Page 10 of Never Stop
We both sat on the couch. Avery hung his head after placing his elbows on his bent knees. “We lost the baby,” he whispered, confirming my worst thoughts.
I didn’t think it was possible but my heart sank even more. I looked toward the bedroom. I wanted to wrap Nicole in my arms. I couldn’t imagine her pain. If it was anything like I was feeling, then I knew she was drowning in it. I wiped more tears from my face as I whispered, “How?”
“She had a miscarriage three weeks ago.”
My eyebrows arched. “Three weeks ago?”
He sighed and rubbed both hands down his face as he leaned back on the couch. “Doc said it was a fetal demise or some shit like that. Supposedly it’s more common than we know.”
“How could Nic not know for three weeks?”
Before he could respond, Easton came through the front door without knocking. No words were exchanged as Avery stood and they hugged. Once again, tears were shed. Even though Nicole wasn’t far along in her unplanned pregnancy, we’d all wanted the babyfor different reasons.
Nicole’s baby wouldn’t be my own, but it would be close because Nic and I were almost inseparable. I couldn’t wait to have my own children. For so long, I’d taken care of Bailee, but there was something about knowing you created another person, and especially with someone you loved. I wantedthat. I wantedthatwith Easton. And when Nicole told me she was pregnant, and she’d peered up at Avery, I had seenthatlook in her eyes. I wantedthat. I wantedthatso fucking bad. And nowthatlook was gone from Avery’s eyes, and I knew if I went into the bedroom where Nicole was,thatlook would be gone from Nicole’s eyes too.
“How did she lose the baby?” Easton asked.
“I was just telling B.B.” Avery sat on the couch and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling as if all his answers were in the sky. When I was going through my tumor ordeal, I knew how tiring it was to keep repeating myself. And I knew the feeling of wanting to just… be. “Nic had a miscarriage three weeks ago,” I answered for Avery.
Easton tilted his head to the side, and I knew he was questioning the timeframe. I shook my head slightly, still not understanding myself, so I grabbed my phone from my purse to search for answers. “Nic had no bleeding, no cramping, and her body thought she was still…” Avery couldn’t finish his sentence.
I reached over and patted his knee. “It’s okay. I’ll tell him.” Avery nodded his head and closed his eyes, still with his head tilted up.
I unlocked my phone and searched for a fetal demise, not wanting to put Avery in any more pain. I read what it was, tears forming in my eyes, and then I handed the phone to Easton. Because Nicole lost the baby before twenty weeks, it was considered a miscarriage as Avery had said, and often the cause was unknown.
“She won’t speak to me.”
I turned and looked at Avery. His eyes were still closed. “She won’t?” I asked as Easton handed me back my phone. We gave each other a tight smile.
“All she was doing was crying in bed, but I think she finally fell asleep because her cries have stopped.”
I looked to the closed bedroom door again. “Do you want me to try and talk to her?”
He sighed and blew out a long breath before responding. “You can try.”
I got up and quietly opened the bedroom door without saying a word. It seemed as though Nicole was sleeping. She wasn’t crying anymore, but I could tell that she had been not long before. Her face was still tearstained and soaked from her tears. I wanted to crawl in the bed with her, wrap her in my arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay. Instead, I let her sleep. I knew as much as the next person that when you were sleeping, you weren’t in pain.
Giving one more look over my shoulder before I left, I took a deep breath to hold back my own tears. I was done with both of us having heartaches and medical procedures. We were each dating our soulmates and life was supposed to be better, not worse.
Over the next few days, Nicole refused to see me.
She refused to talk to her mom too. It was my understanding that she refused to see anyone but Avery. I went over to their place every day to try and see her—I even brought frozen yogurt one day, but she never wanted to see me. When we went to the room, she wouldn’t look at us. Avery said she was barely eating, and the only thing she did was cry and sleep. It was like she was broken.
All of us were sad and wanted to help Nicole. When I’d talked to her mom, she told me that Nic needed time to heal. I knew that one day she’d be okay, but I wasn’t used to my best friend shutting me out. We were supposed to be there for each other, not each of us keeping things from one other.
I was starting to worry.
It had been a few more days since Nicole’s miscarriage, and she was still held up in her room. I, however, had my appointment with the genetics counselor. I didn’t research desmoid tumors and try to find out what the genetics counselor was going to tell me before the appointment. I didn’t want to know, and I didn’t research much after Dr. Bloom told me my diagnosis after my surgery. I was more focused on healing and radiation than thinking of going through the nightmare again.
I was done with tumors so why bother?
I was done.
Done.
Done.
Done!
