Page 54 of Tempted to Rebel

I quickly flip it over and check the caller ID, jumping up so quickly that my chair clatters to the floor. The doctor’s office is calling.

My test results are finally in.

I swipe to answer the call, my heart racing inside of my chest. “Hello?”

“Miss Monrovia,” a familiar voice greets.

“Dr. Sakovia,” I stammer, surprised to hear his voice. It’s rare for the doctor to call a patient himself, but then again, I’ve known Wren Sakovia for years. He probably wants to give me the good news firsthand. Hope blossoms inside my chest, and I clutch my cell phone tightly.

“How are you, Celia?”

“I—I’m fine. Do you have my test results?” There’s a pause across the line, and my stomach drops. My bottom lip trembles as I try to hold myself together for the next two minutes of this agonizing phone call. “It’s negative, isn’t it?”

Dr. Sakovia sighs heavily. “I’m sorry, Celia. Truly. I know you’ve been trying for a while?—”

“That’s okay, Doc,” I wheeze, bending at the waist to keep from collapsing. It doesn’t help the raw pain lancing through my chest, and I have to gasp for air. “I’ll go back on the supplements. I’ll try again.”

“It’s good to hear that you’re optimistic. You’re still young, so the odds are in your favor.”

“Of course. Thank you for calling. I—I need to let everyone know.”

“Stay positive, Celia. These things can take time.”

We say goodbye, and the phone slips from my hand and clatters to the floor. I walk numbly out of the kitchen into the living room and take a seat in one of the barrel chairs, wrapping my favorite throw blanket—the fuzzy one with silver hearts—around my shoulders. After tucking my feet under my legs, I stare out the bay windows overlooking the backyard. Ted insisted that we keep a willow tree out back, but I’ve always hated the wispy thing.

Every time I get another negative pregnancy test, I can’t help but stare at its hideous, drooping branches. It’s mocking me—mimicking my own tears as its limbs blow in the wind.

I’m sick of that fucking tree.

I jump up from my seat and rush to the garage. Finding the pruning shears hanging on the wall is easy, but hacking away at the willow’s branches proves tougher than I imagined. Either the shears are dull or the branches are thick, or I’m justthat fucking weakthat I can’t cut off a tree limb, but I end up throwing the stupid shears against the trunk and screaming.

I scream myself raw, finally crumbling into a ball on the dead, dry grass.

Ruin comes up beside me the moment I finally quiet down, silent as a shadow as he takes one look at me, then at the discarded shears, then at the branch I failed to cut dangling like a snapped toothpick. He takes out his knife and slinks closer tothe willow. First, he slices through the branch I attempted to snip in half, cutting it away until it drops to the ground. Then he carves the rest of the tree bit by bit. It takes a long time, long enough that the sun dips below the tree line, but he doesn’t stop until the tree is naked and ugly and as rotten-looking as I feel inside.

He wipes his blade on his pants before stabbing it into the dirt by my feet. “You can stab it in the heart.”

“That’ll kill it.”

I think. I don’t know much about trees.

Ruin grunts and sits on the ground beside me. “Will it make you feel better?”

I hug my knees to my chest and fight another wave of tears. Sorrow radiates deep within me, making it hard to breathe. Still, I manage to choke out a reply. “I don’t think anything is going to make me feel better right now, Ruin.”

He stares at me, then at the naked tree. “That’s fair.”

Closing my eyes, I try to calm down. This isn’t the end of the world—not really. It’s just another disappointment in a long line of disappointments. I’m used to those. I can overcome this.

I can still get pregnant and raise a child. I can still have a family of my own. Adoption is an option, too, if it comes to that. But I’ve always wanted to carry my little one inside of me, and losing that experience feels like losing a piece of life itself.

A hand touches my cheek, turning my head to one side. I open my eyes and stare at a watery image of Ruin. It takes him a minute to say anything, but when he finally speaks, there’s a reverence in his voice that soothes some of the ache in my heart.

“I can see it,” he whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear. “In here.” Cupping my face, he leans in to get a deeper look into my eyes.

“See what?” The bitter, hurt part of me wants to say something sarcastic, like,how pathetic I am?

But Ruin can’t sense my cynicism. When he answers, he’s serious, the deep timbre of his voice making me tremble.

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