All of Me (32 page)

“Was there a way
for a doctor could have confirmed your fertility?” Kat asked.  “Because I can’t
think of how they could have.  They thought your ovaries had been irreparably
damaged by the chemo, radiation, and drugs.  How could they have known
otherwise until your body proved them wrong?”

“I guess,” Stella
conceded.  Another sob rose up as she recalled Nathan’s anger and the awful
things he’d said.  “I never in a million year thought he’d react that way.  I
knew he’d be worried because he told me he never wanted to be a dad because of
all of his issues.”  Stella choked on another sob.  “But I thought he’d be
happy.  Because we love each other.  And this baby is
us
.”  More sobs
wracked her body.  “But instead he asked me to get rid of it.  Oh,
God
…” 
Stella leaned forward, sobbing into her hands. 

Kat leaned over
and stroked Stella’s head.  “Shhh…” she cooed in a very un-Kat like way.  “It’s
not good for the baby, Stell.  You’ve got to think of that now.  The doctor
already said this is considered a high risk pregnancy because of your past medical
history.  We’ve got to keep you as stress free as possible, all right?” 

When Stella showed
no signs of slowing down, Kat sighed, still stroking Stella’s hair.  “I’m so
sorry, Stella.”

What more could
she say?  Stella had made yet another egregious miscalculation vis-à-vis
men…only this time, she wasn’t the only one who would be hurt by her
foolishness.

Chapter
Twenty-Six

Nathan stormed out
of Stella’s house without giving nearly enough thought to where in the hell he
was going to go.  He was on duty and his partner was no where to be found. 

Nathan considered
leaving Danny there, but they were still on the clock and, as angry as Nathan
was, dereliction of duty wasn’t something he needed on his record.  And so he
sent Danny a text saying he’d be parked down the street when he came out.

It was a pussy
move, but the only one available to Nathan at the moment.  Because there was no
way he was going anywhere close to Stella’s house again.  Ever.

A few minutes
after Nathan sent the text, Danny walked out of Stella’s front door and down
her steps.  But instead of climbing into the passenger side, he walked around
to Nathan’s window and pounded on it with the side of his fist.

Here we go.

Nathan rolled down
his window.  “If you bust out my window, the captain isn’t gonna be happy,
Danny.”

“You asshole!  How
could you do that to her?”  Danny pointed back towards Stella’s house.  “You
just walked in there and
destroyed
her, you know that right?  Or are you
too big of a selfish prick to care?”

“Yes, I am too
selfish to care,” Nathan said evenly.  “I told her I never wanted a child, she
got pregnant, and now I’m walking away.  Guys do it every day.”  He swallowed
down whatever was trying to come back up his esophagus and shrugged.  “I’ll
send her money.  She’ll be fine.” 

Nathan thought he
might actually get sick.  He inhaled a deep breath through his nose and exhaled
slowly out of his mouth.  “Now get in.  We were lucky not to get a call during
that nonsense, but one will be coming in any minute.”

“
Nonsense
?” 
Danny stepped back from the cruiser shaking his head. 

The disgusted,
disappointed look on his face didn’t come close to the self-directed loathing
Nathan was experiencing.

“The woman you
love – who miraculously loves you despite all of your fuckedupness - tells you
she is pregnant with your baby and you call that ‘nonsense?’”  Danny’s
expression was full of nothing but revulsion.  “You really are sick, you know
that, Drazek?  All those years you told me how fucked up and twisted and
black-hearted you were…I never believed you.  Until now.” 

He braced his
hands on the door frame and met Nathan’s eyes straight on.  “I am warning you,
if you don’t go back in there right now and beg her forgiveness, you will lose
her forever.  The only woman you’ve ever loved and will ever love.  The only
woman who has ever ‘gotten’ you.  Who loves all of you.  Unconditionally.  You
walk away now and you will never get her back.  You know that, right?”

For a split
second, Nathan considered doing exactly what Danny said.  He could walk back
into Stella’s house, drop to his knees, and beg her forgiveness.  He could tell
her that he’s not really angry…just very, very scared…and that he has no
mechanism for being honest about that fear to her or himself. 

He could hold her
and touch her and feel right about his place in the world.  He could make love
to her tonight and show her with his body everything she was to him and offer
her the very little he could be to her.

But then Nathan
thought about the pregnancy. 

The…
baby
. 

Our baby. 

Stella’s words –
and that look on her face as she spoke them – would haunt him forever.   

But there was
darkness inside of him.  Always had been, always would be.  He’d allowed Stella
to con him into allowing her in, but he couldn’t do that to a child.  There was
too much at risk.

And so Nathan did
the only thing he could. 

He shot Danny a
glance and started up the cruiser.  “I’m leaving.  You coming or staying?”

Danny scoffed,
head shaking.  “For real?”  When Nathan didn’t respond, Danny walked around and
got in. 

They finished
their shift in silence; only speaking to one another when absolutely
necessary. 

Nathan had never
felt so alone.  He’d been friends with Danny for as long as he could remember
and now he’d fucked that up.  He’d just lost the new family he’d gained in the
Ciaramitaro clan and he had no other real friends or family of his own.

And worst of all
he’d lost Stella. 

And the little
family they’d created inside of her.

At the end of
their shift, Danny and Nathan walked out to the back lot in silence. 

Before getting his
car, he faced Nathan.  “You know, I really thought you loved her, D.  Sure
seemed like you did.  I’ve never seen you so happy…and I don’t know…peaceful. 
But now I know it’s not possible that you loved her because this isn’t the way
to treat someone you hate, let alone someone you love.”

“And you know so
much about love, how?  Because you’ve fucked half of Cleveland and most of the
suburbs?  Don’t fool yourself, brother.  Sex doesn’t equal love, no matter how
much you wish it did.  And there’s no such thing as love anyway,” Nathan lied –
to himself more than Danny.  “There’s lust and there’s indifference.  Anything
in between in wishful thinking.”

“I might fuck a
lot of strangers and do a lot of stupid, dangerous stuff, but at least I would
never purposefully hurt anyone – especially not someone I cared for.  And
someone who cared for me back.” Danny shook his head.  “And you with all your
false self-deprecation and fake morality.  Nope, no strip clubs or drinking or
sleeping around for you.  You won’t steal a pen from work, but you’ll get a
woman pregnant and then abandon her?  That’s some fucked up set of rules you
live by, Nathan, I’ll give you that.”

“And, what, you
think I should stick around?  To do what?  Scream at it?  Beat it?  Punch holes
in the walls in front of it?  Break things when it pisses me off?”  Nathan
sneered.  “Yeah, that’s sounds like a great life for a kid.  Oh, wait, it
sounds like
my
life as a kid – only minus the cigarette burns and
starvation.”

“You would never
do those things to a kid, Nathan, come on!”

“I’d try not to,
but you and I know better than most things about cycles of abuse.  They are
very hard to break.  Oh, and by the way, other than beating her, I’ve subjected
Stella to all of that shit.  Which isn’t fair to her, but at least she’s a
grown woman with a choice.  If I stick around, that kid won’t have a choice and
Stella will all but lose hers.  Because it’s a lot harder to walk away from
someone you share a kid with.”  Nathan shook his head.  “I’m not doing it to
them.  I can’t.  I won’t.”

Danny eyed him. 
“You’re gonna bump into her, you know?  Her and eventually the baby.  You gonna
be okay with that?  You gonna be able to see her and walk away?  You gonna be
able to look at that baby’s face and walk away?  That would be pure fucking
torture.  You think about that?”

Nathan hadn’t
thought about that.  But there was always the lonely days, weeks, months, and
years ahead to think about that and everything else he’d lost and would
continue to lose. 

He left without
another word, drove home, and took a quick shower.  Nathan walked out of the
bathroom and stood in his living room, absorbing the silence.

There would be no
more laughing or joking or half-naked chases around the house.  Stella would
never mess up his kitchen, hang her stethoscope on his fridge handle, or leave
Starbucks water rings on his wooden end tables again. 

Nathan wandered
into the darkened bedroom and stared at his huge, empty bed.  The sheets were
still rumpled from the last time he and Stella had spent the night here.  From
the last time they’d made love here, slept here, and talked here. 

Well, Stella had
done most of the talking, but Nathan had loved every fucking second of it all. 
Because, as much as he’d pretended not to, he’d loved listening to her talk. 
Loved the sound of her voice, especially when it had been husky right when
she’d woken up or high-pitched and fast when she’d been all worked up over
something.  And the soft, sexy sound of it in his ear when they’d been making
love…

Suddenly, Nathan
was suffocating on the silence.  On the stillness .  On the emptiness.  On the
absence of
her
.

He went downstairs
and hurt himself badly.  Nathan hadn’t done it since he’d begun a relationship
with Stella, so he was long overdue.  By the time he dragged his ass upstairs,
he was sweaty, bloody, and no closer to forgetting about her. 

He showered –
again – and grabbed the pillow from Stella’s side of the bed.  He threw it on
the spare bedroom floor because it was one of the only spots in Nathan’s house
where they hadn’t had screwed around.  The living room floor and couch were
out.  So were the shower and hallway. Of course his bedroom was out.  He
couldn’t sleep on the kitchen floor or on the stairs, so the spare bedroom
floor it was.

Nathan stretched
out on the floor and buried his face in the pillow; inhaling as deeply as he
could.  Stella’s coconut/vanilla scent mixed with the heady perfume she
sometimes wore fucked with his mind and wound up his body. 

Nathan closed his
eyes and tried to let the exhaustion take him under.

Our baby.

His eyelids popped
open again. 

I love this
baby.  Our baby. 

Nathan was not a
crying man, but he came perilously close in that moment.

Because in that
horrendous, appalling, awful moment, Nathan realized he already loved their
baby too. 

***

Stella wanted to
chase down Nathan’s squad car and tell him he’d better stick to patrol. 
Because the man had zero future in stakeouts or private investigation.

He’d been following
her all week.  It wasn’t constant, but it was enough to notice.  Nathan had
driven by her house the night of their big fight, he’d been skulking around
during her walk around the block the next day, and he’d just happen to be
patrolling the hospital parking lot when she’d gotten off of work last
night.   

And he’d – of all
God-blessed things – put an envelope with a $500 check in her mailbox a few
days ago.  Oh, and he’d mowed her lawn and patched her cracked concrete front
step while she’d been at work yesterday. 

If this was
Nathan’s idea of walking away, he had a lot to learn about the art of
abandonment.

Stella hadn’t been
able to stifle her laugh when she’d opened that check.  What pregnancy-related
expenses would she have accrued in a week to warrant that huge chunk of
change?  It was so bizarre and, like most things Nathan-related, oddly
endearing.  She’d put it into a different envelope and mailed it back, but he’d
simply added another $100 to it and mailed it back to her. 

For “incidentals and
supplies.”    Like what?  The Taco Bell she’d been craving and the extra toilet
paper she’d been using with the increase in peeing?

The man was
maddening.

But it was
impossible for Stella to stay angry with him.  Because, now that her emotions
had leveled out and thanks to Nathan’s stalking/weird child support
payments/creepy Mr. Fix It stunts, Stella could see things a little more
clearly. 

He wasn’t angry. 
He was terrified.  And he had no idea how to feel, behave, or act. 

And Danny had
confirmed her suspicions when he’d dropped by yesterday morning.  They’d had a
nice, long chat about Mr. Drazek and his genuine, albeit totally screwy,
beliefs about things. 

Nathan thought he
was doing the right thing for her and the baby by staying away.  Which was the
farthest thing from the truth, but understandable considering his background.

Stella wanted to
call him…was dying to show up at his door and throw herself into his arms.  But
she couldn’t.  Nathan might cave for a moment or even for a night, but he would
never come around completely unless it was on his own timetable and in his own
way.  If she pushed him, it would backfire and Stella couldn’t take the chance
of losing him forever.

And so Stella had
to wait.  She had to do something she’d never been good at: 

Be Patient. 

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

Three months
later…

Nathan’s hands
were shaking like leaves.  He stumbled backwards until his legs hit the couch
and dropped into it.