Waking Up (38 page)

Adriana is in a ball on her bed, her face down in her pillows, her hair fanned out, appearing to be protecting her from the outside world.  Her body shudders up and down from her cries.  Normally, I find everything about her beautiful, but there is nothing beautiful about the sounds coming from her.  Ugly, wracking sobs shatter the stillness of the room.

My feet are routed in place when I open the door.   Seeing her so broken, I jump into action, propelling me toward her.  I fly onto the bed, scooping her into my lap, pulling her hair back from her face.  It’s red and blotchy, tears flowing like a waterfall.  What news did Deidre get that has my angel so upset?  

I know what Grams said, but I can’t watch her in this pain and not ask.  It’s killing me, gutting me from the inside out, to see her hurt so much.  I try kissing her tears away, but they keep falling.  Her sobs echo off the walls, mocking my efforts to calm her.  My whispers that it will be alright are swallowed up in the loudness of her cries.  This is too much.  It’s too hard to watch her suffer.   

Taking her face into both my hands, trying to rub away some of her tears with my thumbs, I raise her face to look at mine. “Adriana, please tell me what happened with Deidre.”  I’m begging, I can hear it in my voice, but I’m desperate for her to stop crying.  “Please, sweetness, stop crying and talk to me.”

Her hazel eyes, tears still brimming over, lock on mine.  I’m afraid she won’t be able to speak through the sobs still wracking through her petite frame.  Keeping my hands on her face, I use my arms to bring her closer to me, offering the only support I can.

“Dee’s pregnant,” she cries out as more tears fall.

What the fuck!  She’s crying, like this, because one of her best friends is pregnant?

And, once again it comes back to Alex.

My heart starts to harden.  I try to understand, but I’m losing the battle.  While she was gone learning her friend was pregnant, I was pouring my heart out to my Grams.  I realized I wanted to find a way to have her in my life, not that I knew how, but she just showed me that that will never happen.

A half hiccup, half sob escapes her lips, causing me to look at her, see that no matter how hurt I am I still want her and I hate myself for that.  I still want to comfort her.  Take away the pain that is making her every day unbearable.

“Isn’t it a good thing that she’s pregnant, sweetness?”  I feel like I’m talking to an injured child.  She’s shaking her head yes, but the tears keep falling.  I want to understand her reaction, but I can’t fathom how Deidre getting pregnant affects her this badly.

“She… she told me… she… told me she thought one…. of us… would have… kids by now to… play with her… kids.”  More sobs and fresh tears start.  I drop my hands from her face and wrap her in my arms and she clings to my shirt, burying her face in my chest.

Now, it’s time for me to let her talk this out.  Thanks, Grams, for the advice.

“Alex and me… we were… we were… oh God… I can’t tell you.”  A scream of pure pain rips through her into my body, muffled by the barrier between us.  All the anger I felt at her moments before is gone.  Her grief is now mine, her pain is shredding me.

“Shhhh, sweetness, it’s ok.  I’ve got you.  I get it.  You and Alex were trying for a baby, weren’t you?”  I’m trying hard to keep my voice soothing, calm, whatever she needs to keep her talking and hopefully get her to stop crying.

“You don’t get it, Tucker.  No one does,” she yelps looking up at me, devastation in her face.  “I was pregnant when the accident happened.  I let my babies die.”

Oh God—Motherfucker NO!  This is so much worse than I thought.  She’s not just grieving Alex.  And did she say babies?  What the hell happened in that accident?  No wonder she hasn’t been able to move on.  Why would Deidre make a comment about kids unless…

Wait, what does she mean she let her babies die?  This doesn’t make sense.  How do I now know something I don’t think her friends know?  

Shit!

I asked her to let me in and she did.  But, how do I help her when I can’t help myself?

Chapter Thirty Six

Adriana

“Oh God, Tucker… I’m sorry.  You weren’t supposed…”  My body shutters, sobs wrack through me.  I’m trying to pull myself together, but the tears keep coming, the pain ripping through me, shredding my insides.  I haven’t let myself think of the twins in so long.  One comment unraveled my entire world.  The wounds I thought were healing are now wide open and festering.

Tucker’s strong arms tighten around me, wrapping me in a cocoon of muscles.  I should push him away.  I don’t deserve to have him here, but I’m too weak.  I can’t bring myself to feel the emptiness that will come if I ask him to go away.

He’s whispering to me, telling me it will be alright as he rubs my hair.  If only he knew it can never be alright for me again.  Nothing he says or does will ever take it away.  It can never get better, but I let him keep comforting me because it feels good to be in his arms.  But, the more it feels good to be in his arms, the more I get angry with myself.  I shouldn’t be allowing myself any comfort, any warmth, any peace.  I don’t deserve any of that.  I deserve all the pain I feel.

“Let go of me,” I shout breaking out of his embrace, feeling instantly guilty at the hurt expression on his face.  “I’m sorry, Tucker.  I don’t deserve you or your comfort.  You don’t understand.”  I’m trying to make him understand, but I don’t know how to.

“Shhh.  Adriana, there’s nothing for you to be sorry about.  You’re grieving.  I get it.  It’s okay to―”

“It’s not okay and it’s never going to be okay.  You don’t get it.”  The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.  His eyes are moving all over my face, trying to find some understanding of what is going on with me.  I keep expecting pity, but there’s only compassion and part of me hates him for that because he’s breaking through my walls.

“Don’t you see?  I lost my babies in that accident, Tucker, but I was so busy worrying about Alex that I didn’t even think about them.  How could I not think about them?  How could I not feel them leaving me, not know I was losing them?  It was my job to protect them.  I was their mom and I didn’t think of them once.  Not for one second.  I only thought of Alex.”

Fresh tears fall and new pain rips through me thinking of my babies knowing I didn’t love them enough to give them one thought.  I did love them, though.  I only wish they had known that before they died.

“Adriana, you were in shock.  You had just been in a car accident and your husband was dying in front of you.  You were so focused on trying to keep him with you.  You can’t blame yourself for this.”

I can hear Tucker pleading with me to believe him.  I see the honesty in his face, but I know the truth.  A mother protects her children with her own life.  My children are gone and I’m still here.  I never fought for mine.  Didn’t even raise a fist.  I failed.

“I knew Alex was dying, but I didn’t think of them once.  Not one time.  What kind of mother does that?  Not even before leaving the house.  I knew it had snowed and the roads were slippery.  I should have made dinner at home.  But I wanted to go to Alex’s favorite restaurant and I had them set up two highchairs at our table.”  Sobs take over my body again, the memory of what I planned temporarily paralyzing me in a mental movie, causing a pain I’m afraid I’ll never come back from.

Tucker’s hand rubbing my knee jerks me from the movie reel going round and round in my head.  “He was always so good with me, so sweet.  My Alex.”  I can feel the smile on my face and I swear I can feel Alex in the room with me which only amplifies the pain I’m feeling because he’s hearing me admit I didn’t fight for our children and now he knows I’m a monster, too.

Normally I feel comfort and happiness, like the world is righting itself when I feel Alex, but right now, I wish he would go away.  I don’t want him to hear this.  I don’t want to hurt him.

I don’t want to tell Tucker this either, have him see the ugliest parts of me.  See the monster that lies beneath the nice person I show the world, but I can’t stop the words now that I’ve started.  My babies deserve the truth to be told, for the words to pass my lips, for me to feel the hurt of saying them.  

This is my penance.

To lose the first person I’ve wanted in my life since losing the ones I loved the most.

The one I couldn’t save.

The ones I didn’t try to save.

Tucker pulls me back into his lap, his large hands wiping the tears on my face.  I want to fall into his embrace, let him take this all away for me, not feel for a while longer, but that’s all I’ve done since I lost Alex and the babies.  Enough is enough.  I can’t do this anymore.

Anger, hurt, shame, guilt– so many emotions I can’t put names to boil in my stomach making me feel sick.  My skin feels flushed and chilled at the same time.  I want to tear at myself I’m so uncomfortable.

“Aarrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  Oh God.  It hurts so much, Tucker.”  I fold up into as small of a ball as I can manage into his lap like I used to when I was a little girl on my dad’s lap when I was sad.  I want to disappear and be strong, tell him everything and have him go away.  I don’t know what I want.  My mind is a mess from all the emotions plaguing me.

“I know, sweetness.  I’m so sorry.  I wish I could take this all away for you.”  I feel him lay himself over my back, his lips kissing my hair, and it makes me cry all over again.  How the hell can he be this nice to me?

“Why?  Why are you being so nice to me, Tucker?  I killed my babies.  I’m a murderer.”

His gasp fills the room and he springs up, bringing me with him, his fingers digging into my shoulders.  I welcome the pain.  Pray that he’ll dig harder.

“Don’t you ever say anything like that about yourself again, Adriana.  Do you hear me?” he spits in my face, shaking me forcefully.  I’m numb to his words, his shakes.  He can’t change how I feel.  “Dammit, Adriana.  Why can’t you see that an accident took your babies from you?  Look at me!”

I lift my face, his blue eyes have darkened, reminding me of storm clouds they’re so dark.  I can’t understand why I see pain in his eyes.  He didn’t lose his family.  I did.  But looking at him I see immense pain and sorrow.  I wish I could take that away for him.

“Adriana, snap the fuck out of it!”  He’s shouting at me and shaking me, but I’ve gone to that place.  The place I go in my head to protect myself.  The place where I can exist, but not have to really feel.  I can just be numb.  If I’m numb, I can’t break.  I need that right now.  “Jesus, Adriana.  Please come back to me.  Talk to me.  God Damn it!”

“They were just gone Tucker and I didn’t know.  I didn’t feel it.”  I’m whispering because I’m afraid if I talk any louder, I might have to come back from my numb place.  And if I come back, I might not make it through this.  “I should have felt it.  I was bleeding― badly.  But all I felt was Alex slipping away from me and I was trying with all my might to keep him with me.  Why didn’t I use some of that might for them?”

I have to stop because I’m afraid I’m going to become a blubbering mess again.  The tears have been falling steadily, but I’m not sobbing uncontrollably anymore.

“I didn’t think of them, not for one second.  I didn’t think of those two precious little lives that Alex and I created.  My little miracles.  All I thought was I can’t let Alex go.  What kind of mom does that?  I should have been thinking of them every second.  I knew Alex wasn’t going to make it.  I should have tried to save them, but they never registered in my head.  I don’t even remember if I placed my hands to my stomach before getting to the hospital and the nurses pointed out the blood.  I don’t remember if I told Alex he was going to be a dad before he died.”

Oh no.  I just said died and I still feel Alex around.  Shit.  If he didn’t know before, he knows now and I can’t apologize because Tucker’s here.  How did I fuck everything up in one day?

God, please, keep Alex safe.  Please make sure he knows I’m sorry for him finding out this way.  Please make sure he knows I love him and I‘m sorry about our babies.  

The silent prayer I send is nowhere near enough, but I don’t know what else to do with Tucker here.  I wonder what Alex is thinking.  If he’s looking down on us.  Does it hurt him to see another man comforting me?

“Adriana, I wish I had the right words here, but I don’t.  Maybe I should call one of your friends.  Tell me which one and I’ll get them for you.”

“NOOOO!” I scream, fear shooting through me so real and intense I swear I can taste it.  Not fear of my friends, but fear of them knowing my secret.  Fear of them hating me.  “They can never know, Tucker.  Promise me you’ll never tell.  Please,” I beg.

“Wha…  Why?  I don’t know how to help you.  These people love you.”

“They won’t if they know.  Please promise me you won’t say anything to them,” I cry out at him, gripping my fingers into his shirt, not caring if my fingers scratch into his flesh underneath.  I’m desperate to keep this secret and I need to know that he won’t tell anyone.

“Okay.  Okay,” he coos at me.  “But you need to tell me why.  Why am I not telling the people who love you?  The people who can help you, comfort you?” I can see utter confusion on his face and I don’t understand that at all.  It’s so obvious why I can’t tell them and I can’t believe I have to spell it out to him, but I will.  He’s willing to keep my secret, so I will.

“They won’t love me anymore.  They’ll hate me and then I’ll have lost everyone that matters to me.  I can’t have that.  I know it’s selfish of me, but I can’t lose them, too.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he barks at me.  “How can you possibly think they would ever stop loving you?  That’s ridiculous!”

I ignore his comments.  He doesn’t know my friends.  He doesn’t know how much they loved Alex.  He doesn’t know how much we all loved each other.  I can’t show him that.  There’s no time machine or crystal ball that I can use to make him fully comprehend what Alex meant to everyone.

“I could have given them part of Alex back.  Given them some hope, some love after he was gone, but I never fought for them.  I couldn’t hold onto these pieces of Alex like I should have.  I let go of my babies.  When Dee said she thought there would be other kids in the neighborhood today it all came to a head for me, the guilt and the pain.  How do I tell them I didn’t put up any fight for my babies, for those little pieces of Alex?  They won’t look at me the same.”