The Space Between Us (23 page)

Chapter
Nine

   A week went by and nothing changed.  Reeve put the room back together, but I barely got out of bed.  If I wasn’t sick from the pregnancy, I was sick from the hurt.  Reeve called, pretending to be me, and made an appointment for me to see a doctor.  She was on a mission to keep me focused on the baby and I knew she was right.

  
By the time a second week passed, I was out of bed and going to class, although my mind was distracted and my grades were slipping rapidly.  I tried to focus but my mind constantly wandered to Asher, wondering what he was thinking, wondering if he missed me, wondering if I would ever hear from him again.  I had to, right?  No one would just walk out on their pregnant girlfriend and never speak to her again.  He wasn’t that guy.  My mind wandered to Asher often and my hand started wandering to my belly.

  
I’d never really known anyone who had gone through a pregnancy before.  I was full of questions and no one had answers for me.  But each day that passed I started to feel more and more connected to the baby growing inside of me.  I wasn’t sure how far along I was.  I was hoping to learn that at the doctor appointment the next week. 

  
I might have been crazy or paranoid, but I started to see my belly poke out just a little bit.  I would lay in my bed at night and pull up my shirt, gazing down at my stomach.  I was a little in awe of everything.  I was scared shitless, no doubt, but I was also mesmerized by the tiny hill of a bump that I could see beginning to grow.  I was creating a person.  A baby.  My baby.  Asher’s baby.

   It was times like these, quiet moments in the evening when I was alone with my baby bump, that I started to feel really close to my mom.  I could imagine how she felt about me as I grew in her belly.  I could feel the love I was already developing for my child and I knew she had felt the same way.  It wasn’t short of magical the way I loved this baby.

   It was my love for the baby that made me hold on to hope for Asher.  I hoped, every day, that he would show up and hold me and tell me everything was going to be ok.  I wanted nothing more than for him to want me, to want our baby, and for us to all be together.  I knew we could figure everything else out as long as we were together.  But I knew there was no choice left for me if I had to choose.  I would always choose my baby.  Always.  I knew that if Asher came around and was suddenly ok with choosing adoption, I wouldn’t be.  That first day, when I was still in shock from being blindsided by an unexpected pregnancy, I thought I might have been capable of letting someone else raise my baby.  But two weeks later, now that I bonded with the baby in my belly, I knew I could never choose adoption.  I’d move home with my dad if I had to.  I’d make any changes necessary to keep my baby.

   I was still getting sick in
the mornings, but the nausea seeped into the evenings as well.  I was losing weight because I couldn’t keep anything down.  Reeve was obviously worried about me and her patience was wearing thin with Asher.

   “He should
be here taking care of you,” she said to me the morning of my doctor appointment.  “He should be the one going with you today, not me.”

   “You don’t have to go with me,” I said, feeling guilty about everything she had done for me in the last three weeks.  She was right
though.  She shouldn’t be the one going with me.

   “Hey,” she said as she came to stand in front of me.  “There’s nothing in the world that would keep me out of that exam room.  I’m here for you, one hundred percent.  I just wish Asher would get his head out of his ass.”

   “Have you spoken to him?”  I asked hopefully.

   “No.  He won’t answer my texts.  I will text him today and tell him when and where the appointment is, and hopefully he’ll surp
rise us both and show up.”  I didn’t expect a different answer, but knowing that he wasn’t talking to either one of us somehow hurt more than I had anticipated.  I just wanted to know how he was feeling.  I’d given him the space he asked for, but being apart from each other didn’t make me any less pregnant.

  
I sat in my first class of the day when I felt a tight pinch very low in my belly.  It made me wince, but was gone quickly enough.  I took a few deep breaths and tried to concentrate on the lecture.  In my next class, I felt the pinch again and it was more painful.  I clutched my stomach and gave a small gasp.  The girl sitting next to me leaned over and asked me if I was ok.  I tried to keep a small smile on my face and nodded at her.  She didn’t look like she believed me, but turned back to the professor at the front of the class.  A few minutes later the pain was back and I had to leave the class.

   The pain was unreal, and it was coming and going in waves.  I was in the bathroom, bent over in pain, trying to call Reeve.  When I finally got ahold of her, I begged her to pick me up to take me to the hospital.

   “Something is wrong,” I cried.

   “I’ll be right there.”

   I made it to the front of the building and only had to wait a few minutes for Reeve’s car to come screeching around the corner.  When I got in, I was trying to keep the pain from my face.

   “What’s going on?”

   “I’m just having some pains in my stomach.  Can we stop at Asher’s house first please?”

   “Charlie, if something’s wrong you need to go to the hospital.”

   “I need Asher.”  She looked at me hard for a few seconds and then pulled away from the curb.  My stomach cramped the whole drive to his house and when Reeve parked, I had to take some deep breaths before I could get out. 

   “Do you want me to come with you?” 

   I shook my head.  “I will be right back.  I just need him to come with me.”  It hadn’t occurred to me that he might not even be home.  I hoped he was in the house; I needed him more at that moment than I ever had before.

   I walked through the door that lead into the dining area.  I gasped and grabbed onto a table to keep myself upright as pain shot through my abdomen.  I cried out, but tried to muffle the sound, not wanting anyone to find me crying in the middle of their house.  Once the pain subsided a bit
, I walked gingerly towards the stairs.  I started to climb the stairs slowly, one step at a time, afraid that some sudden movement would cause more pain.  I made it halfway up when another bolt of pain rocketed through me.  This time though, along with the pain, came a warm wetness between my legs.  I was bleeding and the realization made me silently cry out.  I slowly continued up the stairs and eventually made it to Asher’s door. 

  
Hot tears ran down my face, but I was still silent, wanting just to get Asher and get out of the house.  I didn’t need anyone finding me like this.  Bleeding and crying in a frat house.  I needed to get out of there unnoticed.  I turned his doorknob and pushed the door open slowly.

I bled
.

I
cried.

I
lost my baby, of that I was sure.

I stared
at the only boy I’d ever loved, the boy who had promised me the world and then disappeared, laying underneath a blonde who was straddling him.  Naked.

   My hand flew up to cover my mout
h.  One hand silenced the pain I felt watching Asher fuck someone else, the other hand covered my belly, trying to hold on to the last moments I had with my child. 

   My mind was in shock, not wanting to believe that Asher would really be having sex with someone else.  And I might not have believed it if I couldn’t see my name
, the name he’d given me out of love, in bold black ink, covering the arm that was wrapped around whoever was atop him.  I left the door open and ran as quickly as I could out to Reeve’s car.  When I made it in the car, all the cries I held in came pouring out.

   “Please Reeve, get me to the hospital.”  She peeled out of her parking spot and drove
down the street.

   “What happened up there?”  Reeve looked panicked as she sped down the street.  “Charlie, talk to me.  What’s going on?”

   “I’m losing the baby, Reeve.  I can feel it.  I’m bleeding and I’m losing the baby.”  More sobs came from me, but I couldn’t stifle them back, couldn’t hold them in.  My hands were occupied, cradling my stomach, the pain overwhelming.  “Asher was in his room with some girl.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “I mean, he was fucking someone else while I sat there bleeding in his doorway.”  Reeve was silent.  I didn’t really expect her to have anything to say.  What was there to say?  “I don’t want to talk about it.  Just get me to the hospital.”

   Once we got
to the ER it was a complete whirlwind.  The nurse at the admin desk saw me, saw the blood between my legs, and ushered me back to a triage room immediately.  She tried to argue with Reeve that she couldn’t come and Reeve promptly put her in her place.  I managed to convince the nurse to let her stay with me, confiding in her that I had no one else.

   I was given a gown and when I changed
, I cringed at the amount of blood that I had actually lost.

   “Oh my god, Charlie,” Reeve said from her chair.  I tried not to look, but it was impossible.  Most of my pants were soaked with blood.  After getting the gown on and climbing on the exam table, I could still feel more blood emptying out of me.  The cramping was getting worse and it was all I could do to hold my stomach until the doctor came in.

   A woman with dark hair entered the room pushing a machine.  She looked me over, her face not showing any emotion, and introduced herself.

   “I’m Dr. Lance.  You’re Charlie?”

   “Yes.  That’s me,” I squeaked.

   “How many week
s pregnant are you?”  She asked while she started fiddling with the machine she’d brought in with her.

   “I don’t know exactly.  I haven’t had my first pre-natal visit yet.  My last period was five weeks ago.”  The doctor
nodded and moved closer to me and the exam table.

   “Ok, Cha
rlie, I am going to do an ultrasound on your stomach to try and see what we’re dealing with, ok?”

  
I nodded my head, unable to use my voice in that moment.  I was already positive about what was happening.  Dr. Lance squirted some gel on my stomach and then took something from the machine that looked like a remote control, placed it on the gel, and moved it around.  I looked up at the screen and it looked like a TV without a signal – black, with little, white snow.  Finally, there seemed to be a bigger black area on the screen and the doctor stopped moving the wand around.

   “Ok, here’s your uterus, Charlie.”  Time stood still.  I silently prayed t
o hear good news.  I begged someone, somewhere, to hear me and to save my baby.

   “Do you see these two circular looking areas?”  She said as she pointed to two small round objects on the screen.

   “Yes,” I managed.

   “Those are the babies.  You look to be about ten weeks along.  But, I’m sorry, Charlie.  Neither one has a heartbeat.”

   “Babies?”  I cried.

   “Twins.”

   “And they’re gone?”

   “I’m afraid so.”

   “Oh my god,” I cried.  I rolled over onto my side, caring nothing about the doctor or her examination, and gave in to the wave of grief that washed over me.  I felt arms wrap around me and I heard Reeve’s voice in my ear, whispering apologies and comforting words I didn’t understand.

   Even though I knew what was happening before we entered t
he exam room, hearing the words, being told that I lost not one but two babies, broke me.  For just a moment I wanted to die with them.  I wasn’t sure I had anything left to continue on for in this life.  I pictured Asher’s hand on the small of that girl’s back, him enjoying another woman, while I was losing my babies.  I couldn’t possibly imagine walking out of that hospital and having anything to go back to.

   Would I be able to hold my babies in the afterlife?  Would they be the chubby-cheeked, smiling angels I pictured them to be?  Could I hold them close to me and breathe in their baby smell?  Could I sing to them the same songs I remember my mother singing to me?
  Could I see my mother again?  Would she be waiting for me, my two angel babies in her arms?  Perhaps, we could all be together again.  Maybe.

   My thoughts were interrupted by Reeve’s voice.

   “Charlie, you need to come back to us.”

  
The only thing that kept me tethered to this world was the fear that death would only bring nothingness.    The pain I felt made everything real.  The babies were real.  The agony of remembering them would be better than not having anything at all to cling to.

   “Charlie, please, look at me.”

   I finally rolled back over to look at Reeve who was also crying.  The doctor still stood next to the exam table, a concerned yet professional look on her face.

   “Why…” I choked on the words.  “Why would this happen?” I asked the doctor.

   “Healthy women miscarry babies more often than you’d think.  It’s a sad yet true fact.  Sometimes the pregnancies just don’t take or there is something wrong with the babies that we just can’t see at this early stage.  There is no indication that women who experience a miscarriage can’t go on to have full-term, healthy pregnancies later in life.  I’m sorry.”