Again. I blinked slowly, my face almost numb to the sensation of silent tears pouring down it. Even knowing it was coming. Even though I’d suspected the worst and tried to prepare for it, I wasn’t. I was not prepared for this. I shouldn’t have had to be prepared for this.
Eventually my hurt coiled into anger and I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo of the paper lying on the floor. Then I sent it to Sean in a text with the words, After everything we’ve been through, this is how you choose to go? Coward!
He was a coward, and I was calling him on it. I understood the impulse to protect me by leaving. I just always thought he would know better than to follow it.
I stared at the screen. Willing the three little dots to appear.
They didn’t.
♪♫♪
I hardly slept that night. My entire body ached. A horrid concoction of pain from the accident, from being strapped to that backboard, from the crying. Everything hurt. But I think my heart had taken the worst beating. I wanted to keep Joanie in bed with me so I wouldn’t feel so alone, but I was afraid my tossing and turning would keep her awake, or end up smothering her. So instead I pulled her bassinet right next to my bed so that I could reach over and rest my hand on her tiny frame whenever the darkness welled up inside, threatening to pull me under.
I kept having flashbacks of those first nights without Jonas, when there was nothing but loneliness to warm my bed.
It ached.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I must have fallen into an exhausted sleep after Joanie’s four AM feeding. When I woke up, the sunlight filtering through the windows was much brighter than usual, leaving me confused. I reached out a hand to touch Joanie, but my fingers met with empty blankets.
I sat up, fear washing through me.
“I’ve got her. She’s okay.”
My head turned automatically toward the voice and I found Naomi sitting in the glider in the corner of my room.
I blinked hard, letting my heart go back to its normal rhythm.
“Sorry I scared you,” she said with a sad smile that was nearly a grimace.
“Nae,” I breathed. “What are you doing here?”
Her eyes got even sadder. “Sean arranged for me to come.”
My brow furrowed as I tried to make her words fit, then I put a hand to my head. It still hurt.
“You have a pretty impressive bruise,” Naomi commented. “What’s under the bandage?”
I ignored the observation. I didn’t want to talk about my head. “Sean sent you?”
She nodded.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yes.”
My nostrils flared with a sudden burst of hot anger. “He won’t answer my phone calls, but he talked to you?” My voice was brittle, humming with rage.
“I’m sorry, Libby,” she said quietly.
“What did he say?” My lips pursed as I tried to keep my anger in check. I didn’t want Naomi to be hit with the shrapnel of my fury.
“He just said you’d been in an accident and that you needed me to be here for you—since he couldn’t.”
“Sure he could have,” I muttered as I scooted back to lean against the headboard. “He could have just chosen to stay.” I dug my fingers into my hair and scratched at my scalp.
“He sounded…” she started but trailed off.
I looked up at her. “What? He sounded what?” I was desperate for any scrap of insight.
“He sounded bad, Libby. Like he was barely holding it together…like he wasn’t holding it together at all, actually,” she amended.
“And he thinks staying away from me will make him feel better?” I asked in frustration. “Doesn’t he want to see that I’m okay? Doesn’t he want to check on Joanie?”
As if hearing her name, my baby stretched and grunted in Naomi’s arms, then her lower lip pushed out into a tiny pout. I held out my arms and Naomi crossed to hand her over. I propped my arms up with pillows and Joanie settled in to nurse, her little grunts making her sound like a piglet. In spite of everything, I smiled at that noise. Then I laid my head back against the headboard with a sigh. “He left me, Nae.”
“I don’t think—”
She stopped talking when I snapped my head up to glare at her. “Yes,” I said with conviction. “He did.”
She frowned and nodded and then leaned in to give me a hug.
Heat rushed to my face and my shoulders started to shake as a prelude to my tears. “How