Chapter 1

I always thought a broken heart would hurt more. I thought it would tear me apart from the inside or burn through my veins like lava—incinerating even the deepest, darkest parts of me. At the very least, I expected it to take my breath away, perhaps with an ache so profound it reverberated through every piece of my body, past and present, until it was all a faded, gloomy shade of blue.

Instead, I felt nothing at all while my world fell apart around me, piece by piece.

"This is all your fucking fault!"

I raised my eyes to stare at the raging man before me. Spit flew from his mouth as he tossed his arms wildly. In his eyes, there were no remnants of the man I loved—as if the pain of my failure had stolen all the good parts of him and left behind this monstrous shell. For the first time, I was terrified he would hit me, even though he'd never raised his hand before. He'd never screamed at me like this before, either.

I'd never done anything this terrible…never failed so completely.

Shaking, I wrapped my arms around my torso and leaned forward in an attempt to alleviate some of the cramping in my lower stomach. The pain made me want to scream and writhe and curse the world, but all I could do was stare.

Jackson was right. This was all my fault. Maybe if I hadn't picked up so many extra shifts at the hospital recently. Maybe if I would have kept up with my one-a-day vitamins and drank more water. I could have gone to brunch at my parents' house more often and made sure I ate proper meals… went to bed earlier and slept more… slowed down for a moment instead of moving at the speed of light all the time.

"I'm sorry," I croaked. My voice did not sound like my own, and my eyes blurred with a fresh round of tears. "I'm so sorry."

Jackson whirled toward me from where he paced and raged. His brown eyes, which once felt like home, were full of hatred—all directed at me. I shrunk beneath his gaze.

"You're sorry ?" he spat. "You killed our baby, Lucinda."

I cringed at the use of my full name; it sounded like nails down a chalkboard.

Another cramp tore through my stomach at his words. I clutched my stomach harder, terrified I would be sick all over Jackson's shoes and give him yet another reason to hate me.

"The doctor said," I tried to explain.

"Oh, don't give me any bullshit excuses," Jackson spewed.

Excuses . The word burned through me, settling deep in my gut. I looked down at my painfully ordinary stomach. In a few weeks or months, it would have started to swell. In eight, it would have been bulging and full of life. After nine, I would have had a baby.

I wanted my baby.

My baby.

Except it wasn't really a baby, was it? It never had a brain or felt any pain. It never lived. It was a cluster of cells my body expelled because it never would have lived.

I was a nurse. I understood what happened to me, at least scientifically. I'd held the hands of hundreds of women and told them what to expect after the initial passing of the dead tissue—a day or two of cramping, then a couple weeks of bleeding and exhaustion. They could take over-the-counter pain meds if they needed it, and it was essential to maintain their iron intake to counteract the blood loss. I told them to call their family, friends, or their therapist if they needed someone to talk through their emotions.

Then, I sent them on their way and moved on to the next client of the day.

I never truly understood what they felt; I'd never thought about what it meant to lose something so…extraordinary. An overwhelming cacophony of emotions coursed through me—grief, guilt, terror, self-loathing. Beneath Jackson's burning gaze, I felt less than human.

He was over the moon happy when I told him I was pregnant. He pulled me into his arms in joy, proceeding to kiss me senseless, and laid me in his bed to love me until we were spent. We called his parents the next day, then mine. We'd only been dating for a year but were sure we could do this. It felt like all the planets and the stars had aligned, and this baby was right .

For two weeks, we lived in bliss. When we weren't working, we lay on the couch together and scrolled through lists of baby names and baby shower decoration ideas. We looked at apartment listings, trying to find a two-bedroom we could afford together. His parents bought us a crib. My mother called daily to tell me how excited she was about her first grandbaby. Jackson brought me lunch and dinner at work, and his smile when he touched my stomach was enough to keep me on my feet for my twelve-hour shifts.

Everything was perfect.

Until yesterday, when the cramping and bleeding started.

I didn't remember the first few hours of the miscarriage…not really. I remembered kneeling on the floor of the bathroom in a pool of my blood, and I remembered grief cleaning through my heart when I realized what was happening to my body.

I called Jackson when it started, and he came as quickly as he could. When he saw me crouched on the tile, sobbing through the cramps, something changed. He simply stared at me while I lost our baby. I pleaded for him to get towels, to start the shower, to help me , but he only stared. And then, as quickly as he came, he turned on his heel and left.

I was alone when I flushed the tissues down the toilet and shoved bloody hand towels into the trash can. I was alone when I crawled into the shower because I was too exhausted to stand. I was alone when I scrubbed the blood off the floor.

He left me alone.

And now, the man screaming at me was no longer my partner but a stranger I was terrified of. His words echoed in my mind.

This was all my fault.

I killed our baby.

"When can you have sex again?" Jackson growled.

My broken heart stopped beating.

I stared at him with tears brimming my eyes; black dots swam in my vision. My chest ached, like I couldn't take a full breath.

"I'm sorry, what?" I had to be hallucinating; there was no way he would say anything like that.

I tried to think through the last year of our relationship, searching for any instance where he'd said anything half as alarming to me. He never had.

Jackson crossed his arms. "A couple of weeks, I'm sure, right? Once you're healed, we can try again."

My eyes widened. A scream built in my throat. "Try again?"

He stalked forward to lean over me. I flinched back, my bottom lip quivering. "You don't get to dangle a family in front of me, then get away with killing our child, Lucinda."

"Indy," I corrected weakly. "My name is Indy."

Jackson gripped my hair and tilted my face up so I'd look at him. "After your next period, we'll try again."

I yanked away from him with a cry of disgust. "Are you serious right now?"

He inclined his chin. "I've never been more serious."

I pushed myself off the couch, wrapping my arms around my torso. I was breaking inside, piece by piece, and I didn't want Jackson to see me crumble. With each passing second, I was increasingly terrified of the rage in his eyes. I didn't know this man. I didn't know what he was capable of or what he would do, even though I'd pulled his body into mine every night for a year.

"You should go," I murmured.

"Excuse me?" he snapped.

My lips quivered. "I want you to leave."

He threw his hands in the air. "Fine, we'll take a break. I'll be back tomorrow to discuss this more."

"No," I said. My stomach churned and cramped. I felt lightheaded. I only needed to stand for a few more moments, though. I had to be strong. "No, Jackson, I never want to see you again."

He raised his hand.

The world turned red.

My knees hit the ground. The stinging on my cheek blinded me momentarily. My head swam. The world tilted on its axis.

I stayed on my knees in front of Jackson, trembling and resisting the urge to succumb to the black hole at the edge of my consciousness—it would have been easy to give up and allow it to consume what was left of me. "If you don't leave," I whispered. "I'll call the police and have you arrested for trespassing."

"I'll see you tomorrow," he sneered.

The door slammed shut behind him.