LITMIR.BIZ

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blessings for your near miss? I’m sorry, Tate, but neither of those options works for me. I think you should go.”

      “We’re not done, Chloe.”

      She wanted to cry and tried hard to keep in her tears. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Be honest with yourself, Tate. We never started. I need you to go.”

      “What if I want to stay, Chloe?”

      “Then you should have stayed six weeks ago. Or at least listened to me when I tried to talk to you afterward. But you wanted nothing to do with me then, and you don’t get to change your mind now. I want you to leave.” She could hear the pleading in her voice but she didn’t care. She couldn’t do this—not now, when she had already depleted every physical and emotional resource she had.

      “But the baby …?” His voice was hushed but still she heard the small crack that betrayed him.

      “There is no baby,” she told them both, and the words hurt as much as anything she had felt. Tate blurred before her eyes and she couldn’t read him as tears formed. She watched him get up and walk away from her and felt both relieved and wounded by his departure.

      She heard the curtains close and the sliding door of her intensive care room slide shut and she closed her eyes, willing the tears to stop. She couldn’t do this—not here.

      She barely had time to process the sound of the guard rail going down, or the weight on her bed, before she felt herself being picked up as strongly, and yet as gently as possible, and held tightly within a strong embrace. She felt pain tear through her abdomen, but it was nothing compared to what was going on in her heart. She shouldn’t do this—she shouldn’t feel better in Tate’s arms. But she did.

      Her complete loss of control over her life overwhelmed her and she gave in to the urge she had been fighting since she woke up. For some reason she knew she didn’t have to be brave right now—she didn’t need to put on the funny, reassuring front she had for Kate. Right now she could just hurt and it didn’t matter. She had nothing to lose with Tate; she had lost everything already.

      She felt his grip tighten as the sobs began to rack through her body, each movement both bringing and taking away the pain. He brought his chin down to rest on her head while his hand stroked up and down her back.

      “I didn’t know about the baby,” she confessed into his already soaked scrub top.

      “It’ll be okay, Chloe. You are okay,” he murmured in reassurance.

      “It’s not okay. How could I not have known about my own child?”

      “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

      No, it wouldn’t have. A child between them wouldn’t have changed Tate’s mind or his feelings toward her. “I didn’t deserve a baby.”

      “You didn’t deserve any of this.”

      “Didn’t I?” She had done the unthinkable. She had fallen in love and slept with her best friend’s ex, who the morning after had found her lacking. The only reason Tate was here now was because he felt sorry for her, but to be honest not more sorry than she felt for herself.

      He pulled her gently away from his shoulder, reaching up to cradle her face in his hands. “No, Chloe, you didn’t.”

      She wished she could believe him. She had never put much stock in karma before—you couldn’t when you spent your life treating people you were sure didn’t deserve what was happening to them. But now she wasn’t sure.

      She felt fresh tears forming in her eyes at the pain of her thoughts and from staring into Tate’s eyes too much. He really looked as if he cared for her. If only that was the case.

      She felt his lips press against the dampness of her cheek before she was once again tucked into his arms and held tightly. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that. She didn’t even remember him leaving. But when she woke he was gone.

      Post-operative day two was excruciating. Everything felt like a struggle. First thing in the morning a nurse had come to help her “dangle’, which had basically turned into a torture exercise of being forced to sit upright with her legs dangling off the bed, maintaining her balance. She’d lasted for less than five minutes and then slept for the next three hours to recover. When she woke Kate was there, propped in a bedside chair reading a heavy hardcover text that almost completely covered her. She was comforted by her friend’s presence.

      “Hey,” Chloe greeted her, watching as Kate’s focus shifted and she herself was assessed by the good surgeon.

      “You look better,” Kate said reassuringly.

      “That’s not saying much,” she replied, still having to work to keep her eyes open.

      “Do you want to tell me what happened?” Kate asked tentatively.

      She hadn’t thought about much in the last twenty-four hours, but what she had thought about, other than Tate and the loss of their baby, was what was she going to tell Kate?

      Kate—her best friend, the person she had been closest with during the past decade. She couldn’t lie, but how much of the truth was too much? Especially when the explanation for how she had gotten to this day was unexplainable even to herself.

      “I had an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured.” Nothing had prepared her for what she saw in Kate’s face. She wasn’t even sure she had been that surprised.

      “I didn’t realize you were in a relationship,” was all Kate managed after minutes of silence.

      Beyond the words she could see the hurt in her friend’s eyes. The thought that Chloe had been keeping something from her was painful for Kate.

      “I’m not, Kate.” Truer words were never spoken.

      “Oh.”

      She knew that Kate was not going to ask her more, but felt she owed her friend more of an explanation. “I slept with someone a few weeks ago. It was a mistake. It didn’t work out.”

      Kate didn’t respond immediately. She seemed to be processing the information until her look of surprise was replaced by one of understanding. “I’m sorry.”

      “So am I.” And she was. A lifetime spent thinking about the man you loved who’d got away would have been better than the crash-and-burn drama that had unfolded with Tate.

      “Is there anything I can do?”

      “I don’t suppose I can convince you to help bust me out of here?” she asked faint-heartedly, realizing that she likely couldn’t even make it as far as the elevator right now.

      “No, sorry. No chance of that happening. Try again.”

      “I would love my own clothes and stuff to take a shower.”

      “That I can do. So you’ll be wanting your make-up and finest lingerie, then?”

      Kate winked at her and Chloe was grateful for the lightening of their conversation.

      “Definitely. Goes great with these disposable mesh underwear I am ashamed to admit are surprisingly comfortable.”

      “Is it hard being a patient?”

      “Yes, but I haven’t figured out what is worse: feeling helpless or being a patient where I work.”

      It was the truth. She was so used to doing, to being active, multi-tasking, and now she couldn’t perform the simplest of tasks for herself and was dependent on people she was used to impressing with her abilities. It was hard to be this vulnerable.

      “It is a big change, but the first couple of days are the worst. By tomorrow you’ll be moving around a bit more and you will be home in a few days.”

      “Not soon enough.” She waited for a while, trying to decide if she really wanted to know the answer to her next question. “Does everyone

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