Chapter 23

I moved into my new rented townhouse in Yorba Linda, right up in the hills so I could be reminded of Bean’s dad every single morning when I looked out my window into the world. I remembered his apartment on the hill, the one that looked over the very mountains that I now lived on. I could almost pretend that he was still there, looking up at the mountains as I looked down at his hills.

Only Addie and Rita knew where I’d moved, and honestly, I only spoke to Addie and Rita these days. They helped me pick out the baby stuff, all the latest technology that overwhelmed me until they were delivered and I read the manuals. On a sunny Saturday, Rita and Addie came and helped me paint the nursery yellow. Rita, who’d always been artistic, painted a mural of zoo animals on one wall. We assembled the crib with Brian’s power tools, and it was nice doing it ourselves.

As we planned for Bean, we also planned for Rita’s wedding, which would take place approximately three months after Bean would be born. Rita made Addie and me go check out venues with her and Brian. As we visited venue after venue, the rustic ones and the glam ones and the elegant ones, I realized how this might’ve been something that Wes would have wanted: happily ever after.

And I’d gone and broken his fucking heart.

I still remembered the look on his face, as if I’d kicked him in the soul. The pain in his eyes had been immeasurable, an ocean of grief, swallowing me, drowning me. And sometimes ... sometimes it got hard and I wanted to give in, wanted to drown.

But I had Bean.

She was the light at the end of the tunnel, my reason for living. I thought of her, this little girl, so innocent, so helpless, so... mine. Never, not ever, would she feel alone. I’d always be there for her, and hell, I was a strong woman; if I could fill the role of a mother, I could damn well fill the role of a father too. What was there to it? Teach your kid how to throw a ball? Talk about how shitty boys were? Teach her how to change a tire?

I could do all that.

I didn’t need a man.

But I wanted one. I wanted Wes.

He just wasn’t mine anymore.

Sometimes I’d lie awake at night, staring up at the ceiling, wondering if he thought of me too, or if his busy life had led him down a path that I couldn’t ever follow. What if he’d met someone already? There were smart brains like him at that institution, and no doubt, there’d be staff he’d run into on a daily basis that would want him. He was beautiful—not just handsome, not just easy on the eyes, but also kind and selfless and giving. He had that casual, easy way of talking to people, and it was in that casual, easy way that he’d burrowed himself under my skin. He lived within me, making my heart beat, a ghost in my every breath.

He haunted me.

And I loved him, a man that I’d never see again.

It was a frigid sort of day, and I was feeling like a frigid sort of woman.

“Which one?” Rita asked, holding up two bridesmaid dresses. Both were frumpy and drab.

“Neither,” I said. “They’re hideous and you know it.”

“You’re going to have to meet me in the middle here, Celine,” she said, sighing.

“Stop ruining her day,” Addie snapped at me. “You’re not getting away with being a bitch just because you’re pregnant.”

“I’m just being honest,” I said defensively. “Why am I the one choosing my bridesmaid dress, anyway? Isn’t that supposed to be Rita’s job?”

“Not in my wedding,” Rita said. “My cousin chose our dresses for her wedding and we all looked like squashed cupcakes, which she absolutely did on purpose so she could look the best. Fuck that noise. I picked a color, now get off your ass and pick a dress, Celine, or so help me god—”

“Okay, okay,” I said, and groaned as I pushed myself up from the plush armchair I’d been sitting in. We were in a boutique in Anaheim, and Rita’s sister, three cousins, and Addie were all in the store going through dresses. I’d located the nearest seat and had planted my butt down in it.

“Jesus, Celine, you just get huger and huger every day,” Addie said with a smirk.

“Thanks,” I said dryly. “It’s not like I’m eight months pregnant or anything.”

My feet throbbed as I waddled through the store. They’d become so swollen lately that it hurt to walk, and I couldn’t even begin to describe the pain in my lower back.

I loved Bean, but I didn’t love being pregnant.

“You look like you swallowed a watermelon,” Rita said with a giggle. I flipped her off and started trudging up the stairs to the second floor. The first floor was mainly wedding dresses, and the second floor had all the bridesmaid dresses. Rita and Addie had been going up and down the stairs to show me dresses, but they could only do that so many times before they lost their patience. I didn’t exactly like anything they’d brought down.

I’d have to go see myself.

I was out of breath when I reached the top of the stairs. When you start carrying around an extra thirty pounds, you tell me if it isn’t harder to go up a flight of stairs.

“Are you okay?” asked Cynthia, Rita’s older sister.

“Fi-Fine,” I huffed. “Thanks. I’m just gonna look around.”

For the next half an hour, I walked around the store and eventually ended up in the back, looking for something that wouldn’t look terrible on my new body type. I’d always been tall and athletic, but now I had a curvy body to think of. Pregnancy curves didn’t always go away. Sometimes those baby-bearing hips stayed with you.

Rita had picked sky blue for her summer wedding’s bridesmaid dress color. It wasn’t the most flattering color on me, but her wedding day wasn’t about me. I began to go through some dresses in the back when I heard glass break. I looked to my right and lost my breath.

It was Elena. A glass of champagne she’d been sipping was now shattered on the floor.

“Celine,” she said, shocked. “You’re—”

“I have to go,” I said and swept past her, tears already pricking in my eyes. “Bye.”

“Celine, wait!”

Standing at the top of the stairs was Janie, her eyes already brimming with tears.

“Celie,” she said, and I brushed past her too. She reached out, closing a hand around my wrist. “Celie, please—”

“Let go of me!” I said as the tears began to fall. I struggled out of her grasp, and she let go.

“CELINE!” Addie screamed from the bottom of the stairs.

But it was too late.

I was already falling.

When I came to, there was blood between my legs, flowing in rivers right onto the cold tiled floor. The paramedics lifted me onto a stretcher, and I sobbed, gripping one by the arm.

“Save my baby,” I cried. “Forget about me, okay? Save my baby!”

And then I fainted again.

I woke up just as I was being wheeled into an operating room.

“Bean,” I gasped, realizing why I was here.

“It’s okay,” a nurse said, taking my hand. “You’re okay, honey.”

“My baby,” I said, crying.

“We’re doing the best we can,” a doctor said, and then turned and nodded to a man in scrubs. It was the anesthesiologist.

“Count back from one hundred,” he said, and a nurse put a breathing mask over my mouth and nose.

One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety...

I woke in a dark hospital room with the beeping of a heart rate monitor penetrating my ears. I was bandaged up and the pain was eating away at my bones—but I couldn’t think about that. The first thought on my mind was Bean. I put a hand over my belly and hoped against all hope that she was still there.

But I was in so much pain that I couldn’t tell.

I fumbled around, looking for the remote so I could press the button to call a nurse.

“Baby’s fine,” said a voice from a corner in the room. Sitting on a chair in the dark was Rita, her eyes red from crying.

“Is she still in there? Inside of me?” I asked in a voice thick with tears.

“Yes, but you really scared the shit out of us, Celine,” she said, beginning to cry. “We thought we’d lost you ... both of you.”