor and Falyn’s story could rival a soap opera. One-night stand, surprise kid, emotional reconciliation, followed by a miracle pregnancy. Falyn wasn’t even supposed to be able to have kids. But life said,Hold my beer,and boom—two babies, two moms, all in the same year. Fast-forward to Hollis and Hadley’s ninth birthdays, and while Falyn loves her children equally, it was no secret she still struggled with untangling the emotional spaghetti of knowing Taylor created a life with someone else while he swears he was grieving their relationship.

Travis and Abby, unlike Taylor, had actual twins—James and Jessica—and as of three or so months ago, another on the way. Tyler and Ellison had Gavin five years ago, the grandson of a billionaire being raised in a modest townhome in the woods of Colorado.

Then there was Shepley and America—married, normal pregnancy, normal kids, no drama. Ezra, the oldest, was six, Eli was barely in pre-school, and Emerson was potty training—and whether those boys were together or running solo, they somehow kept the same ear-splitting decibel level. America? She was made for chaos, a full-on no-nonsense boy mom. One second, she’d kiss their boo-boos with the tenderness of a Hallmark card, and the next, she’d morph into a drill instructor straight out of boot camp, barking orders like she had a whistle and a clipboard.

Including Shepley’s three boys and Olive as an honorary mention, there were nine mostly pint-sized hurricanes making up the next generation of Maddoxes—and not a single one was ours. Every new baby announcement felt like a cocktail of emotions, shaken, not stirred, and served with a side of guilt. The toughest to swallow? Thomas and Liis. They hadn’t even hinted at wanting kids. Hell, Liis had dragged her feet about marriage for so long that I half-expected her to send Thomas a rejection email. But then it happened—baby on board.

Camille tried to keep it together, wearing a supportive smile like it was armor, but she couldn’t hide from me. I knew those feelings too well, because they were mine. Jealousy wrapped in guilt, mixed with the ache of wanting something everyone else seemed to get so easily. Every announcement, every birth stat in the family group chat, was a reminder of what we didn’t have. We were happy for new babies in the family, obviously, but damn, that pain in Camille’s eyes? The dick kick of guilt and shame every month? It stuck around like a bad hangover.

I turned my wife around to face me, lifting her chin with my thumb so she’d meet my gaze. “It sucks. It fucking sucks, babe. But I still have hope.”

“What if it doesn’t happen for us?”

“It will.”

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