Finding Our Reality (The Reality Duet #2)

Chapter 33

ELLA

I park on the driveway, right beside the front porch. I’m halfway up the stairs when he comes outside. The late afternoon sun covers him in shadowed streaks of yellow and white. He’s freshly showered with wet hair. His shirt is slung across his shoulder. His cargo shorts hang low on his muscular hips, showing me the band of his boxer briefs. I watch as one lone droplet of water races down the middle line of his six pack. It makes my stomach flutter and makes my body feel thick and heated.

“Lulu?”

Focusing my attention on his face, I see the amusement in his eyes. He likes it when I look at him like this. Like he’s a mouth-watering piece of meat. Like he’s the sexiest man on the face of the planet.

He was. And he still is. He also knows it.

“Hi.”

He takes a sip from a glass of ice water. “I was just about to drive back into town to see you. You were still sleeping when I left. I told Holt to tell you that I would come back. I had to get home and do all of the yardwork; it’s supposed to rain tomorrow.”

I nod. “He told me. I just thought talking here might be better. Less chance of interruptions.” I walk up the rest of the steps. “I mean, if you’re ready to talk.”

He sniffs and looks past me to the pond. Stepping in front of me, he grazes a thumb across my jaw. “Forget about what I want. Are you ready to talk about it? Because when you’re ready, I need to know everything. Every single thing that happened, every small detail. But only when you’re ready. I’ll wait forever if I have to, if that’s what you want. I’m yours and I’m not going anywhere. I’m never leaving your side again.”

I reach up and rub my scar, drawing strength from it. “All these years, a boulder has been sitting on my chest, crushing me. Making it hard to function, making it hard to even breathe. I’ve been trapped and I’m ready to be free.”

Together, we sit on the porch swing. I carefully prop my purse next to me. He tosses his T-shirt on the table and holds his water glass out in front of me. I take a sip, trying to douse the flaming anxiety in my stomach, before I set it on the porch railing.

“I got your letter the day after I got back from the graduation trip. I was mad that you hadn’t called me or come to see me yet so I went to the garage and Harlan gave it to me.”

He shakes his head in disgust. “I was such a damn coward. I should have never left the way I did… without telling you. I never wanted to break up with you. I know it sounds like a cop out, but I honestly thought I was doing the right thing for you at the time.”

I trace my fingers across the bandage on my arm. “I know that now. It took me all this time to realize it. You didn’t value yourself at the time, Ry. You thought you weren’t worthy of my love. You honestly thought you were destroying my picture-perfect future. I know that now. But at the time… it was hard to see past the blinding pain. You were the love of my life, and it felt like you tossed me away like some one-night stand, like one of your other girls. My sorrow was so profound, I literally thought I was gonna die.”

“I can’t believe I put you through that. I just wanted to make myself into the man you deserved. I wanted to be someone you could be proud of. And I couldn’t do that if I stayed here.”

A piece of dandelion fuzz carries in the breeze and catches on his facial hair. I pluck it away. “Do you regret joining the Marines?”

He thinks for a minute. “I regret leaving you. I regret that decision every single second of my life. But I don’t regret joining the Marines, no. I did a lot of good things in the service. I’m proud of what I accomplished for my country and my fellow brothers. It led me to a career in law enforcement, and it helped make me the man I am today.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it. I’m tired of me and you having all these regrets. I’m ready to be done with that.” I take another drink of water and clear my throat. “I found out I was pregnant a week after I got back. I was sick on the graduation trip, but I thought it was just a stomach virus. And then I was sick after I got back, but I figured it was just because I was experiencing so much devastation with the breakup.

“I had run out of tissues and was grabbing some from the bathroom closet when I knocked over a box of tampons. They fell out all over the floor, and that’s when I realized I hadn’t had my period in a really long time. I immediately ran to the store and bought a test.” I reach down beside me and pull the small plastic baggie from my purse.

He furrows his brow and grabs it. It doesn’t take long for him to recognize what’s inside. Just like Carrie’s pregnancy test, the image is still clear to see, even after all these years. A bright pink plus sign stares back at him. “Your pregnancy test?” Awe is etched across his face. He rubs the plus sign through the clear plastic. “You kept it?”

I shrug. “Carrie keeping her pregnancy test wasn’t unique. Lots of women keep them as a memento. I mean, it’s a pretty momentous occasion when you find out you’re pregnant.”

He smiles and waves the stick back and forth. “Thank you. Thank you for showing me this.”

I pluck it from his hand and stuff it back in my purse, chuckling, “You do realize this stick is covered in twelve-year-old pee.”

He laughs. “Hell, I’d frame the damn thing if you’d let me.”

He would’ve made such a good father.

“Anyway, after having a gigantic panic attack, that’s when I tried tracking you down. I got online and read everything about the Marines that I could find. That’s how I ended up at the recruiting office.” A slice of anger carves its way into my healing heart, and I do my best to stifle its sting. “Why did you refuse to give out your mailing address and contact information?”

He bites his lip, drawing my attention to the perfect curve of his mouth. “Because I was afraid you would write me. I knew you would track me down, and I was afraid of what you might say. Part of me was terrified that you would tell me to go fuck myself, tell me you had never even loved me. And the other part of me was terrified to know how much pain I caused you. I was afraid I’d go AWOL running back to you.” He scratches his chin. “Did you tell my mom you were pregnant?”

“Of course not, I knew you would never want your parents or your brother in our child’s life. I just told her that I needed to get in touch with you. She didn’t ask any other questions except what was in it for her.”

“I like it when you say that.”

I furrow my brow. “Say what.”

His palm slides across my thigh. “Our child.”

I watch as his thumb rubs back and forth across my sensitive skin.

“And you didn’t tell Harlan?” he asks.

I shake my head. “He was already worried about you. He loved you so much. I didn’t want to make him worry even more.” I take a few deep breaths. “So I turned to my parents. I thought Dad could possibly wield some influence in some shape, form, or fashion to get your contact information.”

He sucks air between his teeth. “And how did that go?”

Resentment and bitterness coat my mouth, making me want to gag. “Mom cried, she screamed, she called me a whore. Told me I had ruined my life, told me I had ruined her life. Dad was surprisingly calm. I thought he was gonna stand by me, put my mother in line. He immediately made me an appointment for the next day with one of the best Ob/Gyns in the Southeast, a doctor over in Atlanta. He said they specialized in teen and young adult pregnancies.” I close my eyes, thinking back. “We got up early. He even stopped at this pancake spot, and we had the best breakfast. Really good cantaloupe. When we finally got there, he rushed me straight into one of the back rooms. I thought I was getting special treatment because I was the daughter of a surgeon. Then, the doctor came in to discuss the procedure and get my signature on the consent form. It was an abortion clinic.”

I turn to Ry, watching as his eyes grow wide in fury. His hand grips my thigh tighter. “My dad tricked me. He made an appointment for me to get an abortion. He didn’t even talk to me about it. He thought I wouldn’t fight it once I got there. I was always so good at going along with everything they said. Be perfect, don’t rock the boat, be good little ‘Ella’.” I smile at him. “But someone had been teaching me to fight, to stand up for myself. So that’s what I did.”

“I can’t believe he did that to you. What a bastard.”

“That night they threw me out of the house.”

Ry sits up straight, rocking the swing sideways. “What! They did what?”

“They told me that, as the remaining daughter, I had a certain image to uphold for the family. Carrie was gone, so it all fell on my shoulders. They said they wouldn’t allow me to tarnish the family name and everything they had worked for. They said they refused to spend their money on, and I quote, ‘a stupid slut who was deceived by some piece of white trash with a big dick’. I had two options: get an abortion or be disowned. I chose the latter. I had to give them my cash, my credit cards, my car keys, my house keys. Everything. They let me pack a bag with some clothes and toiletries. That’s it. Well, I did steal my laptop and my cell phone. I put those in the bag when they weren’t looking.” I shrug my shoulders. “In all honesty, I’m surprised they never changed the will—I thought they wrote me out of it when they kicked me out.”

Ironically, I have ended up with my parents’ extreme wealth. When all I really wanted was their love.

Ry jumps up from the swing and starts pacing, hands on his hips. “Holy shit. This is all my fault. I made you homeless! What…what did you do?”

“I walked out the door without even looking back. I called Uncle Ray and immediately moved in with him.”

I grab Ry’s hand, relishing the feel of his calloused fingers. I tug him back down on the swing. “That night was actually a gift.”

“Huh?”

“The night I was disowned, the night I was thrown away like a piece of trash, the night my heart was broken even more by the very people who gave me life is also the very same night that I’ve never felt more loved, more part of a family. Ray and Teresa opened their home to me. Holt held my hand. Raylee drove through the night just to be by my side when I woke up the next morning. They told me how much they loved me, how they would always be there for me and the baby, and how they would do anything in their power to give me and my child a wonderful life. Our child.”

He leans forward, cupping his head in his hands. Leaning back up, he shakes his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe they’ve been keeping this from me, all of these years. They were standoffish, sure, but they always treated me with respect. Why? They should’ve been treating me like dirt. I was scum. Ray should’ve knocked me flat on my ass.” His hand finds its way back to my thigh, like my body has a homing beacon and he can’t function without being tethered to me. “How can I ever repay them? How can I thank them for what they did for you?”

I shrug. “You don’t have to. It’s what real family does for one another.” I reach back, rubbing my scar. “But… it started getting complicated.”

“What do you mean?”

“My queasiness and nausea took a turn for the worse. I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water. I would go for days without being able to eat or drink anything. I got so dehydrated, they had to hospitalize me to give me fluids. It’s called hyperemesis gravidarum. I was in the hospital for ten days. Fortunately, my condition got better once I hit week fourteen of my pregnancy.”

“Oh, Lulu.” He leans forward and nuzzles my neck, inhaling my scent and kissing the sweet spot of skin under my ear.

I keep on. “But the doctor had another concern. Most women with hyperemesis gravidarum have low blood pressure because they are dehydrated, but my blood pressure stayed slightly elevated above normal. He was worried that was an indicator I may develop preeclampsia, which is high blood pressure during pregnancy. If not treated properly, it can be really, really bad. Seizures, premature labor, even death.

“All of a sudden, I had these hospital bills to worry about. My parents dropped me from their insurance the week after they kicked me out. I owed a small fortune. Uncle Ray and Aunt Teresa told me not worry about it. They set up a payment plan with the hospital and started sending in $50 a week. Can you imagine! It would have taken them five-hundred years to pay off my bills.”

I toss my hands up in the air. “And what if the doctor was right and I developed preeclampsia? That could mean more hospital stays, more specialists, more intensive care. Maybe even full bed rest. Sure, they were financially stable, but they definitely weren’t counting on having to pay for their niece’s medical bills—let alone her food and shelter and pregnancy clothes and baby stuff. I felt like a huge burden.”

His jaw tenses and his pale green eyes cloud with fury. “Is this heading where I think it’s heading?”

“Hudson.” My throat makes a weird noise when I swallow. “I told him I was pregnant. He knew something was going on. My parents told his parents that I had become rebellious and moved out on my own. I needed someone to talk to, so I told him about my fears. I was worried about everything all the time. The baby, my health, bills, college. You .” The next words taste sour as they leave my mouth. “He offered to marry me and say the baby was his. As his wife, I would have really good health insurance. His parents could claim me on their policy.”

I shake my head. “But it wasn’t just that. As his wife, his parents would pay for a nanny so I could still attend college. I wouldn’t have to worry about how to pay for diapers or formula or medicine.”

Ry closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. It’s ragged and rattles in his chest.

“But I told him no. I told him that as soon as you came home for leave after MCRT, we would figure it all out. I told him everything would be fine once I talked to you. I just needed to talk to you. ” I clear my throat, trying to rid myself of the deep-seated hatred I’ve held onto for so many years. “And then you left Harlan that voicemail, saying you weren’t coming home, and you were disappearing to SOI for another two months. I had a doctor’s appointment that very same day. He told me my blood pressure was still elevated.” I shrug my shoulders. “I was left with no other solution to my problem. I called Hudson and told him I would marry him.”

Ry doesn’t say anything. We sit in silence, watching the sun sink low in the sky. The pond shimmers in vibrant, reflective streaks of white and gold. I’m lost in my own consuming and overwhelming thoughts about the past when Ry’s voice startles me.

“Go ahead and ask me. I know you want to.”

“What?”

“Don’t beat around the bush, Lulu. I like you when you get to the point.”

Shit. He knows me so well.

It’s disturbing. And infuriating.

“Fine. Do you think I’m a whore? I basically sold myself to Hudson for food, shelter, and clothing.”

He grabs my chin, forcing me to stare into his eyes. He leans in so close I can smell his toothpaste. “Lulu, you’re the smartest person I know, but that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said. I know I jumped your ass last night about you marrying Hudson, but I was being an insensitive douchebag. I didn’t know the whole story, and if I made you feel that way, I’m so incredibly sorry. You did what you thought was best. For you and our child. I would never, ever think poorly of you for fighting for survival. I’m the one who pushed you to make that decision. I’m the one who forced all this on you. It falls on my shoulders, not yours.” Laying his forehead against mine, he sighs. “You weren’t being a whore, Lulu. You were being a mother .”

Sitting back, he wraps a protective arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer to his side. “So, you married him and moved to Michigan?”

“Yes.”

“And did you have the really high blood pressure? Is that what happened to our daughter?”

When he says ‘our daughter’, I nearly lose it. The tenderness in his voice is so loving, it makes me ache for what all we could’ve been.

“No. Fortunately, I never developed full-blown preeclampsia. My blood pressure did stay slightly elevated throughout the entire pregnancy, but it never crossed that threshold.”

“So, what happened?”

“It was the car accident. It happened the Saturday after Thanksgiving. After my hyperemesis gravidarum got better, and I could eat again, I developed a craving for frozen yogurt. You know, the soft serve kind from frozen yogurt shops? When I was still here, I used to make Holt and Ridge run out at all hours of the day and night to get me frozen yogurt. I couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Well, that craving lasted my whole pregnancy. That night, I just had to have some. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even though it was late.”

My heart starts beating fast and my vision blurs around the edges. Does it ever get easier? Thinking about it? Feeling it?

“I was in the turn lane when a truck came speeding across the center line. He T-boned me right behind my driver’s door.”

Ry’s growl is low and primal. “A drunk? Someone texting?”

I loop my fingers through his. “No, Ry. He was driving and had a massive brain aneurysm. Died instantly. He was married, and they had four little kids. He was a deacon at his church. Just…” I sigh, “a dad driving home from work.”

He curses underneath his breath.

I open my mouth, but just a squeak comes out.

Give me strength. I can’t do this.

Help me. Help me.

Ry squeezes my hand tightly. His thumb rubs against me, tracing a circle pattern on the back of my hand, trying to calm me. The automatic porch light comes on as night falls, and I watch as the thick band of muscle in his forearm flexes each time he makes that circle.

“The door caved in on me.” I point to my left hip snuggled up against his thigh. “Broke my hip. But the worst part was… the impact was so severe, it sent me into premature labor and my water broke. When my water broke, the baby’s umbilical cord dropped past my cervix, into my vagina. Her head immediately started to descend, and it trapped the cord, blocking her flow of oxygen and blood. The pressure from her own body was,” I choke on a strangled sob, “killing her.”

By now, there’s no point in stopping the tears. Yes, I still hate crying in front of people, but it seems to be all I do lately.

“Emergency crews couldn’t get me out of the car. The whole side was basically caved in around me. The dashboard was squashed down. I couldn’t even get my hands all the way underneath me to feel what was going on. I couldn’t take my pants off.” I lick the salt from my lips. “At the time, I just thought I was in labor. Very, very painful labor. I didn’t know the umbilical cord prolapse was happening. All I knew was I was wet. Soaked in blood and fluid.” I snort, cry-laughing, “I remember being terrified she was gonna suffocate on my panties. I asked the paramedic to give me scissors so I could try to cut the clothes from my body because my panties were gonna strangle my baby.”

The tears cascading down Ry’s handsome face break my heart. Shatters it. Grinds it to a fine powder.

Moisture catches in his scruff and he wipes it away.

“When they finally got me out, I realized just how serious it was. I could see it on their faces. They rushed me to the hospital, and I had an emergency C-section. She was alive, but she had lost too much blood and oxygen. She passed away six hours after her birth. Her oxygen levels were too low, and she had a seizure.”

He stands from the swing and walks over to the porch railing. Gripping it with white knuckles, he lowers his head and sobs. Wild and manic. Frenzied and frantic. His own pain supersedes mine for the moment. It’s so intense, I can feel it in my bone marrow. I’ve had nearly twelve years to process the pain of losing a child; he’s had only twenty-four hours. I wrap my body around his. I lay my head between his shoulder blades and kiss the burning hot skin of his back. His devastation is raising his body temperature. He feels like a furnace. My fingertips trace every hard muscle, and I’m careful to use a softer stroke on his injured left side.

“She was beautiful. Small, but beautiful. She was five pounds, one ounce, and she was nineteen-and-a-half inches long. The doctor said if I had gone to full term, she probably would have been one of the longest babies he had ever delivered. She had a full head of brown hair, long eyelashes, and her eyes were a gray/hazel color. I really think they may have turned translucent green like yours, in the end.”

In the end. She didn’t really get an end, though.

“Would you like to see a picture?”

He raises his head, wiping his eyes and spitting across the yard to clear his throat. “You have a picture?”

Reaching into my purse, I dig out my phone and pull up the saved album of electronic pictures. I lean beside him against the railing. I accidentally bump my stitched arm and wince.

“Are you okay?”

I smile at the man I love. “I’m fine.” I flick to the first picture. “This was the first ultrasound I had. You see that circle? That’s her.”

“That’s it? That’s how it looks in the beginning?”

“You didn’t see any ultrasound pictures of Laura?”

He shakes his head. “Brooke had one with her when she showed up at the station that day to tell me she was pregnant, but I didn’t really study it; it seemed too personal. I went with her to some of her appointments, but I always stayed in the waiting room.”

I hand the phone to Ry and let him scroll through the different pictures. “I had an ultrasound at nearly every single doctor’s appointment since I was considered high risk.” Mingled in the album are different pictures of me, holding my belly, documenting the growth of my body, month after month.

He pauses at the picture of me when I was about six months pregnant. Raylee had come to Michigan to visit me. She snapped the picture of me standing by the window, laughing at something she said. He stares at the picture for so long, I start to worry. “Ry?”

“You’re so damn beautiful. Glowing. I thought people just used that word to be nice, but it’s true. And your hair is wavy here.”

“I was huge,” I say with a laugh. “And yeah, about that time is when my hair started changing.”

“You weren’t huge.” He touches my stomach on the screen. “Our baby is in there. A whole person. A human being.” He looks over at me. “That’s amazing, Lulu.” His gaze falls to my lips. Swallowing deeply, he turns back to my phone.

After another couple of pictures, he comes to the last one. The only picture I have of our daughter. My purse and phone were left behind in the wreckage, so I didn’t have a way to take her picture. I was so focused on being present with her during the time she had left on this earth, that I don’t think I would’ve remembered to take pictures, even if I had my phone with me. Plus, I was in extreme pain with my hip. The surgeons stabilized me and agreed to wait about doing the hip replacement until we knew more about my child’s health.

One of the nurses took this picture with her phone. The doctors had done everything for our baby that could be done. It made no sense for our daughter to spend her last few hours isolated in an incubator or hooked up to one-thousand machines. I’m sitting in a hospital bed with my hospital gown folded down to my waist. I’m holding her small body tightly against my naked breast. She wouldn’t and couldn’t breast feed. Her head is snuggled underneath my chin, and I’m kissing the top of her perfect little head. Blood stains my hair.

I didn’t have any injury to my head. The blood was from my hands—where I felt around my bottom half in the car and then ran my fingers through my hair in despair.

Ry gasps in loving disbelief. “Oh, shit.”