I caught Jimmy-Don throwing his head in his hands at that bit of information, explaining, “The note said to meet you in the library, that you needed a break from the party, and for Molly to meet you there. I never doubted it was from you, not even for a second.”
Ally’s sympathetic gaze landed on Jimmy-Don, who’d broken into tears, but she managed to continue. “Apparently your momma starting telling Molly to leave you, had some private detective find out some real nasty things about Molly’s past and started using it against her. It didn’t work. Molly was unmoved, but when Aunt Kathryn began talking crap about you, Molly fought back, apparently in your defense and that’s when your momma lashed out. She was drunk off her ass again. Molls fell against the table and, well, we know the rest. Your momma and daddy were nowhere to be found afterward. The police want to speak to your momma, but she’s completely disappeared.”
If I wasn’t so numb, I’d have torn this room apart, but even my anger, this time, wasn’t enough to make my body move. My momma investigated shit about her? Most likely about her daddy and grandma dying. I vowed at that moment that if I ever saw her again, I’d make her pay. Christ, all this happened because my girl defended me. Like that didn’t make me feel even worse. She’d lost our angel because of me…
“I hate them. I hate them so damn much,” I whispered, almost breaking the sides of the plastic chair with my grip. “They’re dead to me. Fuckin’ six feet under, dead.”
My friends’ silence told me they completely agreed.
28
After several hours and a stupid amount of coffee, a nurse wearing pink scrubs entered the room and I froze and held my breath as my heart tried to cope with the fear suffocating my body.
“Rome?” the nurse asked as she searched the room. I stood and she moved before me. “Miss Shakespeare has made it out of surgery and she’s stable in ICU. We were able to repair the stomach rupture she suffered and transfused her with blood to replace the heavy blood loss from the miscarriage.”
“Can I see her?” I asked desperately. I needed to be there when she woke up.
“Soon. I’ll send someone to fetch you.”
After the nurse left, I slumped back on my chair and heard the sighs of relief from my friends.
“She’s going to be fine, Rome,” Ally said emphatically, trying her damnedest to be positive.
Nodding slowly, I replied, “Her body may heal, sure. But I still have to tell her we lost our baby, and I can tell you now, she’s going to be anything but fine.”
Silence resumed once again.
As I entered the small private hospital room, I had to grip onto the doorframe to stop myself from falling to my knees. Tubes and wires were coming from her pale skin, deep, dark shadows hung under her eyes, and she looked so small and broken, swamped under a mass of white cotton.
I focused on the constant beat from the heart monitor to control my breathing and slowly moved to the bed, kissing Molly’s cold cheek and pulling a chair beside her, holding her hand in mine, and began the wait for her to wake up.
I must have drifted off, and a hand running through my hair woke me from my sleep. Convinced I was dreaming, I startled when confused golden eyes focused on me, Molly’s hand weakly dropping to her stomach.
“Romeo? Did… did…?”
I knew what she was asking, but my voice was taken by grief, so I simply nodded, watching the complete f**king agony set on her pale, beautiful face and tears begin streaming from her eyes.
After days of missing my girl, needing her to share in my grief, I leaned over, holding her waif body in my arms, and whispered, “I’m so sorry… It’s all my fault.”
But Molly being Molly wouldn’t hear of it, and pulling me on the mattress beside her, assured me there was nothing I could have done when I told her I’d let her down. I explained to her what happened—the note, Shelly, my momma, everything—and with every sentence, she grew more and more distant.
Over the next couple of days, Molly gradually turned in on herself. She wouldn’t eat, barely spoke, and when she wasn’t sleeping, she stared unseeing at the ceiling, ignoring me, ignoring our friends.
The guys came to see her and tried their best to cheer her up, but the worried glances coming my way showed me they knew Molly was f**king depressed. I didn’t know what the hell to do to pull her out of it.
I couldn’t bear it, day in and day out being in that f**king hospital, watching Mol drown in misery, watching the hours turn into days, and my girl letting the grief tear her apart from the inside out. So when the doctor came in and told us Molly was being released, I was so damn happy, thinking that once out of the prison cell of a hospital room, she would start to heal, start to help me heal too.
I was busy packing her bag when a text came through on my cell.
Coach: Rome, I hate to ask this of you now, but I really need you at this function tonight. You don’t have to come for long, but you need to be here for the team, for the press.
Sighing and pinching my nose, I cursed inwardly. Coach had been great lately, but the fact of the matter was that football stops for no one, and our baby’s loss was not going to change the fact that the championship was right around the corner.
“What is it?” Mol asked from the bed.
I turned to see her looking at me with her usual indifference, and answered, “It’s Coach. He needs me to attend a charity function at the stadium tonight. I’ve missed a lot of game prep, and he needs the QB to be there to show I’m with the team all the way to the championship.”
“Then go.”
I stilled and dropped the packed bag to the floor. “I can’t leave you like this.”
“Yes, you can. I’m tired anyway. I need to sleep.”
Anger seeped into my muscles. I was through with this f**king imposter lying on the bed, pretending to be my girl. I hardly recognized her. I wanted the old Molly back. The one who would laugh with me, the one who would make everything better… the one who friggin’ loved me. I’d coped on my own for the last several days, supressing my grief to get her through hers, but I couldn’t f**king do it anymore, and losing my grip on my anger, I swung a fist into the wall.
“For Christ’s sake, Mol! How can you be tired? You’ve slept for days, done nothing for days! I understand you’ve had surgery, but the doctors said you should be feeling a lot better by now. You’re wallowing, Shakespeare. You need to snap the hell out of it! I’ve tried, been trying to be patient, but enough is enough! I’ve lost a baby too, not just you, but you shut me out and act like I’m a damn stranger to you. I was the daddy, for f**k’s sake! I can’t do it alone. I have too much to think about—you being like this, leading the team to the championship, the hopes of an entire state on my head. I need you to help me, Mol, not to drown in your own f**kin’ misery. Who’s supporting me? I’m grieving too!”