“How long does it take to… Fuck, I don’t know—”
“About ten days. I called my doctor’s office. The bleeding tapers off in time. And there’s the cramps and backaches, but those get easier too.”
“What can I do for you?”
She shrugged. “Back rubs? Patience? Let me hole up and watch crap TV and be weepy and not take it personally if I need to be alone…?”
He nodded. “I’ll try. And how do you feel?” he asked again, tone making it plain he wasn’t talking about her body.
“I feel a lot of things. Sad, and powerless…but also a little relieved, maybe.”
His hand made slow circles across her back.
“I wasn’t ready to make that decision, no matter which way I landed on it,” she said. “How do you feel?”
“Doesn’t matter how I feel. Only matters that I be whatever it is you’re needing.”
“It absolutely does matter what you feel. You can tell me.” Was he relieved too, and didn’t want to make her feel unsupported? Or was he actually heartbroken, but didn’t want her to think she’d let him down?
Shit, did she want to know how he felt about it?
“I don’t know what I feel yet,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Was it because… Did I make this happen?” he asked in a rush of breath.
Her eyes widened and she turned to him. “The miscarriage?”
“The other night, when things got rough…”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. It doesn’t work like that. I promise.”
He nodded but she could read on his face he wasn’t ready to believe her yet.
“Seriously, Flynn, that wasn’t anything to do with it. It was just something about the embryo. It wasn’t meant to be, so it… I dunno. It just blinked out.”
“How big was it?”
“Like a sesame seed, I think.”
“So you didn’t have to see it, or…” He trailed off.
She shook her head. “Nothing like that.”
“Okay. And are you comfortable, sittin’ on the floor like this?”
“No, not particularly.”
He was on his feet the next moment, offering a hand to help her up.
Laurel stood, her butt cold and achy from sitting on the tile for so long, head swimmy and eyes itchy from the crying. She let him lead her to her bedroom. She crept across the comforter, each movement of her legs twinging something deep inside her. The pad between her legs felt like a diaper. Like a punishment.
Flynn sat across from her, making her bed seem tiny. He’d never spent the night, and they’d only screwed around in her room maybe three times—Laurel was a combination of courteous and shy when it came to having sex within roommates’ earshot, and to be fair, a muted Flynn was a complete waste. It just made a million times more sense, fucking at his place.
“You want some tea or something?” he asked. “A drink? You can have booze again, at least.”
“No, no drink.” It sounded nice, but it felt wrong. Felt too familiar and natural a choice. Too easy. “Thank you.”
They were quiet for a long time.
“What are you thinking about?” she finally asked.
“I’m thinking, ‘How can this have come to seem so real in next to no time?’”
That stung, but she didn’t fault him for it. She’d had the same thought.
“I dunno. But you’re right, it did. Even ambivalent as I was, when I realized what was happening, I was so panicky, so frightened for…for it. I felt so helpless, like some tiny creature was in crisis and I couldn’t do anything to rescue it.” And knowing that made her wonder how on earth she’d have felt if she’d chosen to get an abortion, or if she’d have been able to.
“It should’ve been me there with you, not Heather.” His voice didn’t break but it sounded odd. Thin, or brittle. Unlike she’d ever heard it.
“You couldn’t have known. You were working.”
He held his tongue.
“Would you get me some water?” she asked, more to give him a task than anything else.
“Sure. Want any cake?”
“Not just now, thanks.”
He came back with the glass and they sat on her bed for a long time, trading quiet words of no particular import. The backaches came and went and he massaged the spot while she hugged the hot water bottle to her crampy middle. In time they wound up spooning, his warm body plastered to her aching muscles, the strength of his arms a small comfort.
“It’s weird,” she mumbled, breaking long minutes’ silence, “but you know what I think upsets me most about this whole thing?”
“What?”
“The way it ended… I’ll never know what I would have decided, now.”
He sat up, studying her face. “No?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea. I don’t know what I would have decided, and I don’t know what that decision would have done to us. To you.”
“I do,” he said.
“Oh?”
“I’d have stayed with you, either way.”
“Yeah?”
“No question. And if we didn’t have a kid this time, I’d hope we’d have one in two years, or five, or ten, or maybe not at all, if that seemed like the right thing.”