WORTHY, Part 2 (18 page)

“Help,” I managed to squeak out, and everything went dark.

-----

“Michelle? Michelle, sweetie?”

I opened my eyes, my surroundings gradually coming into focus. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t recognize the walls or framed art on the walls.

The man in front of me, leaning to take a closer look at me, I knew I recognized from somewhere. I was just having a little trouble remembering right now. I was awfully tired.

“Michelle,” he repeated. “It’s me, Ash Martin. Do you know who I am?”
 

“Of course,” I croaked, my voice hoarse from disuse. “What are you doing here?”

“Do you know where you are?” he asked, his face the friendliest thing I’d seen in a while. I stared at it for a while, noting how nice he looked with the teal eyeliner he was wearing, before shaking my head.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Are we going out for lunch?”

“No, sweetie,” Ash said, his face falling a little bit. “We’re going to have to wait until you get a little bit better before we go out to lunch again, but I’ll clear my schedule for you any time you want to go.”

“Better from what?” I asked, curious. I felt just fine. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital,” he said gently. “You’ve had a car wreck.”

Everything came rushing back — the fall in the woods, the long, horrible crawl back out, the lack of gasoline, the blood.

God, the blood.

I pressed my hand to my stomach, trying to caress the precious speck of life there, and witnessed the strange spectacle of Ash’s face crumpling and a tear leaking out of one of his teal-lined eyes.

“Honey, you lost the baby,” he managed to choke out, grabbing for my hand. “I’m so, so sorry Michelle. I didn’t even know you were pregnant.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding and held on to Ash’s hand. It was the only thing that kept me tethered to this world. I wanted to drift away, get as far away as I possibly could.

“I fell in the woods,” I said, some need to explain myself propelling the words out of my mouth. “I’d seen my husband, and I was upset, and I fell in the woods. I wasn’t used to being out there or else I never would’ve fallen. I hurt myself falling, and the blood started. I thought it was my period, except I was pregnant. Then, I knew it wasn’t my period.”

“It’s all right, Michelle,” Ash said, even as his shoulders shook with sorrow. “Everything’s going to be all right. Can I call your husband for you? Jane, maybe? Isn’t there anyone I can get a hold of to be with you here?”

I shook my head slowly. “No,” I said. “There’s no one. Just me and — well, just me now. Just me.”

“I’ve consulted with the doctors who helped stabilize you,” Ash said, seeming to get a hold of himself. “They said that you hit your head pretty hard during the wreck. Are you having trouble remembering anything? There’s a possibility for memory loss. A concussion, at least.”

I laughed. Wouldn’t that be something? The wife of Jonathan Wharton, the man who lost his memory, loses her own in a car wreck.

“Michelle?”

“No,” I said. “No, I remember everything. I wish I could forget it all. I wish I could start with a blank slate. Everything wiped clean, even my memories.”

I wish I had hit my head harder than I apparently did. I pressed my stomach to try to impart some small bud of comfort to the life that grew in there, but remembered that it had been uprooted.

“Ash?”

“Yes?”

“Was it a boy or a girl?”

“I don’t think you want to dwell on that,” he said, forcing a small smile to cross his face. “I think you should just focus on feeling better again. You’ve had quite a scare.”

“Boy or girl?” I asked again, feeling like I was at the bottom of a well, looking up and out. There was a girl standing at the top of that well, but I couldn’t access her. She had all of my thoughts and fears and feelings. She was screaming, but I just couldn’t deal with her right now. I’d retreated to the bottom of the well to get away from her.

She was screaming so terribly.

“It was going to be a little girl, sweetie,” Ash said softly.

I expected to feel something, to be angry at Jonathan for making me feel the way I had, upset at my own reaction to him, disgusted with the terrain out in the woods that had made me fall in the first place, saddened by the fact that just when I was wrapping my mind around the idea that I was going to be a mother, the little life that I was starting to protect was taken from me.

I felt nothing. There weren’t any feelings at the bottom of my well. There was just a girl who spoke and saw and heard and breathed. That was all she could do.

A little girl. I was going to be the mother of a little girl, only that wasn’t my future anymore. Maybe she’d never existed. It was a good thing, even, that it had never happened. She’d never know the level of tragedy that I had. She would never know heartbreak and betrayal. She would never lose the love of her life.

She would never lose her own baby while it was still growing inside her.

God, I didn’t want to be me anymore. I wanted to be someone else, anyone else. I couldn’t do this.

“Ash,” I said suddenly, jerking a little in the bed. He was still holding my hand. “I want the surgery.”

“The surgery?”

“The one you said you would still do. To fix the scarring.”

“Honey, you’ve been through a terrible shock,” he said. “Right now, I want you to rest up and get better. Once you’re back to normal, we can talk about what you want to do. It’s a big decision, remember?”

“I want this scar gone,” I said, mashing my hand against the ugly side of my face. I hated touching it, so I rarely did. The scarring felt like fleshy folds beneath the palm of my hand. I was a monster both inside and out. I’d been too monstrous for my baby to survive.

“You need to get better first,” he insisted, squeezing my hand meaningfully. “That’s all you need to worry about right now. He used his free hand to try to take my other hand away from my face, but I seized hold of it, feeling pressure but no pain as I clawed at it.

“I want it off of me, out of my life,” I said, pulling at the dead, waxy skin. The well was getting shallower, and I was getting closer to that screaming girl. I still didn’t feel anything, even though I was grabbing my face as hard as I could.

“Michelle, stop!” Ash shouted. “You’re going to hurt yourself! Nurse!”

“I want it gone,” I said, looking up into the panicked eyes of my friend as he tried to extricate my face from my hand. The world was getting brighter and brighter, and I knew I was about to meet that girl standing at the top of the well. I dreaded it. She was screaming and screaming.

“Nurse! Nurse!” Ash was trying to hold me down, but I didn’t think I was doing anything to deserve it. I just wanted to wipe my face clean, clean like a blank slate. I wanted that new start. I wanted the memories gone. If I could just get rid of the scar, I could begin again, take it from the top, not make all the mistakes that I had. I’d do it all over again, better, this time. I just needed a new face. A face that wasn’t mine.

“She’s trying to tear her face off!” a nurse shrieked, and more nurses and doctors and orderlies came running in the room. Ash had both of his hands around my wrists, but he couldn’t pull my hands away. If he pulled them away, he’d only be helping me.

I was beyond help.

The world got so bright that I had to close my eyes, and I knew that I was out from the bottom of the well. I was on the surface and was face to face with that screaming girl. She was screaming so terribly, waves of devastation rolling off of her, robbing me of my breath, my will to live. Her face was bleeding. There was so much blood. She was so empty. So empty. So empty.

I opened my eyes with horror as I screamed and screamed and screamed.

I was that screaming girl at the top of the well. I was that screaming girl, and life as I knew it was over.

~~~

Follow Michelle and Jonathan’s Story in the final book of the WORTHY SERIES:

WORTHY, Part 3

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lexie Ray is a lover of the written word. Nothing pleases her more than to weave together ideas and rhythms to craft the perfect stories. Her most recent work is the “Runaway” series, a five-part body of work that features stories of love, loss, and redemption. “Boundless,” her sixth book, can be considered a standalone volume in the “Runaway” series. On the off chance that Lexie isn’t writing, she’s reading. She’s a glutton for good stories ranging anywhere from nonfiction to thrillers to bodice-rippers.

She’s always keeping her eyes and ears open for inspiration, and reading helps feed that need. To keep her stories and her soul fresh, Lexie also enjoys hobbies outside of the writing world, including cooking, listening to music, and creating art. She loves putting her own stamp on recipes and can be described as DIY crazy. She has also been known to dabble a little on the piano. Lexie loves holidays in whatever form they appear and feels like life should always be celebrated. Living in South Texas as a freelancer by trade, Lexie enjoys beautiful weather almost all year round and occasional trips to the beach.

She wouldn’t trade this life for anything, and looks forward to her upcoming projects. Visit her online at
Facebook.com/AuthorLexieRay
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