Nineteen

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened?” Andre asked.

“You know what happened,” I said.

“I know some people died and then you ran away.”

“Something like that.” Telling him would bring everything back up to the surface. I gave him a look. “I came here to forget, remember?”

“But you haven’t forgotten. It still keeps you up at night.”

He was right. I hadn’t forgotten. Sometimes at night, I found myself groaning into my pillow, willing the memories to stay below the surface of my subconscious. I was not forgiven, the voices in my head would whisper.

“It’s all my fault,” I said. “Something happened and it was all my fault.”

“So what did happen?” Andre put his hand on my waist, ran it up and down my side. I turned around to face him. I reached out and put my hand on his cheek. I had nothing to lose.

“He had grey eyes like you.” I didn’t know how to love him, I wanted to say. But my voicebox doesn’t know how to say the L-word.

“You know how it is with you and me? It was like that with him and me," I said. “But it was worse. I didn’t know... I didn’t know know if I meant anything to him.”

I sat up in bed and wrapped my arms around myself. “I only wanted to see if he cared. There were others. Other men. I didn’t... it was was just sex, with them.

“And then I realized that he did, you know, care about me and I stopped. But I... but later on, there was a baby. And there was an accident and they all died.

“I woke up alone in the hospital bed. Everything hurt and someone was groaning. It was a horrible sound. I’d never heard anything like it.

“A nurse came over and asked me if I was okay. I felt her hand on my shoulder and realized that the groans were coming from me. I tried to speak but I screamed instead.

“It felt like someone had sliced me open and dragged my insides out. And they did. They did!” I covered my face with my hands and sobbed.

I didn’t tell him that I’d been awake when they pulled me out of the burning car. That on the way to the hospital, my baby had been so still and that even though I hadn’t believed in God for years, I prayed.

Andre sat up, took my hands away from my face and pulled me into my arms. He rocked me back and forth. I looked up at him.

“My baby,” I said. “My baby.” I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say.

“I’m sorry,” he said. I realized that he was sobbing as well. I’d forgotten that he too, had lost a child. But it wasn’t the same. He kept rocking me.

“I don’t know if it was a boy or a girl.” For some reason, that little detail mattered. “It didn’t even have a name,” I sobbed.