How had this happened? I was fine, healthy even. A little boy? I’d never considered it could have been a boy. I was so certain it was a girl. My intuition was wrong. Just like my intuition about Finn telling me the truth had been wrong. What had I been thinking, letting him back in my life again?
He reached to touch my face, but I turned away.
“Don’t.” I said coldly.
He was confused. “Em, what’s the matter?”
When Finn left me that night, I had been broken. The feeling of losing my first love was devastating. Walking in on my husband fucking the interior decorator was bad. It hurt, but in a way that sealed the idea that I was clearly unable to hold on to something. Finding out that Finn lied to me and hidden things from me after we said we’d be honest with each other was crushing. But this… losing the last thing that I’d felt was mine? A high school break-up, divorce, starting over… none of it was as devastating as this. This shattered my heart in a way that I knew I was never going to be the same again.
This baby was something good that had come from something bad. It represented a new start for me. And now it was gone. My son was gone, and so was whatever had been left of my heart. I didn’t know what broken was until I felt this kind of pain.
“Get out.” I suddenly stopped crying and wiped away the stray tears left on my face.
Finn looked like I’d slapped him across the face.
“Emilyn please!”
I turned my face toward the door no longer able to look at him.
“I don’t want you here, get out please.”
“Not gonna happen Tiny Girl, we’re talking about this.”
“You either get out, or I’ll have you removed.”
Out of my peripheral vision I could see him stare at me, shocked. He didn’t know what to do.
“Em…” He tried pleading again.
“Now Finley! Get out!” I nearly screamed at him, grabbing the plastic cup I’d just drank from and throwing it at him.
He dodged it, then slowly stood up from his chair and moved towards the door. With his hand on the handle he turned to face me again. Trying to keep the emotion off of his face his eyes met mine. In a bold and certain voice he spoke to me before he left.
“This right here,” he pointed between himself and me, “This isn’t done. I’m leaving because you want me too. But I’ll be back tomorrow Emilyn. I’m sorry that this is happening and I’m here for you. I’m only a phone call away and I’ll be here in the blink of an eye. You’re not going to get rid of me. Remember that you’re mine, and we will get through this. I love you with every fiber in my soul, and if I have to love you enough for the both of us, for however long it takes, I will.”
He walked out the door and shut it behind him. I lay there, unmoving, in a state of total and utter shock. My life was over. I wanted my son back. I wanted to know why this was happening to me. I had no idea what I was going to do now, but at that very moment, a nurse walked in to check on me. She gave me a shot of something that made me sleepy, so I guess the ‘what I was going to do now’ question was answered, because minutes later I fell into a deep empty slumber.
I hadn’t lived my life with regrets. I picked myself up, moved forward and took each twist and turn as a learning experience. That hasn’t been the case with Em. With her I’d had moments of wanting to relive my time, just to feel her again. But reliving your past just to experience it again and regretting your past because of a shitty mistake you’d made were two very different things. If I could take back the last forty-eight hours of my life, I would. I didn’t know how I was going to fix this mess. I kept replaying what had happened at the hospital, and the look on her face as I told her the baby was gone wouldn’t leave my mind. It would forever be burned into my brain. The many emotions that flickered through those