Never Did Say Read online

  X X X

  “You are my happy ending. Everything else happening around us? It doesn't mean shit.”

  X X X

  C.M. Stunich

  Sarian Royal

  Never Did Say

  Copyright © C.M. Stunich 2015

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 1863 Pioneer Pkwy. E Ste. 203, Springfield, OR 97477-3907.

  www.sarianroyal.com

  ISBN-10: 1938623908 (eBook)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-938623-90-5 (eBook)

  Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal

  "Optimus Princeps" Font © Manfred Klein

  "Conrad Veidt " Font © Bumbayo Font Fabrik

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

  this book is dedicated to the Never ending well of love we all have inside of us.

  even when you think it's run dry, there's always enough for another drop.

  1

  Ectopic pregnancy.

  What the hell does that even mean? I hear the words like they're far away, floating in a distant universe, not meant for me but about me nonetheless.

  Ectopic.

  I roll the word around on my tongue, or at least I try to. Honestly, I don't think my mouth is moving at all. I do my best to turn over, but my body won't obey my commands, leaving me in an icy darkness that flickers at the edges. If the light's really trying to make its way in here, then it's going to have to fight twice as hard to get past all of my blackness.

  So much blood.

  I remember standing on the driveway with Zella and Noah, listening to things I never really wanted to hear and then … I was with Ty. Always with Ty. I will always be with Ty. Unless, of course, I die here. I think about that really hard. I mean, what else do I have to do? I can't move, can't speak, can't even ask what that word means. Ectopic. It means 'out of place' or something, right? It means something is where it shouldn't be. But what does that mean when paired with my pregnancy? The word ectopic sounds alien, like I have a little extraterrestrial baby inside of me. Only I know that's not true. I mean besides the ridiculousness of it – I'm too far beyond delirium to care about logic.

  But this is Ty's baby. My baby. Our baby.

  I groan and try to sit up again, but I'm still not fully present in my own body and it's freaking me out. If I die now, then Ty will die, too. I know that as surely as I know the earth is spinning on its axis. Ty and me, we're healing but we're not healed, not yet. Without each other, everything would just go to shit.

  But that blood.

  I remember the red between my legs, coating my thighs. I touched it with my hand and spread my fingers. Even in this in-between, I know what that means. It means trouble and heartache and me fucking up something as basic as pregnancy.

  I moan again and fight against my eyelids. Why do they have to be so heavy? I wonder, thrashing and trying to push myself up and out of this dark place. It's too dark here, not that kind of perfect dark that Ty and I make together, that kind where the stars flutter and rest and float high above us. I think of my sisters, of my son, but mostly I keep thinking about Ty. The kind of love we have is so rare that even if there is a heaven or another life after this one, it would take me a million tries just to find someone half as good as him. And even then, it still wouldn't be right.

  “Ty,” I whisper, and this time I know I'm really talking. My voice whispers from my throat, grating and so quiet I wonder if anyone could hear me over the other sounds in the room, the people talking and the machines beeping. But he does. Ty hears me.

  “I'm right here, baby,” he says, and I feel his ringed fingers close around mine, squeezing so tight I feel like my hand might break. But I don't care. I'd let him shatter me into pieces if he wanted to because I know he could always put me back together. “I'm right here, Never. Stay with me, okay? Baby, I need you. Little Noah needs you. You can make it through this.”

  I wonder why his voice sounds so sad, like he's pushing back tears, like I'm in a coffin instead of … wherever it is that I am. A hospital, I think. I'm in a hospital. My baby is dead. I'm dying, too. And it's my own fault. Ty told me to go to the doctor and I refused, wanted to wait. I didn't listen and I'm being punished for it.

  “I'm sorry, Ty,” I warble, but my voice trails off and his hand slides from mine.

  Consciousness fades, no matter how hard I try to hold onto it.

  I hate that I don't even have the energy to say goodbye.

  2

  Dreams flood my brain with harsh lines and colors that are too real, too familiar to be comforting. I watch them all from a third party perspective and I'm almost certain then, certain, that I'm dead. Why the fuck else would I have to watch my father die again, unless I'm already in hell?

  In this dream – no, no, this nightmare – my copper hair hangs down my back and for the first two minutes, the first two minutes that Jade's father has his hands wrapped around my dad's neck, I fight. I scream and shout and claw at him, but I'm too young, too little to fight off a grown man with a vengeance. For the next six minutes, I sit down on the ground and I do nothing. And it's not because I don't want to, but because I can't. That feeling of helplessness was just one of the ingredients that led to an epic meltdown of a life, a life that I've only just recently gotten back. How cruel is fate? To watch me suffer for so long, give my body away like it meant nothing, only to have it taken away from me when I gave it in love?

  My brain shifts and that strange light flickers at the edges again. I wonder, do I go for it? Do I give up and let it all fall away? I feel so weak right now, like the possibility of ever returning to my body is too remote to consider.

  Fuck the light.

  I know that's what Ty would say if he were here right now, if he were standing in this endless loop of memories and nightmares, his ringed hand holding tightly to mine.

  I see myself then, sitting next to Ty at one of our Sexual Obsession Group meetings, in that leaky building with that stupid rug. I see Vanessa, the group leader, smiling at me as I reach up and touch my chip earring, the prize that promised that I did it, that I kept clean, that things would be okay.

  Ty's face appears in my mind, slowly, like pieces of a puzzle being put together. I see that sweet, serious smile, that stupid nose ring of his, the piercing in his left brow. But mostly I see Ty's big brown eyes looking at me like I matter. That's all I've ever really wanted, you know? To matter. To live. To be loved.

  With a gasp and a start, like a newborn baby taking its first breath, I wake up.

  3

  I've seen movies where women lose their babies. They come to slowly, blinking back tears and they always, always, always ask what about my baby? And then they wail uncontrollably when someone explains it to them.

  This is not how I wake up.

  After that first shock of energy, I hear distant voices and I feel people around me, even if I can't see them, but it doesn't last long. I end up drifting in and out of the room, aware that something terrible has happened to me, but unable to decide exactly what that is. When I finally stop floating and come to rest, the world settles heavily on my shoulders.

  I'm conscious long before I open my eyes, filled with a sort of wonder that I'm still alive. There's nothing like the threat of oblivion to wake you up inside, make you realize that everything you've been worrying about – money, school, jobs, whatever – it means nothing. All that really matters is knowing who you are and knowing wh
o you love. I love my sisters, my son, my Ty.

  I know he's in the room because I can feel him. I think I'll always be able to, even when we're dead. We'd best buy plots next to one another because if my bones and his aren't able to mix together with the earth, then my spirit will be stuck to wander and search for the man whose smile changed my life. A morbid thought, one I've had before, yes, but I've just faced death, looked that bitch straight in the face and told her to fuck off. I deserve to be a little morbid.

  The longer I lay there, the more I can feel. First, it's my face, then my arms, then my toes. As my body starts to wake up, I feel Ty's warmth pressed into my arm and I fight to lift my hand up, tangle my fingers in his hair.

  As soon as I do, I open my eyes and find him raising his face to look into mine.

  The grief and the fear in his eyes is more than enough to undo me and I soon feel the tears start to fall.

  “I want a cigarette,” I croak as Ty's eyes shimmer with tears and he lifts up a hand to cup the side of my face. He tries to smile at my ill timed joke, but the expression doesn't stick.

  “Never,” he whispers, his voice rough and unfocused, like it's been torn apart by sobs. “Oh my fucking God, Never.” Ty leans in and presses his forehead against mine as liquid drips down both our faces, salty tears that I'm not even sure how to interpret, not yet. “I thought I was going to lose you,” he whispers, echoing my own fears. I'm not afraid of dying though. No, that's not it. I'm afraid of losing this, of losing him.

  “I'm sorry I killed your baby,” I say, not even bothering to ask. I know. I can tell. That blood, that feeling of dizziness, the weird pain in my shoulder. Ty adjusts himself, sitting back so he can look me in the eyes, a very serious expression tightening his lips. His bracelets jingle and I close my eyes, the sound like music to my ears.

  “We can make more babies, Never,” he tells me and I purse my own lips tight to keep from sobbing. How can he say that to me? How can he act like I'm this important? Why? Why does he love me so much?

  “I screwed up, Ty,” I whisper hoarsely and he shakes his head. But I'm not done. “I screwed up. If I'd listened to you, gone to the doctor, this wouldn't have happened. I can't even have a baby right, Ty. That's something I should be able to do, at the very least. Even my bitch mom can do it. Why do I keep messing up? Why? Why?”

  Ty's standing up now, scooting me over gently, and I realize that even though I can feel my limbs, my body, I can't really feel anything. I must be hopped up on lots of painkillers. My husband, my soul mate, he moves me just enough that he can climb onto the bed next to me, lay his warm body against mine. He's half hanging off, but I don't care. He doesn't seem to either. Ty tucks my head under his chin and holds me as tight as he can without hurting me.

  “You didn't mess up, Never,” he says softly. I think Ty's shaking and his voice still doesn't sound right. If he's that scared, things must've been pretty bad. I had no idea miscarriages were this big of a deal. My mom's claimed to have three separate miscarriages, one of them while she was waitressing at the pancake joint. You know, that one everyone used to go to, but that shut down years ago. She said she took a quick visit to the toilet and got back to it. Knowing my mother's work ethic, I doubt it. Besides, she's a bitch and a liar, too, but I guess I'd somehow let her words become my truth. Miscarriage, no big deal.

  “I killed our baby,” I say, but Ty is already shushing me with his lips against my hair. I brush him off and try to pull away, but apparently I'm not entirely in control of myself. My body rails against the effort and stays put. “And what's an ectopic pregnancy, Ty?”

  Tyson Monroe McCabe stiffens beside me, his breath hitching sharply.

  “You say you killed our baby, but that isn't true, Never. In all reality, I almost killed you.”

  His words trail off until I have to strain to hear them. Killed me? How? I ask him just that, but Ty is burrowing into my neck and breathing deep, like he's trying to memorize my scent. If he smells like cloves and tobacco and beautiful darkness, I wonder what I smell like? Antiseptic? Blood? Do I still smell like blood?

  I try to push the covers back, but Ty curls his ringed fingers around my hand, covering up the blue and silver, the red and gold, of the rings he gave me.

  “An ectopic pregnancy is when the baby grows inside the fallopian tube instead of the uterus, Never,” Ty says, his voice still a whisper. I stare at the door to the hallway, letting the information sink in, wondering where my sisters are. I'd have expected to find Beth here, wailing and leaning over me, peering into my eyes and acting like she knows better than the doctors. “The cramps, the dizziness, the spotting … ” Ty shivers and sucks in a sharp breath. “Those are all signs. I should have done better by you, Nevs. I should have made you go to the doctor and then they might've seen it. You … you almost died. Your fallopian tube ruptured, baby. You went into shock; you were bleeding from the inside.”

  I don't know what to say to that, how to feel.

  “I've been bleeding on the inside since my dad died, Ty,” I tell him as more salty tears drip down my face. “I'm used to it.” I look over at him, watch his eyes, the shadows dancing inside of them, and I almost wish I had died. Who am I to make him feel like this? I'm supposed to make Ty's tortured life better, not worse.

  “It's my fault. I almost killed you.”

  “What?” I snap, getting angry at him because I don't know what else to do, how to feel. “Because you came inside of me? Because you didn't put a condom on? Because you didn't tie me up and force me to go to the doctor? Tyson Monroe Ross-McCabe, I don't know what kind of woman you think you fell in love with, but have you ever tried to force me to do anything? It never really works out all that well.”

  Ty smiles at me, but his dimples don't show, so I know he's faking it. Unfortunately, I don't have time to grill him about it because the door opens and a doctor steps inside. She's young, pretty, her eyes sharp as thorns and her fingers long, curled around the edge of the pocket on her lab coat. When she sees Ty lying on the bed next to me, she purses her lips and gives him a look.

  He glares back at her, and crosses his arms over his chest. If she tries to get him to move, she'll be in a for a real fight. Just like I can't be forced to do anything I don't want, Ty won't leave my side. Not while he's still breathing anyway.

  “Well,” the doctor says, stepping forward and checking some of the equipment by my side. I don't know what any of it does, or what the numbers mean, so I don't pay much attention. I focus instead on the black and orange butterfly that graces Ty's knuckles. We lost our baby, but I'm still alive. And I … I didn't really want another baby anyway, right? I try not to feel bad for thinking that, but I do. I really, truly do. Ty and I had started talking names; he bought me that stupid skeleton T-shirt. I blink back a quick burst of tears and put my hand on Ty's bicep, hopefully to keep him from saying something stupid. Doesn't work. This is, of course, the same guy who walked into my class in the middle of a lecture with a cup of coffee and a commentary about penises. “We don't generally abdicate the sharing of hospital beds.”

  “I don't generally give a fuck about that. This woman is my life. Shit, she's more than just that. She's my everything, and I am not fucking moving.”

  Ty's words are a comfort, even if they are riddled with the F-bomb. His curses are like mini declarations, each one a testament to the amount and strength of his feelings. He's so passionate that the only way he can communicate right is to pepper his sentences with expletives.

  “We don't generally abdicate the sharing of hospital beds,” the doctor repeats, and I feel Ty stiffen, “but you've been through quite enough as it is, I think.” The doctor moves over to the bedside and looks closely at the pair of us, at me and Ty. I wonder what she's thinking, if she thinks we're just two dumb kids who made a stupid mistake, if Ty is some loser of the month, a boyfriend who's in the door just as fast as he'll be out. I glare at her just in case. Can't help it, it's what I'm used to. Besides, when I had Little Noah,
I saw the looks the nurses gave me. They can all go fuck themselves. I might have black and orange hair, and Ty might have tattoos for days, but we're actually married. Fancy that, a Regali girl married and having babies with her husband? There must be miracles in this world.

  “I want a fucking cigarette,” I say, just because I feel tumultuous and ornery in that moment. The doctor looks so put together while I feel like I'm falling apart. She's educated and pretty and young, and I watch with narrowed eyes as she shakes her head at me.

  “My name is Doctor Pradhan,” she continues, pretending I didn't say anything. I simply cross my arms over my chest, mimicking Ty's pose as we wait to hear whatever it is this woman has to say. “And I don't think you should be having a cigarette anytime soon.”

  “Why?” I ask, feeling a sharp break in my chest, like my heart is cleaving in two. Hasn't life given me enough shit? Why can't I just be miserable and pregnant like everybody else? But no. I have to be one in a million, a girl whose father was murdered before her eyes, who lost her family to untruths and ignorance, who had an egg implant in the wrong place and nearly bled to death. “I'm not pregnant anymore, am I?”

  “That's the reason I came to see you, Mrs. McCabe” the doctor says, glancing at Ty. “Mr. McCabe.” Okay, so at least she knows he's my husband. At least there's that. The world isn't totally fucked.

  “It's Ross-McCabe,” I blurt and glance over to see a small smile on Ty's lips. He probably filled out the paperwork. Figures. Neither of us have legally changed our names, so I guess we can have this debate later. I'm pretty sure I'll get my way. Little Noah's birth certificate says Ross-McCabe on it anyway.

  “Well, Mrs. Ross-McCabe, I have some good news for you.”

  Ty and I exchange a look. Good news is rare in our world. Or at least, it was until we found each other. I'm not sure what to think anymore.