Discovering Stella (40 page)

“Yes,
you
do.
I’ve
only known him
for
a short amount of time,
but
in that time, he has acted like your knight in shining
armour.”
My
eyes
shot
a glance in
her
direction and I let
out
a laugh, which then turned
into
a full-blown belly chuckle. Julia just sat there, looking astounded,
as
if I’d just suffered a concussion
or
something.

“I
think we might need to
call
the doctor to come check
you
out
again,” she suggested, lightly mocking me.

“No.
I’m
fine.
You
just have no idea what
you
just said, let alone
implied.”

She
furrowed
her
brow.

“Never
mind.”
I shook
my
head and dialled
Lawson’s
number,
praying he’d answer.

After
one
ring,
it
connected.
“Princess.”

“Toad.”

“What do
you
need?”

“You.
I need
my
knight in shining
armour,”
I explained with a smile.

Jules looked even
more
confused.

Suddenly the door to
my
room opened and in walked Lawson with his
phone
to his ear.
“At
your service,
Your
Royal Highness,” he said, with so much
love
that the sight
of
him took
my
breath
away.

I released a sob and held
my
arms
out,
desperately needing to feel his embrace.
He
didn’t
hesitate and walked quickly to
my
bed, positioning himself
as
Julia had,
not
too
long
before.

She
stood
up.
“I’ll leave
you
two
alone.”

“You’re
not
leaving, are you?” I asked,
my
hand shooting
out
to clasp hers.

“No.
I’ll find a motel and stay
for
a day
or
two, if
you’d
like.”

“You
don’t
need to do that.
There’s
plenty
of
room at the
house,”
Lawson offered.
“You’re
welcome
for
as
long
as
you’d
like.”

I glanced up at Lawson and tried to express
how
much he meant to me in
one
look,
but
it
was useless.
How
much this man meant to me
couldn’t
be conveyed with a
simple
glance.
It
involved much
more
than
that.

“Thank you.
Okay,
I’ll stay with
you
until Ellie gets sick of
me.”
She
winked and then left the room.

When the door closed, I tightened
my
grip
on
his arms, which were wrapped around me and holding
my
back to his front.
“I’m
sorry.
I’m
so
sorry.
I was awfu—”

“Shut
up,”
he said
firmly. “I
don’t
want to hear
you’re
sorry.
I’m
sick of hearing
you
apologise when
you
don’t
need to apologise. And, anyway,
I’m
not
sure I like
‘Ellie’.”

I
went
to say sorry again,
but
thought better of it, instead opening
my
mouth and saying three words, which — even though I felt them with
my whole
being — surprised me in that they chose
now
to be said:
“I love
you.”

My chest vibrated
with
the
increased pounding
of my
heart,
together
with
the pressure in my head,
that
I
tried
to ignore
as
I waited for
his
response. Then, just when I thought
that
maybe
he hadn’t
heard
me, he tilted my
chin
so he could look into my
eyes.

“I love
you,
too,”
he said sincerely before placing the most beautifully gentle kiss
on
my
lips.
It’s
hard to describe the feeling of a true new beginning,
but
if I were to sum up what filled me in that
moment,
it
would be
hope
.
Hope
that
my
life was
not
lost after all.

Separating from our kiss, I chased
it
quickly with another
one,
then settled
my
head against his chest.
“I
have so much to tell you. Are
you
ready to listen?”

“I’ve
always been
ready.”

“Yes,
I
know,
but
I
wasn’t
ready to listen let alone ask
someone
else to do it.
But
I
am
now.”

He
shuffled down to get comfortable.
“Okay.”

“Where do I start?” I sighed.

“Start with
Quinn.”

Closing
my
eyes, I took in a deep breath. “Quinn was
my
four-month-old
daughter.
She
was in the
car
when
it
crashed,” I said, holding back
my
tears.

His arms held me tighter and his lips pressed to
my
head, a subdued sob
of
his own escaping his mouth.
“I’m
so
sorry.”

“Quinn
didn’t
die instantly, like Tristan did.
She
held
on
to
her
tiny life
for
nearly five hours,
but
then lost
her
battle during surgery.
My
god, she was a
brave
little
fighter,”
I acknowledged, voicing praise of
my
baby girl’s strength
for
the first time
ever.

“She
sounds like she got that from
her
mother.”

I smiled sadly
as
I recalled a memory of
her
in
my
arms, breastfeeding,
moments
that were just
as
treasured when we were together and I
provided
everything that I possibly could
for
her.
“She
was
my
everything
.”

“So
...
because losing your daughter was so painful,
you
decided to ignore that
it
happened?”

“No,
not
really.
Well
...
yes, I guess
so.
I thought that if I continued to tell myself that she never existed, then the pain of
her
being taken away would
not
exist
either.
Sounds stupid, and
it
was,
but it
also
worked
during the
moments
I was able to forget; during the
moments
I was
not
reminded in the slightest way that I once mothered
an
angel.”

“Angel?”
The
tone
of his question conveyed that he
now
under
stood the significance of the
word.

“Yes,
she was
my
angel, and both Quinn and I were
Tristan’s
angels.”

“Jesus Christ,
Stella,”
he whispered, sympathetically.

“Yeah,
I
know.
The entire thing is devastating.
My
life is just
one
enormous pain-ridden devastation.
Can
you
see why I was desperate to flee it, desperate to
pretend it
never happened?”

“Of course I can.
But
reality is
not
something we
can
evade.
It’s
real.”

“I
know that.
Honestly,
I know that
now.”

“You
can’t
change the past, Princess. I wish
you
could; I wish I could. I’d change
it
for
you
in a heartbeat, even though that would mean we never crossed paths.
But you
can’t
change it. What
you
can
change, though, is
how you
feel about
it.”
He
placed another kiss
on my
head, the touch of his lips easing the throbbing that still lingered there. “When
you
explained
how
Tristan had passed away and
how
angry
you
were at him, even though I understood your reason
for
being angry, I
didn’t
under
stand
how you
could be
that
angry
with him, to the
point
of refusing to forgive him.
Now
that I know the
full
story,
I
under
stand.
But
that still
doesn’t
change that I think
you
need to
for
give him. If anything, I think
it more
so
now.”

“It’s
easier said
than
done,”
I stated.
“Yes,
I’m
angry. Of course I am. His stupidity and selfishness resulted in me losing
my
life,
but
still having to live it, empty and alone with a gaping
hole
that would never be filled.
He
left me and took our daughter with him.
He
caused me the worst pain imaginable only to have me slowly die in
it
while he gets to spend eternity with
Quinn.”

“Princess,”
he sighed, “thinking like that only hurts
you more.
Can’t
you
see that?”

“Yes,”
I cried, looking up at him,
“I
can
see that,
but
I
don’t
know
how
to change it. I hated him so much that I refused to go to his funeral, which meant I never
went
to
Quinn’s
because they were buried next to each other at the same time. I never said
goodbye.”

“You’ve
never been to their grave?” he asked, tears pooling in his eyes at the enormity of
my
loss, also no
doubt
at the extent of
my
obstinacy.

Regret and guilt wracked
my
body
as
I wailed in his arms.
“I
never got to say
goodbye.”

*
 
*
 
*

For
the remainder of that afternoon I’d stayed in
Lawson’s
arms, finally letting
out
every
emotion
I had buried in the grave within me. Burying things that are
not
meant to be suppressed only feeds a mounting pressure that
will
emerge sometime,
somehow.
I knew this
now,
and in hindsight, I
probably
knew
it
all
along.
But
knowing, accepting, and then doing, are three separate things.
That’s
why we
all
react
differently.
At the
end
of the
day,
we only
comprehend
what we want
to.

The doctor had requested I stay overnight
for
observation,
but
after explaining that I was —
am
— a nurse and I would be much
more
comfortable at
home,
therefore assisting a quicker
recovery,
he’d
relented
and signed
my
release.

Julia had stayed with us
for
a
couple
of
days, leaving when she was satisfied that I was
all
right and that I would continue to be
all
right.
As
I’d watched
her
car
pull
away,
I was truly grateful to have such a wonderful, caring friend
who, despite my
abandoning
her
and being the cause of such grave distress, still found
it
within
her
heart to forgive me and pledge to always be there when I needed
her.
And
it
was during those
moments
when
her
car
disappeared
into
the distance that I realised
how
easily we focus
on
what we lose in life instead
of
acknowledging what we have.
Yes,
the pain of loss is great,
but
the
joy
of possession is just
as
profound
and if we could only see that at the time of experiencing our loss the pain may
not
always be so overpowering.