Page 6 of Beautifully Shattered
The older man in the white medical coat nods and opens one of the lower doors before sliding out a metal tray, and on it… a white sheet covering a very small lump.
My heart just about stutters to a stop, and I watch frozen as he slowly peels back the sheet.
A sob rips from my throat as I reach for the wheels of the chair, taking over to move myself closer, coming to stop beside her… beside the lifeless, impossibly still body of my baby girl.
Shit.
This is real.
Bobbi’s gone.
My little girl is dead.
Cries fall from me, tears tracking down my cheeks in a never-ending river, but my eyes never waver, taking in every inch of my Bobbi.
I didn’t get a good look at her out in that pine forest. She was messy, and I was crying then too, but I was also struggling to stay conscious.
Now that I think about it, that must have been from the blood loss.
Reaching out, I glide my finger gentlyover her tiny digits, her fingernails tinged blue, matching the rest of her skin.
“Hey, l-little o-one.” I sob. “I’m s-so s-sorry I couldn’t p-protect y-you.”
I trace her eyelashes and brows, barely there, both so light in colour. I wonder if she would have grown up to have blonde hair like me.
I guess I’ll never know.
“She’s beautiful, Abs.” Lexi kneels beside the wheelchair, and we lock eyes.
“She kind of l-looks like an a-alien,” I admit, the words stuttering out between sobs, and Lexi’s lips kick up in the smallest smile.
“An adorable alien.”
I nod, fresh tears falling. “Yeah. My l-little adorable a-alien.”
Reaching out, Lexi gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze that nearly anchors me, like she knows I’m barely holding on.
I can feel Ringo on my other side… quiet, but there.
I don’t want to drag my eyes away from my little girl for even a second, but when I hear him quietly sniff, I risk a glance.
Tears wet his eyes as he stares down at my baby, his jaw moving, clenched tight like he’s fighting to keep it together.
Shit.
I didn’t even think about what this might be like for him. He’s probably remembering Hope.
I know I’m angry at him. At everyone. But I’m not so far gone that I don’t feel the punch of his pain. It hits me hard. Right in the centre of the thing that’s broken.
My heart.
Iwant to ask him to come closer, but that wall of madness is still here, so impenetrable I can’t seem to break through it.
So, I turn my eyes back to my little girl, for one last look.
She’s right here. I can see her, lifeless, blue and cold, but my heart refuses to believe she’s really gone. Not when she still feels so alive in my heart.
I can feel it then. My heart. The beat faint at first, starts to thump harder, and with it, something inside me begins to stir.
