Till Forever

by Elena Matthews

  Copyright © 2017 by Elena Matthews

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at www.authorelenamatthews.co.uk

  Cover Designer: © Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations, www.okaycreations.com

  Cover Photography: Sara Eirew, www.saraeirew.com

  Editor and Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1979045643

  To those who lost their lives in the Manchester Arena bombing on May 22, 2017.

  May you rest in peace.

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Tyler

  “Something doesn’t feel right,” Mia, my wife, says as soon as I step through the front door with a panic-stricken tone to her voice, clutching hold of her rounded stomach, tears rolling down her face.

  Our Bernese mountain dog, Harley, is unsettled, circling around Mia, whimpering, obviously sensing something is wrong.

  Immediately, I’m by her side, my heart going into overdrive. “What’s wrong?”

  The second I say this, she doubles over, crying out in pain.

  Fuck.

  “I…the baby…it hurts…” Her breath is choppy before she cries out with even more pain.

  I gather her in my arms just as her legs give way beneath her. I catch her in my arms, cradling her, and that’s when I feel the dampness against her thighs, blood soaking through her jeans. I clench my eyes shut, tears threatening to spill at the essence of her pregnancy on my hands. It’s not until I hear her terrified cries that I snap out of my moment of weakness, forcing the tears away and focusing on my wife.

  “Babe, look at me.”

  Her glistening, beautiful eyes, filled with heartbreak, lock straight on mine, giving me her full attention, as she trembles.

  “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  She nods even though her salty tears continue to fall rapidly down her flushed cheeks, her hands protectively gripping her stomach.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” I repeat, mostly for my benefit.

  As I drive us to Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, I already know the outcome. The amount of blood pooling on the passenger seat is a big enough clue.

  I get us to the emergency room in record time, and the instant the doctors see her—held in my arms, almost ready to pass out from the agony that whimpers from her lips—not another second is wasted.

  Minutes later, we’re in a private room. Mia is lying on the bed with a gown on, attached to an IV, and a blanket covers her from the waist down. While we wait for an OB/GYN to tell us the inevitable, Mia clutches my hand in a death grip, the tears now unstoppable as they continue to rain down her cheeks. Apart from the breathless groans, she’s silent, but I see devastation on her face, in her tear-filled eyes.

  This is going to break her.

  This is going to break me.

  A few more minutes later, a doctor in pink scrubs enters along with an ultrasound machine.

  “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Bailey. I’m Dr. Miller. I understand you’re experiencing heavy bleeding and cramping. How far along are you, Mrs. Bailey?” she asks as she sets up the ultrasound machine.

  “I’m at twenty-two weeks,” Mia manages to speak before groaning out in even more pain. “Is…is…my baby…is she…dead?” she says seconds later, her voice breaking with pure grief.

  I squeeze her hand in mine, trying to comfort my wife even though my heart just cracked in half at her question alone. Especially when she said she because it was only three weeks ago when we’d found out our baby was a girl.

  Our baby girl.

  The doctor’s eyes turn down with sadness for a brief second. “I won’t know anything until I get a good look inside your uterus. I realize you’re experiencing a lot of discomfort, but just try to relax for me, if you can.”

  Mia gives a timid nod and lets out a shuddering breath as the doctor takes a seat on a wheeled stool and edges closer.

  I lift Mia’s hand and press a kiss to her knuckles, but she doesn’t acknowledge me. She just leaves her hand limp in mine, leaning her head back as she clenches her eyes shut, anguish already etched along her pretty face.

  “This is going to feel a little cold,” the doctor warns Mia as she squirts lubricant over her stomach. Taking hold of the transducer, she gently glides it against her stomach.

  Seconds turn into minutes, and my life flashes before my eyes as we wait for the doctor to tell us what we already know.

  After a short while of clicking buttons and moving the transducer over my wife’s stomach, Dr. Miller finally sets it back in its holder and turns to us with sadness set in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I can’t detect a heartbeat.”

  In the split second it takes the doctor to say this, the light in Mia’s eyes dim until it completely fades out. Everything that makes Mia the person she is—her happiness, her laughter, her loving heart—is sucked right from her body. I sit here, helpless, my numb heart breaking, as I watch her disappear right in front of me.

  Do something.

  Do anything.

  But I’m powerless to do a thing.

  All I can do is witness the brutality of Mia having to give birth to our tiny baby girl and then having to hold her lifeless body in her arms. When Mia says good-bye and watches the doctor take her away, darkness I never thought could exist in my wife hovers over her like an unwelcome black cloud, and I know in an instant that there might not be a way back from this. The nurse encouraged me to say good-bye, too, but I couldn’t seem to move my feet. I just stood, frozen in place, simply watching, my heart breaking.

  Instead of crying, like I expect her to do, she turns her head to me, her eyes filled with indescribable hurt. I reach out my hand to comfort her, but my heart shatters at her rejection as she pulls away.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Mia?” I ask attentively, a little taken aback by her hostility.

  “Just go.”

  My head rears back, as if somebody just delivered one heck of a right hook. “Baby, I know it’s hard, but I’m here.”

  “Are you? Are you here? Because, while I was forced to give birth to my dead child, something that my every instinct fought against, you just stood by and watched like a deer caught in headlights. You didn’t even hold her. Didn’t even kiss her good-bye. Why?” she demands.

  Silence is all that meets her question. The indescribable pain is too much, and the agony of our loss is impossible to put into words.

  “Just fucking go.”

  I don’t move an inch, the soul-crushing pain keeping me rooted to the spot.

  I flinch when she screams at the top of her lungs, “Go!”

  A nurs
e rushes in, concern on her face. “Is everything okay?”

  I go to answer, but Mia gets there first. “I want my husband to leave. I don’t want him here.”

  Her words feel like shards of glass cutting my insides, and it’s devastating. It’s taking everything I have to keep it together. I know she’s grieving, but in the four years I’ve known her, I’ve never been met by this fury before. I didn’t even know it existed.

  “Sir, maybe you should give your wife some space. Today’s been a tough day,” the nurse suggests.

  I reluctantly nod. I don’t want to leave her side. The thought of leaving her now kills me, but the last thing I want is to cause her any more stress. She’s been through enough trauma tonight to last a lifetime.

  I look back at Mia, but she’s turned away from me, looking off into space. I lean over to kiss her—something I’ve done since our first date, so it’s instinct—but I force myself to stop when she cowers from my touch, looking lost and vulnerable.

  “I love you, baby,” I whisper.

  I try not to take it personally when she doesn’t say it back, but damn it, I feel like I’m being gutted from the inside out and cut into a million tiny pieces. There has never been a day since our wedding day that she hasn’t told me she loves me. Hell, she said it to me this morning before I left for work, but now…nothing. The time we need each other the most, she’s pushing me away, and it leaves me with an uneasy sensation in the pit of my stomach.

  I exit the room with the nurse following behind. I walk over to the wall in front of me and brace my hands against it, trying to take it all in, trying to understand. A gentle hand touches my shoulder, and I turn my head to the nurse.

  “In the span of only a few hours, she’s been through one of the most horrific tragedies a woman can possibly experience. She’s mourning, but the anger there isn’t her talking; it’s a mixture of hormones, heartache…exhaustion. Give her the space she needs for tonight. What happened is a lot to process.”

  I nod, sucking in my bottom lip to stop my chin from trembling with the sobs that want to tear from my chest, my lungs burning from the pressure.

  “Head on home, and get some rest.” She walks off down the corridor.

  Ignoring the nurse’s instructions, I turn around and slide myself down the wall, getting ready to spend the night on the hospital floor.

  I’ll give my wife some space, but this is as much space as I’m willing to give her.

  In the days that follow, she has continued to push me away until, one day, I am alone and broken, drinking my way through a bottle of Jameson.

  However, what she doesn’t realize is that I am about to embark on the fight of my life.

  I will fight for my wife.

  Even if it kills me.

  Three Weeks Later

  Tyler

  The moment I come home from work, I immediately know something is off when I spot a suitcase at the bottom of the stairs. I drop my keys down on the side table, warily eyeing the suitcase, as Harley jumps up at me, his tail wagging furiously from side to side, an indication he’s happy to see me. I crouch down to his level and stroke his head, giving him all my attention. Once he’s had his fill, he walks away, and apart from his gentle footsteps on the hardwood floor, the house seems quiet, which isn’t unusual since I’ve been living in the same silence for three weeks now.

  Mia hasn’t spoken a word to me since she screamed at me in that hospital room. It isn’t that she’s giving me the silent treatment; it’s the fact that she doesn’t know what to say to me. Well, I think that’s what it is. I don’t know anymore. She’s hard to read. I used to know her every thought, her every feeling, her every emotion, but now, all I know is that she’s so buried in pain that she’s not herself. She’s depressed, and I have no idea how to bring her out of it. I feel useless and so out of my depth that it’s like I’m constantly drowning.

  I go in search of her by taking the stairs two at a time, heading to the one room where I know she will be.

  I pause at the door and see her sitting in the rocking chair in the center of the room, her back to me and her head bowed down. Ever since she’s returned home from the hospital, she has been spending all her time in here, the room that was going to be the baby’s nursery.

  Erika’s nursery.

  My heart squeezes into a viselike grip, and for a split second, I find it hard to breathe.

  Erika is what Mia wanted to call her. I hated the name from the get-go. I wanted to call her Sawyer, but Mia argued that it sounded too much like a boy’s name. But, the instant I saw our baby, our tiny baby, barely weighing ten ounces, immediately, I knew she was an Erika. It just seemed perfect for such an angelic face.

  I haven’t told Mia this. In fact, I haven’t told Mia anything. I’ve been keeping my feelings well hidden, not wanting to burden her with my shit when I know she’s been struggling a lot worse than I have. I’ve been able to head to work and bury my head in my writing, but Mia seems to be constantly in her head. I suppose, in some ways, I’ve been hiding from all this by spending an extra couple of hours at work every night, but anything is better than the silence I’m greeted with the second I get home.

  And seeing the woman I love—sitting in the swivel rocking chair she purchased on a whim at Pottery Barn in an empty room with only splashes of three different paint samples on the wall since we didn’t decide what color to paint the nursery—just reminds me of the dark cloud we are currently buried under. I don’t know how to make the rain disappear when all I can see is darkness for miles. I don’t know how to fix this, and I know it doesn’t help when I keep myself hidden, forcing myself to focus on my work when, really, I need to focus on what is in front of me. My wife. I just don’t know how to speak the emotions.

  I walk toward her, and I hate how she visibly stills at the sound of me approaching. I place my hand on the top of the chair, and I remain silent, just looking down at her for a few minutes, letting the silence linger between us.

  Then, I softly ask the question I dread the answer to, “Why is your suitcase downstairs?”

  She sighs heavily, and when she remains silent, I assume she’s ignoring me.

  But, a few beats later, she speaks, “I can’t do this anymore.”

  My heart begins to race as I hear the first five words spoken to me in three weeks.

  “Do what?”

  “You know what. This. Us. Everything,” she says in a broken voice, still looking straight ahead.

  I allow my eyes to close, hating every word out of her mouth. I reopen them, looking down at her. “I don’t understand.”

  She sighs again before standing up and facing me. The haunted look on her face has me clutching hold of the chair, my knuckles beginning to turn white.

  “I’m leaving you, Tyler.”

  My jaw clenches, and my nostrils flare as I try to find the words to respond, but I’m speechless. We simply stare at each other, not saying a single word.

  Did I hear her right? She’s leaving me?

  Her eyes begin to fill with tears, and I watch as a lone tear drips along the ridge of her nose and over the plump of her lips. She licks the tear away with her tongue before chewing on her bottom lip.

  “We haven’t spoken in three weeks. We’ve been existing in this house but not together. We haven’t slept in the same bed, we haven’t shared a meal together, and we haven’t done a single thing as a couple. I don’t feel like this is a marriage anymore. I’m alone, and I have been since we lost her. I’ve been waiting for you to fight through the silence, but I’ve just been met with more silence. It’s deafening, Tyler, so deafening.”

  My breathing feels restricted as I take in her words. “I have been trying to talk to you, but you’re the one who’s been ignoring me.”

  “Asking if I want some soup the day I came home from the hospital is not fighting through the silence! I wanted emotion from you, tears, anything that would show you were affected by the loss of our daughter the way I was!”

/>   I flinch at her harsh words, shocked that she thinks I am unaffected by what happened.

  Does she think my heart is made of stone?

  “Just because I’ve not spoken about it doesn’t mean I’m unaffected,” I argue, feeling my arms begin to shake with the pressure of my tight hold.

  “Well, you sure have an excellent poker face.”

  I blink, angry at her comment. “What do you want from me?” I ask once the silence consumes us like a cancerous disease.

  “If you even have to ask that question, then I know I’m making the right decision.” She heads toward the door while more tears rush down her face.

  I turn to her, watching as she stops at the door, her back to me.

  “I love you, Tyler, but I can’t be with someone who treats the loss of our child like the Cowboys just lost the Super Bowl.”

  She walks out of the room, and I stand there, stupefied, my heart feeling like it’s hanging out of my chest by a thread after being viciously ripped out by the woman I’d never thought would hurt me. I feel like I’ve stepped into an alternate universe, and this isn’t my life. Except this is my life, every part of it.

  It isn’t until I hear her footsteps scurrying down the stairs that I finally step into action and hurry after her. I stop at the top of the stairs just as she steps down the last one.

  “You’re the one who’s pushing me away, Mia. You’re the person on the other side of that silence. I’ve been trying, but you’ve never given me an inch.”

  She bites down on her bottom lip, and her shoulders move up and down with her heavy breathing, like she’s trying to hold back the tears. She slowly turns around until she’s looking up at me, sadness clouding her eyes.

  “In the beginning, I pushed you away. I was devastated. I’d had to give birth to my baby, knowing that her heart was no longer beating. I pushed you away because my world felt like it was ending. But I wasn’t myself. My hormones were all over the place. I appreciated the space you’d given me while I was in the hospital. When I came home though, I needed you more than ever, but you were barely ever here. Then, when you were here, you suddenly felt like a stranger, not the man I’d married.” She hesitates before saying in a strained voice, “Where did my husband go?”