tears come as I lie and think about the child we’re not having. Quiet tears that just keep falling. This may be harder than when I suffered my last ectopic pregnancy. At least then, I wiped all hope from my mind. I told myself I would never have a child. I refused to entertain my options. This time, I opened myself fully to my options. I allowed myself to believe in and imagine the family Winter and I would have. I made plans. I started thinking about how I would set the nursery up. Hell, I even started thinking about whether we’d send our child to public or private school.
“This isn’t the end of the road, angel,” Winter says. “This was just the first cycle.”
My tears don’t stop. I know he’s trying to be positive, but fuck positivity right now. I don’t fucking feel positive.
When I don’t respond, he says, “Birdie. Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“I know, but shutting down on me isn’t going to help you and it’s sure as fuck not going to help us.”
I push his arms off me and leave the bed to go into the en suite. Closing the door, I sit on the toilet and suck deep breaths in. I don’t bother to wipe my tears; they’re not going to stop any time soon, so there’s no point.
The crushing pain is strangling me. I don’t want to shut down on Winter, but I have nothing left to give. I’ve given all I have.
The en suite door opens and Winter steps in. I don’t look at him. Not even when he says, “Birdie, look at me.”
His phone rings before he can say anything else.
“What?” he snaps when he answers it.
I barely register his conversation, not until he says, “I’m not leaving Birdie. You’ll have to handle this yourself.”
“You can go,” I say. I’d rather be alone.
He ignores me and carries on his conversation. “I’ll be off-grid for the rest of the day. Just take care of everything however you think best.”
Ending the call, he says to me, more forcefully than last time, “Birdie, look at me.”
“No.”
“Fuck,” he says, squatting so he can come down to my eye level. “Why not?”
When he tips my chin up, I want to lash out at him. I want to yell at him to just leave me alone. I. Don’t. Want. To. Talk. About. This. But I don’t have the energy for that, so I allow him to force me to look at him.
“Baby,” he starts, but I cut him off.
“I can’t look at you, because all I see are your hopes and dreams that I’ve stolen from you.” I swallow the grief and fear clawing at me. “What if I can never give you a baby?”
“We’ve discussed this. If we get to that point, we have other options. You know I’m good with that if it’s the path we have to take.”
“Stop talking about paths and options and all that bullshit. I’m tired of it. I’m so fucking tired of it all. For once, just tell me how much this sucks for you, too.”
“It sucks, but we knew this could happen. Hell, you researched the fuck out of success rates; you knew this was likely—”
“That doesn’t make it any easier. God! Stop being so fucking matter-of-fact about this. You see everything so black and white when there’s so much grey here. I’m fucking drowning in the grey, and I just need you to acknowledge it exists, and to stop trying to solve it or fix me or make everything better. I just want to spend the day crying and grieving. Can you let me do that?”
His eyes search mine and I instantly feel bad for vomiting my grief all over him, but I can’t take it back. I won’t take it back. It might have been hurtful, but it’s my truth, and it’s all I have to give him now.
He nods and stands, holding out his hand. I take it and let him lead me back to the bed. After he wraps me in his arms again, he says, “I’m drowning, too, baby. Don’t shut me out.”
I don’t know if it’s his confession or the torment I hear in his voice, but Winter admitting he’s as broken as I am over this makes me cry again.
We turn silent after that, each lost in our own emotions.
How will we survive this?
18
Winter
* * *
It’s been four days since Birdie and I received the news she’s not pregnant, and if