Falling Into You (29 page)

I toss a bill over the seat of the cab and don’t wait for change. I have to take a few deep breaths before I’m calm enough to unlock her door with the key she gave me.
 

We just exchanged keys last week; I thought things were great.

Up the stairs three at a time, nearly knocking over a little old lady in the process. There’s a piece of paper folded in half and taped to the door. Shit, no. Fuck no. What is this?
 

I rip the note off the door, and it’s oddly heavy for a piece of paper. There’s a plastic baggy inside the paper, and inside the bag is a pregnancy test. Oh
hell
no.
 

Oh hell yes.
 

Positive.
 

And no Nell. I search her tiny apartment more than once, as if it’d reveal her hiding in a cupboard or something.
 

Just the test in the stupid baggie, and three scrawled words:
I’m so sorry.

She fucking
ran
. I’m angry, I’m panicked. I’m so many things it’s all a jumble in my heart and head, and I can’t think straight. I’m on a plane suddenly, with no memory of having gone to the airport or buying a ticket or anything. I’m in a bad, bad place.

Memories are surfacing, things I’ve never told anyone, ever, not even Nell, and I’ve told Nell pretty much every sordid detail of my fucked up life…except
that
.

A couple long, brooding hours later, the plane has landed and I’m in a rental car—I don’t even know what kind—and flying far too fast north on I-75. I’ve shut down. I’m a blank, empty. No thoughts. Thoughts are dangerous. I can’t feel. All I can do is act, move, be.
 

I have to find her.

Fucking
have to
.
 

Miles flash, stoplights change too soon and slow me down. I barrel through more than one red light, earning blaring horns and flashing middle fingers. Then I’m approaching my parents’ house and it’s dusk, but I know she’s not there, why would she be? I skid to a stop in the middle of the road in front of Nell’s parents’ house. I leave the car door open, leave the engine running. Unreasoning panic drives me, panic so deep I don’t understand it, but I can’t stop it. I can only move with it, let it have reign over me.
 

I burst through the Hawthornes’ front door, slamming it open violently. I hear a glass shatter and woman scream.
 

“Colt! What the hell—what are you doing here?” Rachel Hawthorne has her back to the sink and has a hand pressed to her chest, confusion and fright in her eyes.

“Where is she?”

“Who? What—what are you doing here?”

“Where…is…
Nell
?” My voice is low and deadly.

She hears the threat in my voice and pales, begins to shake and back away. “Colt…I don’t know what you’re—she’s out running. She went for a run.”

“Where does she go when she runs?” I demand.

“Why do you want to know? Are you two…”

“Where does she
go
, Rachel?” I’m standing inches from her, towering over her, glaring. I should back down, but I can’t.

Rachel is trembling, white as a sheet. “She’s—the old county line road. North. It goes in a big arc and she—she cuts across Farrell’s field back this way.”

I’m out the door and running, full-on sprinting. Terror claws at me, and I can’t fathom it, can’t get out of its grip. It’s hounding me, pushing me. She’s pregnant and she ran from me rather than talking about it, but that’s not enough for the kind of reaction that’s driven me since this morning. It’s coming from way deep inside me, a kind of psychological foreknowledge that something is horribly, horribly wrong and I have to find her.

My feet stomp in the dirt, pushing mile after behind me. Dark now. Stars out, moon low and round. My blood is on fire, my heart pounds and my head throbs and my hands are clenched into fists.
 

I’m shaking, I’ve been flat-out running for at least two miles and I’m not in that kind of shape, but I can’t stop. Can’t.

Not won’t…

Can’t.
 

Another mile, and I know I’ve slowed, but I’m pushing myself, because I have to find her.
 

Farrell’s property, a wide expanse of high grass and old fallow fields and lines of trees subdividing properties. If she fell in the grass out here, I could pass right by her and never know it.

But there she is. Jesus, thank you.
 

She’s just sitting, hunched over, face in her hands. She’s sobbing. Even when she told me everything and cut loose with years worth of pent-up grief she didn’t weep like this. It’s…god, it’s the single most awful sound I’ve ever heard.
 

Worse even than the wet
thunk
of the bullet into India’s head.
 

Nell has been absolutely broken, and I don’t know by what.

I crouch beside her, touch her shoulder. She doesn’t even respond, doesn’t look at me. I scoop her in my arms, and something hot and wet coats my arms.
 

The ground where she was sitting is wet, black in the dim light. A huge swath of grass is blackened with dark liquid.
 

Blood.

Fuck.

“Nell? Baby?”

“Don’t
call
me that!” A sudden, vicious scream. She wrenches out of my grip and falls to the grass, crawls away, heaving so hard she’s close to vomiting. “It’s gone…it’s gone, it died…”

And I know what happened but I can’t even think the word.
 

I scoop her up again, feel hot sticky wet flowing from her. She’s still bleeding. “Nell, love, I’m here.”

“No, no…you don’t understand. You don’t—don’t get it. I
lost
it. The baby…I lost the baby.”

“I know, sweetheart. I know. I’ve got you, I’m here.” I can’t keep my voice from cracking. I’m as shattered as she is, but I can’t let on.
 

She hears anyway. She finally seems to realize it’s me. She’s limp in my arms, twists her head to look at me. Her face is streaked with red and sweat, hair tangled and plastered to her forehead. “Colton? Oh god…
god
. You weren’t supposed to follow me.”

Anger billows out of me. “What the
fuck
, Nell? Why’d you run? I love you. You think I wouldn’t—wouldn’t…shit…what did you think I’d say?”

She pounds my shoulder with a weak fist. “It’s what you
did
say. A baby is the last thing you wanted. And that’s what I was going to have. A baby. A fucking baby.”

“No, Nell. No. That’s not what I said. I said a
pregnancy
is the last thing we
need
. I did
not
say a baby is the last thing I wanted. And regardless, running was…so wrong. You’re mine. The baby would—would have been
mine
. I’d take care of you. I’ll always take care of you.” I’m crying. Like a fucking girl, I’m just openly crying as I carry Nell across the field, stumbling over roots and branches and hillocks. “I’m here…I’m here.”

She’s too quiet. Looking up at me, half-lidded, weak eyes. Unfocused. Shimmering wet in the moonlight. Bleeding onto me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was just so scared. I’m scared, Colt.”

It’s the first time she’s ever called me Colt. “I know, Nelly-baby. I’ve got you. You’ll be okay.”

“No…
no
. It’s not okay. I
lost the baby
, Colton.” Her voice hitches, breaks.
 

“I know…” so does mine. “I know.”

“I didn’t want a baby. I didn’t want to be a mother. I’m too young. It was too soon. I begged to not be pregnant all the way here. But—but I didn’t mean this. I swear. I didn’t want this. I’m sorry…Not this way.” She’s barely audible, rambling.

She’s lost a lot of blood. I’m covered from the chest down. My arms are trembling, my legs are jelly. I ran so far, so fast, and I’m operating on adrenaline right now, pure determination. I’m half-running with her, stumbling in the darkness.
 

Then the yellow glow of the Hawthorne’s backyard appears and I’m fumbling at the sliding door with bloody fingers. Rachel Hawthorne is frantic, begging, demanding to know what happened. Jim Hawthorne is on the phone.

“Colt, what happened?” Rachel’s voice from far away.
 

I won’t let go of her, can’t. She’s unconscious. Still bleeding on me.
 

A hand shakes my shoulder, brings me to reality. “Colton, what
happened
? Why is she bleeding?” Jim, harsh and demanding and angry.

“Miscarriage—” It’s all I can manage.
 

“Mis—she was
pregnant
? With your baby?” He’s even angrier now.
 

“I didn’t…didn’t know. She didn’t tell me. She ran. Came here…” I look down at her lovely, slack face. “Please, Nell. Wake up. Wake up.”
 

She doesn’t wake up. Her head lolls to one side, her hand falls free and swings. She’s barely breathing…or not at all.

Blue-gloved hands take her from me, gently but firmly. I try to fight them, but other hands pull me away. Rougher, harder hands, too many hands keeping me from her. I turn. Dad. Jim, Mom, Rachel. All pulling me away. Yelling at me, but there’s no sound. Just a roaring in my ears. A uniformed body steps into view, a young guy from EMS.
 

His eyes are brown and hard, but compassionate. Sound returns. “…Gonna be okay, Colton. She’s lost a lot of blood, but you got her help in time. I need you calm or I’ll have to have you detained and you won’t do Nell any good like that.”

I’m panting. I meet his eyes. Hope swells in my chest. “She’s not dead? She’ll be okay?”

“She’s alive, yes. Unconscious, but alive.”

“So much blood…” I stumble backward, fall to my ass on a couch, hit the edge and tumble to the floor as if drunk.

“She’s hemorrhaging pretty bad, but the doctors will be able to stop it, I’m sure.”
 

I don’t hear anything else. I’m back in time, back in a hospital in Harlem and a doctor is explaining something to me, but I don’t hear him either, since I tuned out after the words
lost the baby
. I’m back on the cold tile of the hospital waiting room, sobbing. India…dead. She never told me. Or she didn’t know she was pregnant. Either way, she’s gone, and so is the baby I never even knew about.
 

Hands move me, push me, pull me. Peel my sopping shirt off, wipe my torso with a hot, damp towel. I let them. I’m in so many places. Torn, mixed, shredded, broken.

Another baby I never got to know or hold, gone. I would have been there. But I never go the chance. No one asks me what I want. Just assumes because I’m a thug who can’t read that I wouldn’t want a baby.
 

Not fair, though. India didn’t get a chance either. Maybe she would have told me. Let me be a father. We talked about kids, India and I. She wanted them. I kept quiet and let her talk, didn’t tell her what I thought. Didn’t tell her I would have loved the child and let him be whoever he wanted to be, even if he couldn’t read. It’s all I wanted, all my life, and never got.

And now it’s been taken from me again.
 

Sudden rage burns through me, white hot, blasting and beyond powerful.
 

It’s not fucking
fair
.
 

I’m not me, suddenly. I’m an observer watching as someone who looks like me heaves to his feet, picks up the nearest object—a heavy, thickly-padded leather armchair—and heaves it through the sliding door. Glass shatters, scatters, the frame cracks.
 

Familiar yet foreign hands touch my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Colton.” My father’s voice, murmuring low in my ear. “Just calm down.”

But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know jack-shit about my life or anything I went through. I shove him away and stalk out the front door. My rental has been moved, and I climb behind the wheel. Jim Hawthorne slides in next to me.

“Sure you should be driving, son?” His voice is carefully neutral.

“I’m fine. And I’m not your fucking son.” I’m not fine, but it doesn’t matter.
 

I force myself to drive halfway normally to the hospital. Before I can get out of the car, though, Jim puts his hand on my forearm.

“Wait a sec, Colt.”

I know what this is about. “Not the time, Jim.”

“It
is
the time.” His fingers tighten on my arm, and I’m close to ripping his hand off, but don’t. He’s not afraid of me, but he should be. “She’s my daughter. My only child.”

I hang my head, drawing deep on my tapped-out reserves of calm. “I love her, Jim. I swear to you on my fucking soul, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have let her go anywhere alone if I’d known. She…she ran. She was scared.”

“How could you put her in that position after what she went through?” He’s hurt too, scared and angry.
 

I get it.

“We were getting through it. Together. Things between us just happened, and I’m not gonna fucking explain shit to you right now, or ever. She’s an adult, she made her choice. We’re good for each other.” I force my eyes to his, and damn it if his eyes don’t look so much like hers it hurts. “I’ll take care of her. Now and always.”

He doesn’t answer, just sits and stares at me, eyes boring into me. I see the father in him, but I also see the shrewd businessman, the piercing, searching eyes of a man used to judging character quickly and accurately.
 

“She may be an adult, but she’s still my baby. My little girl.” His voice goes deep and low and threatening. “You better take care of her. She’s been through enough. Now this? You goddamn better take care of her. Or I swear to god I’ll kill you.”

It’s a threat he didn’t need, but I understand him. I meet him stare for stare, let him see a bit of the darker side of me. The thug who learned early on never to back down, ever, for anyone. He nods, after a long time. I get out and enter the hospital, ask the desk nurse for her room number.
 

One-four-one. The ICU.
 

My boots squeak on the tile. Antiseptic tang stings my nostrils. A vaguely female-sounding voice squawks indistinctly on the PA. A young brunette in maroon scrubs hustles past me, tablet computer in her hands.