But then something else happened altogether.
Hawke is looking at the opposite wall vacantly, his hands shoved down deep in his pockets. The fight has gone out of him, but he wanted the whole truth, so I’m going to give it to him.
“I didn’t break up with you because of that,” I tell him.
His head jerks my way, his eyes widening with confusion and curiosity. Pulling his hands out of his pockets, he steps around the corner of the bed that separates us and comes to stand before me. “Why, then?”
Taking a step closer to Hawke, I reach out and put my hand on his chest. Right over the middle of his sternum, where I feel his heart beating steady and true. I can almost imagine each beat sucking in knowledge and truth, pumping out pain and grief. “Because you and I were bad for each other.”
“What?” he says, stepping back in surprise. I drop my hand, grab his, and pull it up. I curl both my hands around his and pull it into my own chest, holding it over my heart.
“Something else happened in the hospital,” I begin slowly, hoping I can paint a clear picture of the tailspin I was thrown into. “When the doctor came in to talk to me, she wasn’t very sympathetic to my plight. She smelled the beer on my breath, looked at my tattoos and piercings, wrinkled her nose in disdain. You know how that goes sometimes.”
Hawke doesn’t nod in agreement with me, but I know he does agree. We often talked about people and first impressions. Hell, I know I made an impression on him the first time he saw me. He loved my wildness and piercings; it’s what attracted him, but we also knew it repelled others.
“The doctor told me something that hit me deeply. In hindsight, I think it was wrong of her to do it, but I didn’t know. Not at twenty.”
Hawke’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard, but his voice is gruff with uneasiness. “What did she do?”
I squeeze his hand still locked between both of mine and level my gaze at him. I tell him as simply as I can, and try to keep the emotion out of my voice. “She told me it was probably my fault I had miscarried. Went on to list the hazards of drinking and drugs and what they can do to a fetus that early on in a pregnancy. Didn’t matter to her that I hadn’t done drugs, and she never really even asked me my history with alcohol. She just assumed I was a party girl and was pretty clear that, although you could never know for certain, that’s probably what caused the miscarriage.”
“That fucking cunt,” Hawke growls, jerking his hand out of my hold. His arms immediately circle around my shoulders and he slams me into him. He hugs me tight, protectively, and growls again. “I should track her down and—”
“She was right,” I say calmly, cutting through his anger with the one thing I believe to be true about that night.
Hawke pulls his upper body back, loosening his hold on me slightly. He looks down at me, shaking his head in denial, eyes filled with disavowal. “No.”
“Yes,” I say firmly, and pull back. His arms drop and he stares at me helplessly.
“It didn’t register with me that my period was late. I never thought twice about the way we partied. I assumed nothing bad would ever come of it, and I most certainly didn’t think I could get pregnant while I was on the pill. I never gave two thoughts about the consequences of my actions because I was swallowed up by you. You commanded all my attention. You consumed me. Everything was about you, and as long as I had you, I didn’t care about anything else. And don’t pretend it wasn’t the same on your end. As long as you had me, nothing else mattered. We were young and stupid and in no way ready to really grasp the concept of love and commitment. I lay in a hospital emergency room bleeding our child out because I never once thought our actions could ever cause us pain. I was stupid, immature, and I knew—”
My voice cracks, my shoulders slump. Hawke is starting to see that this goes much deeper than just being pissed at him for not leaving the party with me.