Breathe (13 page)

Chapter Sixteen

LOGAN

I wasn’t surprised to wake up and find my arms empty.  What I didn’t expect, was for her to bolt from the room.  I knew she couldn’t get very far on foot, but she had just had a baby and a very restless night, which made me hurry to my car to search for her.  Sure enough, I found her a few blocks away.  She was slowly getting up from the curb.  She was so off balance, I was afraid she was going to fall.  When she turned to continue walking back to her apartment, I sped up and slammed my brakes on right behind her.

She hadn’t changed a bit -- still as stubborn as ever.  She had a baby a couple of days ago, and now she was determined to walk a couple of miles back to her apartment.  If she had asked me, I would have taken her home, and she would have been there in five minutes flat.  But no, she had to hobble down the road, so tired that she had to take a break after less than a quarter of a mile.  By the time I got out of the car, I was livid.

She looked petrified and tried to placate me the same way she did with Jack.  That just made me madder.   Her answer to my angry question knocked me to my knees.

“Really Beth?  Do you honestly think I would ever hurt you?”  

“No one has ever hurt me more.” 

It still echoed in my brain.  I knew then I was up against an almost impossible task.  In her eyes, I ranked right up there with dear old Jack.  I deserved it, I supposed.  I had left her as broken as Jack ever did.  I was worse.  I had earned her trust and THEN betrayed her.  She expected Jack to hurt her.  I swore I would never leave her.  Then, I did. I thought she was okay.  That she had moved on with her life.  Apparently, the partying was her way of coping with my loss.  The way she chose to forget just caused her more pain.

When she finally agreed to let me take her home after she left the hotel room, she never even questioned how I already knew where she lived.  The ramshackle apartment building was a mess.  I couldn’t hide my dismay at her current living conditions.  I wanted to insist she come back to the hotel with me, but I knew that it would be futile.  She was clearly anxious to get away from me, and I was in no position to push her.  She even refused to let me get her a few groceries.  Well too dang bad, I ordered her a couple of pizzas anyway.  I couldn’t let her starve.

I spent the rest of the morning in my hotel room.  I watched TV and struggled to keep myself from going back to her apartment and begging her to forgive me.  That wasn’t going to get me anywhere.  What she needed most today was for me to let her rest.  I could do that.  Maybe. 

I finally got stir crazy and decided to go for a walk around the square.  I was flooded with memories.  Our first meal together at the diner, when she stormed out on me.  The countless times we strolled in the park after school.  I even walked past the house her mother still lived in with Jack.  It had just been a little over a year, but it felt like a lifetime since I took her home every night at ten on the dot.  Then, I had the privilege of walking with her hand in mine.  Now, she shrank away from me and begged me to leave her alone. 

I passed by the diner again on my way back and decided to go in and have some lunch.  I hadn’t eaten since yesterday.  I went through the glass door and the familiar cow bell chimed over my head.  I recognized the girl headed my way that gestured for me to have a seat.  She handed me a menu.

“Logan, right?”

She seemed a little sharp with me.  I wasn’t sure how walking in for lunch had mortally offended her, but I decided to answer her question anyway.

“Yeah.  I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name.”

She responded by putting her hands on her hips and glaring at me angrily.

“Amy.  You graduated from my high school.  Last year, you were dating my friend, Bethany Richards.  Then, you moved and dumped her without another word.  Do you have any idea how seriously screwed up she was after you left?”

“No, tell me.”

She looked like she’d rather skin me alive.

“Well, besides showing up high or hungover every morning for school, she slept with half of the junior class.”

My wince must not have satisfied her need to wound me, because she continued.

“She quit school by the end of the first semester of our junior year.   Colleen threatened to fire her after she showed up here drunk a couple of times.  She straightened up once she knew she was pregnant.  I honestly, think it might have saved her life.  She quit the partying and managed to get it together.”

She pointed her finger at me threateningly.

“You stay away from her.  The last thing she needs right now is you jerking her around.  I’ll get you another server.”

She stalked off before I could get a word in edgewise.  I was stunned.  Dropped out of high school?  Half the junior class?  Suddenly, I didn’t feel hungry anymore.  Part of me wanted to press Amy for more information while the other part wanted to pretend that I hadn’t heard a word she said.  Beth had made some friends while I was away.  I was glad she had people in her life willing to defend her and look out for her.

I hadn’t even considered the possibility of her going into such a tailspin when I left.  I knew she would feel betrayed and angry, but I couldn’t picture her partying and sleeping around.  That just wasn’t the Beth I knew.  Now, I no longer had to contend with the memory of the father of her child, but with several other faceless guys who shared something with her I never had.  I was beyond jealous.  I knew I had no right to be.  What had I expected?  I shook my head and walked out of the diner into the afternoon sunshine.  I couldn’t face going back to the hotel to be alone with my thoughts, so I just roamed the streets of town until the sun went down and the chill sent me searching for the warmth of my room.

On a whim, I decided to text Alex.  He could verify the story I’d heard from Amy.  I needed to know the truth.  I hadn’t called or texted him in months but I decided to give it a try.

“Hey.  It’s Logan.  I’m in town for a while.  You still around?”

“Logan?  Wow.  Haven’t heard from you in forever.  I’m at school, Stephen F. Austin.”

I smiled remembering how gung ho he was about going to Texas A&M.

“How’d you end up there?”

“Full scholarship. What are you doing back in Fort Grange?”

I answered in one word.

“Bethany.”

“Uh, oh. Bro, I’m not sure that is such a good idea.”

“Why?”

He didn’t reply for several minutes.  I’d just about given up when the phone rang.

It was Alex.

“Hey Alex.  How’s college life?”

“Better than Fort Grange High.  So, you’re back to see Bethany?”

“Yeah.”

“And how’s that working out?”

My silence spoke volumes.

“Look, I did what you asked.  After you left, I tried getting her to talk for over a week.  She refused to even acknowledge my existence at first.  Then one day, she just kind of snapped out of it.  She got a job at the diner and talked to us at lunch again.  Wyatt invited her to a party one weekend, and she surprised us both by saying yes.  She hung out with the druggie crowd at the party, and after that she was a hot mess.”

I cut to the chase.

“I’ve heard she slept with half of the junior class.”

Alex let out an audible sigh.

“She was a wreck, bro.  She used alcohol and drugs to numb the pain.  When that didn’t work, she went from one guy to the next.  Half the junior class is an exaggeration, but she got around.  Madison and her crowd made school a nightmare for Bethany when she started showing.  Madison couldn’t pass her in the hall without making a snide comment.  Once the principal found out Bethany was pregnant, he gently suggested she go home to have her baby.  In some ways, Fort Grange is still in the dark ages.”

Madison was a spoiled brat.   She’d made it obvious she was interested in me.  When I started dating Beth, I knew Madison’s ego was bruised.  She was the most popular girl in school, and she didn’t take the rejection well.  I was just sorry she took it out on Beth.

“She had the baby at her apartment.  I went to the hospital to pick her up.  It was a pretty brutal scene.”

“Did you see the kid?”

“No, she’s given him up for adoption.

“Wow.  That must have been tough.”

“Yeah.”

“So what now?”

“Now, I’ve got to figure out how to convince her to forgive me.”

“I don’t know if that is such a good idea.  She’s been through a lot over the last year.”

Now Alex was defending her?  She’d gained a lot of fans in my absence.

“Alex, I’m not leaving her.  Never again.”

“If she forgives you, you better make sure you don’t.  I don’t think she could survive it again.  I honestly don’t know how she did this time.  If it wasn’t for that kid, she’d be dead.  It was like she wanted to die after you left.  She did everything but cut her wrists.  She was out of control.  Running with a rough crowd, sleeping with guys she barely knew, and taking whatever drugs those sick jerks would put in her hands.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I was around as much as I could, trying to stop her at first.  Then, making sure she got home after she refused to listen to me.  She refused to take care of herself, but when she knew she was pregnant, she stopped all the partying.  She worked full-time at the diner and saved every dime she made.  She told me as soon as her dad found out she’d be on the streets.”

“Alex.  Thanks for being there for her when I wasn’t.”

“I didn’t do it for you.  I wanted to kick your butt for leaving her like that.  She was my friend and that’s what friends do.  They look out for each other.”

His words cut me to the core. 

“Why didn’t you tell me all this when I asked how she was doing?”

“What difference would it have made?  You were in Australia.”

“I didn’t think I had a choice.  I screwed up big time and now I’m paying for it.”

“The price she paid was far greater than yours.  She’s been through a lot -- the crap with her dad, you leaving, the partying, dealing with her pregnancy, supporting herself, and giving up a baby.  I’m not sure it’s a good time to be trying to patch things up with her.  It might send her off the deep end again.”

“I can’t leave her like this.  I’m not leaving again.  Even if it’s only as her friend.  I’m staying.”

“Okay.  I hope you know what you’re doing.  Keep in touch.  Let me know how it goes.  Hurt her again and I will find you and make you sorry.”

“Fair enough.  I’ll talk to you later.”

Alex was staunchly defending her.  I wondered if he ever secretly had feelings for her.  I couldn’t blame him.  She was beautiful, funny, and smart.  Once you really got to know her, she had a childlike fascination with the world and saw the beauty in little, everyday things.  She was also a “hot mess” as Alex stated it so eloquently.  The last year had made it exponentially worse.  After losing her son, she was a weepy mess.  How could I even begin to put the pieces of her life back together?

Chapter Seventeen

BETHANY

The last couple of days had passed by in a haze:  from my baby’s birth to now, laying alone on my air mattress late the night after.  I was in shock.  When faced with labor, the emotional trauma of saying good-bye to my baby, and seeing Logan again, my old defense mechanisms kicked in.  I had floated through the last few days without actually processing what was happening to me.  Now that I had a chance to reflect on things, I wondered if what I remembered had actually happened or if I had temporarily lost my tenuous hold on sanity.

The details of delivering my baby on the bathroom floor were fuzzy.  I struggled to force myself to remember, even though the memories were unpleasant.  What I first thought was a backache quickly progressed into labor pains strong enough to prevent me from getting up off the floor to find help.  I tried to be strong, but the thought of having the baby alone was daunting.  I wanted someone to hold my hand and tell me it would be alright.  As the pain became unbearable, my last thoughts were of Logan right before I passed out.

When I regained consciousness, I heard Logan’s voice urging me to push.  Initially, I thought I was imagining his voice out of fear or pain. I didn’t know which but looking back on it I remembered something else too.  He touched me.  Was it possible that I had hallucinated someone holding my hand or wiping away my tears?  My mind raced for a logical explanation.  My darkest fear was losing my touch with reality. 

So many times, in my struggle to cope with daily life, my mind would disassociate.  It was something I learned as a child -- my mind’s way of protecting me from the abuse.  Without that coping mechanism, I would have lost it long ago.  Sometimes, it scared me when I honestly couldn’t remember how I got a bruise or lost hours at a time.  Sometimes, when my mind shut down the memories were lost to me.

I had almost concluded that I had lost my mind when something suddenly occurred to me.  How did Logan know I was in the hospital?  I had no contact with him since the day he walked out on me.  He didn’t even know I was pregnant.  Even if he had known, how could he have possibly known where to find me when I hadn’t even bothered to tell my mom or coworkers I had the baby?  Why was he even in town?  The last I knew, he was in Australia living it up with his dad on a beach somewhere. 

I hadn’t imagined him rescuing me from the hospital. I quickly got up from my bed and raced to my tiny kitchen.  The pizza he ordered for me was still in the refrigerator, thank goodness.  It was physical proof that the last twenty-four hours, at least, were real.  I really had spent the night with Logan last night, so the question remained:  how did he know where to find me?  Right then, my already rapidly beating heart kicked into overdrive. 

When I first saw Logan in the hospital hallway, he had flowers in one hand and “It’s a boy” balloons in the other.  HOW DID HE KNOW I HAD A SON???!!!???  Panic flooded my body.  I had to sit on the floor before I passed out.  The only logical explanation was that Logan was with me when I was in labor.  It was the only way to explain how he knew not only where to find me, but that my baby was a boy.  It was impossible. I couldn’t see anything more than a fleeting shadow in the bathroom.  I heard him and felt him, but couldn’t see him.     

My mind raced to find a plausible explanation but failed.  I scrambled for the bathroom and just made it in time.  My supper refused to stay in my churning stomach.  I had to stop thinking about it, or I really WAS going to lose my mind.  I focused on brushing my teeth and washing my face, anything to settle my racing mind down.  I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack if my pulse didn’t slow soon.  I made my way back to my bed and sat down. My head was resting on my knees as concentrated on nothing else but taking deep breaths and letting them slowly out, when I heard a knock.

All my hard work at attempting to calm down flew out the window the second I heard it.  I knew without a doubt who was on the other side of that door.  I did not want to see him and vainly hoped if I was quiet, he would just go away.  But this was Logan we were talking about, and I should have known better.  He knocked again, louder and more insistently this time. 

“Beth, it’s me.  I know you can hear me.  I can stay here all night beating on your door if I have to, but we really need to talk,” he challenged. 

I continued to cower on my bed, knowing all the while that he would not leave until I opened the door.  I decided to try pleading illness to play on his sympathies.  I did not feel up to seeing him after the revelations I had today. 

I crawled over and pleaded softly through the door, “Please don’t do this to me today.  I feel awful. I am confused, and I lost my baby.  I just can’t….I just can’t.  Please go away.”

I climbed up and peered through the peephole to see if my plea was going to work.  He scowled at the door and ran his hands through his hair in irritation.  He looked back to his car and then back at the door a couple of times, trying to make his decision. 

“I’ll leave, but I’ll be back in the morning.  Then, I am not leaving until we talk,” he warned. 

I watched him pull something out of his back pocket before he spoke again. 

“The only way you are going to get rid of me is to open the door and take my phone.  I refuse to leave you without a phone in case you need help.  If you need me, I’ll be at the hotel.” he said stubbornly. 

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him how the crap he knew I didn’t have a phone, but I really did not want the answer right now.  Like a coward, I opened the door just enough to snatch the phone out of his hand and slam it shut.  He turned on his heel and left as soon as I shut the door.  I was relieved when I heard his engine roar as he made his way out of the parking lot.  I woodenly made my way over to the bed and lay down staring at the wall.

I couldn’t sleep, but my mind was thankfully blank.  I was happy to relinquish my hold on reality for a while.  My mind needed a respite from the turbulent thoughts and questions that were swirling around in it.  For a while I just wanted to be -- breathe in, breathe out.

After several hours, I was calm enough to slowly come back to reality.  I fought to keep my mind from panic once thoughts of Logan encroached on my peace.  I went back over the events of the last couple of days and came to the same conclusions as before.  There was no way Logan could have known I was at the hospital, that I’d had a boy, OR that I didn’t have a phone unless he was truly present when I had my son.  The only problem was I never SAW him or let ANYONE in my apartment.  No matter how hard I tried my mind couldn’t come to a logical conclusion.

Ugh.  I rolled on my other side as my body complained.  Aside from the pain and heavy bleeding I expected after childbirth, every muscle in my body felt like I had run a marathon the day before.  It was still so overwhelming.  I tried to escape into numbness again, but the thoughts of my baby brought me up short.  He was gone and no matter how I would like to pretend otherwise, whenever I came back from my numbness, there would be no escaping the fact that he was gone forever.  I would never hold him again, never watch him grow up, never know how his life turned out.  My arms began to ache horribly, and tears streamed from my eyes.  All thoughts of Logan flew out of my head as I gave myself up to the misery of losing my child.

I cradled my stomach in my hands, desperately wishing my baby was still safe inside my womb.  I knew he was in the best place he could be, but that did not stop my heart from feeling hollow.  The last few months, I had been able to concentrate on my baby.  I hadn’t felt alone anymore.  As he grew and moved inside me, I developed a deep connection and love which I had never fathomed could exist.  Now he was gone.  I felt bereft and alone.  Alone was something I thought I had always wanted.  Alone was safe.  No one could hurt you when you were alone.  No one could love you either.

As I lay in the darkness, an arm encircled me and a hand rested on top of mine that were gripping my stomach.  I knew it was Logan.  I needed some answers, but I was also afraid.  So, I kept quiet as I felt his other arm slip under my head and pull me close.  It was so strange to know that he was there, but he wasn’t.  Somehow knowing that made it easier to accept his comfort, so I didn’t struggle when he pulled me even closer until my back was against his chest.  I knew he could feel my heart beating frantically, but still I said nothing. 

“You know I’m here,” he sighed in my ear, “We don’t have to talk about it tonight, but I just can’t stay away when you are hurting this much.  I’m sorry.”

I was not brave enough to turn around or reply, but his whispered apology sent me into fresh bout of tears.  I was so tired of crying.  I knew part of it was my hormones being out of whack from just having a baby, but I still hated feeling so weak.  Logan was back, but as a phantom, offering me comfort, but no promises.  I cried silently for hours, while he held me tighter, just letting me cry.  His hand tugged at the hem of my shirt after a while.  He gradually drew it up just enough to splay his hand over the place my son had occupied.  He pressed his hand firmly against me, acknowledging the source of my pain. 

Then he kissed my ear and whispered, “Beth, try to sleep. Please baby, you’re breaking my heart.  Just sleep, everything will still be here tomorrow, and so will I.” 

His voice quivered like he was fighting tears himself.  He kept his arms tightly around me and his hand against my stomach as if he were trying to staunch the flow of pain.  We didn’t speak anymore that night.  At dawn, he was gone.