by Caisey Quinn
“Hi there, beautiful.” He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“I’ve missed you,” I say, reaching up to touch his face. It was only six weeks, but it was the most time we’ve ever spent apart. And it sucked.
“Me too, baby.” His eyes drop to my stomach and widen. “Whoa.”
“Easy. Make any mean jokes about my huge belly and I’ll sic Corin on you.”
He laughs as he puts his arms around me. “Pretty soon I probably won’t be able to get my arms around you.”
“Watch your mouth, O’Brien.”
“Yes, ma’am. Hmm, speaking of mouths worth watching…” His mouth lands on mine and I open to him, moaning as his tongue sweeps inside. Suddenly I’m hyperaware of how long it’s been since we’ve made love. Being turned on while pregnant seems to be a bit more intense than what I’m used to. Or maybe it’s the time apart. Or both. I press myself against him, feeling the evidence of just how much he’s missed me as well.
“Landen,” I breathe, pulling him as close as humanly possible.
“I know, baby.” His hands drop to my bottom and he gives me a firm squeeze. “But we need to talk, okay?” Placing a disappointingly chaste kiss against my lips, he sighs and pulls back.
“Okay. Want to tell me about it? I’m kind of dying to know and also unsure of what’s okay to ask.”
Landen takes my hand and helps me lower into the soft sand and sea grass. “You can ask anything you want.”
“Was it awful?” I whisper into the wind. Do you hate me? I want to add but don’t.
His eyes scan the ocean as he answers. “No, not awful. It was…enlightening, I guess. I learned some things. A lot of things. It was awful being away from you though.”
“Agreed. God I missed you.” We both prop back on our arms, letting the ones closest to one another intertwine as we do. Leaning my head on his shoulder, I watch the waves. I wish I could freeze time. Put this perfect moment on pause and hold onto the serenity. “Do you think it helped?”
“I think…I think I don’t know yet. Listen, Layla, I have to tell you some things. Some things that are going to be hard to hear.”
Oh God. My world pitches and rolls right along with the ocean. “Oh-kay. Such as?”
He turns his head and our gazes collide. “Such as I have a diagnosis. And not a great one.”
“A diagnosis?”
“Yeah. Apparently I have something called Intermittent Explosive Disorder. It’s why I fly off the hinges. Why I get into fights, why I break shit, and why I still don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be a father.”
“Landen, no, I don’t—”
“Please just listen. Just hear me out, okay?”
Holding my breath in an attempt to hold back the tears, I nod for him to continue.
“What I have, an anger disorder caused by my—by The Colonel’s particular brand of child rearing, it doesn’t have a cure. I can’t take a pill or see a doctor or whatever and make it go away. It’s part of who I am.”
“I love who you are,” I say softly.
“I know you do. And God, Layla. I love you so damn much it doesn’t even make sense. I grew up not even knowing what love was exactly. But you…you are the most amazing girl. Woman, I mean. You lost your parents, or they were taken from you, brutally and right in front of you. As a result, you end up with the kind of medical issues that soldiers who spend years in combat have. Plus a hematoma pressing on your brain. And you don’t complain. You don’t get angry. You just deal with everything head-on as it comes. I wouldn’t even know how not to love you.”
His words break my heart and make me smile all at once. But there’s more. And from his expression, it doesn’t look like it’s a good kind of more. “I sense there’s a but coming.”
“But…you deserve better. The kid growing inside of you deserves better. And honestly, knowing what I know about myself, knowing there isn’t a cure for this, I don’t know if I can be better.”
“You are exactly what we deserve, Landen.”
He clears his throat and glances out at the water again. “I’m not, baby. I’m a fucked-up mess of a man who probably shouldn’t be trusted with a goldfish, much less a kid.”
“What are you saying?” I hold my breath as I wait for his answer.
“I’m saying I love you, and I want you and our child to have everything. The best of everything. Dr. Sanderson wants me to stick around a while and continue therapy. Next month I’ll go back to Spain and move into team housing. I’m going to set it up with Coach so that my paycheck goes directly into your account. The one I think you should set up at a bank here. Where you should stay. We can talk to Corin about staying with her until we find a place,” he says with a small attempt at a smile.
“No,” I say evenly, heat building inside of me. “Who do you think you are, just making decisions for us?”
“Layla, calm down. I just want what’s—”
“No. No I will not calm down. If you say one more word, I’m going to show you what an anger disorder really looks like.” I’d jump up, but my little bump has made me less agile. “You listen to me, Landen O’Brien. You think you can just pawn us off on Corin and tell yourself it’s for the best? Well I’ve got news for you. Big news. Ready? Brace yourself. This may come as a shock.”
I wait until I have his full attention to continue.
“I’m pregnant. The baby is yours. No, it’s ours. And we will raise it together and you will spend every day for the rest of your life trying your hardest to be the kind of man, the kind of father, I know you can be. To tell you the truth, I’m two seconds from asking Corin to make a call to her New York connections and having a hit put on The Colonel. I hate him for what he’s done to you. For how he’s made you feel. But let me tell you how you’ve made me feel. Do you have any idea what my life was like before you?”
“If it weren’t for me, you’d have had surgery two months ago that would’ve saved your life, Layla.” His voice is flat. Even. But his entire being is consumed with disgust. At himself.
I struggle for the words to help him understand. To make him see himself as I do instead of how his dad did. “Or I could’ve had a stroke and died on the table during that surgery, Landen. There’s no way to know for sure. But here’s what I do know. You taught me how to live. I was a walking corpse, going through the motions, getting through my life as if it were a prison sentence. In a lot of ways it was after my parents were killed.”
He opens his mouth to interrupt me, but I place a finger over his lips. “I wallowed in self-pity, in self-doubt, and in the unfairness of it all. I was invisible, mostly because I wanted to be. And then you came along. And you blew my mind. You live. You live every second of your life one hundred and ten percent. Watching you on the field made my heart race—it still does. Being on the receiving end of one of your excited grins after you score a goal makes my life worth living.
“I love the kids I work with. I love Bridging the Gap and the fact that I look forward to each day I get in this life. I have a life in Spain, too, Landen. But more than anything, I want to be where you are. Because like it or not, we’re family. You are my heart and my soul, and your passion for life inspires me to live mine.” I pause to pull in more air so I can finish. My head swims as the truth overwhelms me.
“I will never, ever give up on you. I refuse to believe that you can’t get control of this disorder, regardless of what anyone says. I’ve seen you in action. You’re the most intense man I’ve ever known. You give everything you have to everything you do. You love me more than anyone has ever loved me. And yes, you hurt me more than anyone has ever hurt me. But I know you don’t want to. You went into that place to get help because you want to be better, because you want to be a good father. I have no doubt in my mind that you will be. So stop doubting yourself. I have enough faith in you for the both of us.” I stop to pull his face to mine with both hands. “You will never be like your father. You have something he never did.”
“What’s that?” he chokes out, searching for the answer in my eyes.
“Me,” I whisper.
His eyes fill and he shakes his head. “I don’t deserve you, Layla Flaherty. I never did.”
“But you have me—always,” I promise, resting my forehead on his. “And you knocked me up, so there’s no getting rid of me now.”
“I want you to know what you’re getting, Layla. There’s no cure for this. If at any time you wanted out, I would understand.”
I stare straight into his eyes as I speak. “I will never want out. Never. Do you understand that?”
Fear fills his beautiful green eyes. “What if I lose it? What if I can’t control myself and I lose your faith?”
“Then you will work your ass off to get it back. Same thing you do when you miss a goal, Landen. You get it back.”
“What if you get tired of giving me second chances?”
I sigh, leaning in and wrapping my arms around him. “Love isn’t measured in chances, Landen. When you love someone, there isn’t a limit. As long as you keep trying, I will keep loving you. I don’t even know if I could stop. Not that I’d ever want to.”
His tears are slipping down his beautiful face and onto me. “Tell me what you want me to do, baby. I’ll do whatever you want.”
Pressing my back against his front, I take his hands and wrap his arms around me. His palms rest on my belly. A flutter under my skin startles us both. “Just hold me—us. Just hold us close. And don’t let go. Ever.”
For a few minutes we just sit there, wrapped up in each other. Until he breaks the peaceful silence. “I got you something,” he says barely loud enough for me to hear. Despite my request for him not to let go, he removes one hand from my belly. I try to twist in his arms to protest but I’m not quick enough. A tiny black and white scrap of fabric lands on my stomach. I touch it gingerly and then glance up at his face. “Perfect fit,” he says softly.
I smile at the tiny soccer ball beanie on my midsection and settle back in to his embrace. “Just like us.”
“Dude, the bulge in your pants is distracting.”
“Shut up, you jackass. I’m recording.” The digital image of Layla on the screen as she gives her graduation speech doesn’t do her justice, so I lift my head to see the real thing.
“You know everyone can see it. Hell, she probably already knows what’s coming—I know she knows your dick isn’t that big.” Skylar laughs at his own joke.
“Can you two knock it off for five minutes, please?” Corin glares at us and snatches the camera from me so she can record the next part. The part that’s going to change everything.
As soon as Layla finishes her speech about the children she worked with in Spain and steps down from the podium, I stand and walk up on stage. My damn hands are shaking so hard that they’re racking my entire body. Everything that’s ever happened to me, even the really shitty stuff, led me here. And even if she says no, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Every cell in my body is singeing as if my blood has become electrically charged to the point of pain. “Layla Flaherty,” I say as I meet her in the middle of the stage and sink down onto one knee.
Whoops and hollers and squeals reverberate all through the auditorium so loudly it’s deafening, but I can’t take my eyes off her. Off my beautiful girl. Still glowing like the angel she’s always been. My angel.
“Landen?” she asks, her brow furrowed and her eyes wide. “What are you doing?”
My face breaks into a grin. “Would you please, pretty please with a cherry on top, do me the honor of being my wife, for as long as we both shall live?” Which I intend to be a very long time—for both of us.
It takes all my powers of concentration to hold the black velvet box steady as I present her with the ring I bought nearly a year ago in Spain. Before I knew we were going to be a family of three. Those gorgeous eyes shine down over her round belly at me as they fill with tears. “Yes, God yes, Landen. Yes, yes, yes!”
I jump up and grab her as one of the Administrators shouts, “She said yes!” into the microphone on stage.
Layla’s very pregnant midsection is the only thing keeping me from crushing her to me. Our child. The one due in two weeks—just enough time to get back to Georgia so we can get married in a small ceremony her aunt’s already got planned. Thank fuck she said yes.
I’m holding her tightly, and it’s our moment. Even though I knew a long time ago that Layla was my forever. And that I was hers, if she would have me. But it’s short lived. Because as soon as I let go and turn to escort my fiancée back towards her seat to the soundtrack of wild applause, she flashes her ring at Corin and Kate in the audience and her body stiffens and jerks away from me. I almost don’t catch her before she goes down.
The moment Landen drops to his knee in front of me is the happiest moment of my entire life. I’m acutely aware of every single smiling face in the auditorium as they clap and smile. The light catches the ring as I hold it out for everyone to see.
Time slows and I hear my own breathing.
In. Out. Blink.
“Oh, God. Layla,” I hear his tortured voice say from far away.
And then…silence.
I climb in the ambulance, answering the paramedics’ questions as rapidly as they fire them off at me. How far along is she? Is she on medication?
I tell them everything I know, choking out the words over the lump of panic rising in my throat. Once they go to work on inserting Layla’s IV, I yank my phone from my pocket and call the number Dr. Sanderson was able to get me for Dr. Kirkowitz’s office.
A nurse promises to page him. I’m practically screaming at her that it’s an emergency when she hangs up.
It might be seconds, or minutes later, when my phone buzzes in my hand.
“Dr. Kirkowitz?”
“Mr. O’Brien. My nurse said it was an emergency. I’m guessing Layla is going into labor.”
“I don’t know. She had a seizure. She’s unconscious. We’re on our way to the hospital right now. Can you meet us?”
He clears his throat. “Landen, I want you to know that I got your letter. I was once an underserving jerk myself and my wife, God rest her soul, was an angel as well. But without prior knowledge of Layla’s—”
“Can you meet us or not? Look, please, just come to University Hospital as soon as possible. Please, I’m begging.”
I hear him sigh on the other end. I’m a millisecond from losing control of myself when he finally speaks. “I’ll be right there.”
The ambulance jerks to a stop as I disconnect the call. I owe Dr. Sanderson my life for talking us to staying in California.
“Her doctor is on his way,” I call out after them as they whisk her into the doors to the ER.
Now all I can do is wait.
There’s a faint beeping sound in the distance. A bright light above me. People talking. But I can’t make out what they’re saying.
I want to ask them something but I can’t remember what it is.
And then…darkness.
Sixteen. It’s how old you have to be to drive a car in most states. And it’s also the number of hours I spend in the deepest, darkest pit of hell wondering if the two most important women in my life are going to make it.
Wondering if I’m going to have to live in a world where Layla doesn’t exist. Where the tiny creature with Layla’s chin, according to the ultrasound picture, has been taken from me before she’s even had a chance to wrap me around her tiny little finger.
Kate, Corin, Skylar, and my mom surround me in the private waiting room. But I don’t want them here. I don’t want anyone here. I don’t want to have ever existed.
“She’s so strong, Landen. She’s the strongest girl I know,” is all Corin can say. Over and fucking over as I clench my hands in my hair and stare at the floor. They’ve all developed these little chants of reassurance. What none of them say is, “It’s going to be okay.”
Because no one knows if it really is.
I’m being punished, is all I can think to myself. Punished for forcing myself into her life. For taking her to Spain with me instead of letting her live her own life. Punished for taking her virginity, for getting her pregnant before we were married. For the way I reacted when she first told me the news. For being the colossal fuck-up my dad always said I was. For not being able to get a handle on my own anger. I ruined my angel. And now she’s paying for my weaknesses.
“Waiting is the hardest part,” my mom says softly from somewhere beside me.
But she’s wrong. If some doctor comes out here and tells me they didn’t make it, or that one of them did but the other didn’t, that will be the hardest part. Getting out of bed tomorrow with the world going on like everything good in it didn’t cease to exist will be the hardest part. Looking at myself in the mirror and wishing I could go with them but knowing Layla would never forgive me for taking my own life will be the hardest part.
“Family of Layla Flaherty?” a voice says into the dimly lit room.
I literally propel myself out of the seat and towards the voice. And then I freeze where I’m standing. Because if the news is bad, I don’t want it. I want one more minute, one more hour, where I can believe she can still be okay. If she’d left this world, wouldn’t I have felt it somehow?
“I’m her husb—fiancé,” I tell the man. Please God, please give me a chance to be her husband. Please. “Are they okay?” My voice breaks, and the doctor makes a face I can’t decipher.
The man in scrubs—fuck, blood-covered scrubs—is a head shorter than me, but he holds my whole damned life in his hands. “Dr. Kirkowitz is coming to speak with you shortly.” He must see my wild I’m-about-to-grab-you-and-shake-you-senseless expression because he rushes on. “They’re okay,” he informs us with a nod. “Mom just came out of surgery and is sedated, but baby is in the nursery and is healthy.”