Page 99 of The Sound in Silence

I can’t listen.

My mask isn’t up. The emotions not hidden. Not here, while I’m alone. When the darkness can consume me in ways greater than it’s ever been before. Not only consume, butdestroy.

And for once, I want it to. Desperately plead with the darkness to devour me whole, so I don’t have to live any longer.

This isn’t…this can’t be happening. Not now.

Everything good always ends. Right on time. Right when everything isrightin my life.

“Mrs. Rossi, thisisn’tover. I will have more tests ran until we get more concrete responses, but right now, based on your levels…Ariella, there’s a very low likelihood of conception. Your body doesn’t have enough of the hormone to produce eggs and—”

I hang up.

The phone slips through my hand and crashes to the floor.

The floor in which I drop into a ball, my forehead to the carpet.

The doctor says it’s not over, but it is. This reminds me of when I woke the morning after the accident, tried to speak, only to be bombarded with flashbacks and memories. That was when my stupid, useless brain stopped sending speech signals to my mouth.

Except this time, it’s not my speech. It’s not even my brain. It’s mybodybetraying me in the worst fucking way possible.

A part of me is broken.

Anotherpart of me is broken.

You’re a joke. Good things don’t happen to people like you. You’ll never be good enough for Erico.

There’s the voices again, but this time, they’re so correct, it makes me sick.

I’m not enough.

I’ll neverbeenough.

I’m broken.

Useless.

My arms wrap around my middle—my useless stomach. A stomach that’ll never stretch with a growing baby. The only other fucking thing I wanted in this world. A man to love me and a child I create.

Why is life so damn cruel? Was the accident, losing my mother,andmy voice not enough?

I scream into the floor.

Pain. Agony.

Blackness. The darkness can consume me. At least, it’s better than reality. Reality brings heartbreak.

I cry until the pain fades.

In other words…

…I don’t stop crying.

Erico

“We have him. Bringing him to the warehouse now,” Caladin reports through my cell’s speaker. “Two for two. Anyone else I’m hunting in your wife’s name? Tell me now before I get comfortable on my couch.”

“Smartass. I’m finishing up shit and then I’ll be over.”

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