Chapter Seventeen

Willa

I clear my throat, taking a fortifying breath as I keep my gaze locked on the sky. If I don't look at Avery, I can do this. If I can't see her being sympathetic and giving me the gaze heavy with pity, even on a surface level, I can do this.

"We were in London. He was recording and I was filming stuff for the tour that was scheduled for mid-2020. We kept hearing about what was possibly coming, and of course we were like everyone else. We didn't necessarily believe it was going to happen, but we were being cautious. I don't know if you remember." My mind goes back to those first days. "But it all happened so fast. It was as if one day we were allowed to go about our business, and the next all travel was grounded. I'd never seen anything like it since 9/11, which is still kind of hard for me to remember. Anyway, we were stuck in London, where he was recording music and I had gone to spend the week with him. Good thing the person we were renting the house from was okay with us staying because we had nowhere else to go."

"I remember that text." Avery laughs.

I take a drink, needing it to wet my dry throat. "I was absolutely terrified for everyone, but for you especially."

"Yeah, being a nurse has always been hard, but it got a lot harder during that time period."

"And then you volunteered for the COVID floor? I couldn't believe it." I shake my head, thinking back to how surprised I'd been.

"I had to do something." She smiles sadly. "If not in that time of need, then when?"

Tears pool in my eyes for the devastation I know she saw but also for what I know I'm going to tell her—these broken pieces of my life from that six-month period and then the subsequent breakdown of what I'd thought was a forever relationship. "So the first month was okay. We were all doing what we had to do, and I was happy to be doing it. Into the second month of lockdown is when things started to change for Mercer and I. It'd started out being fun, cooking every meal together and figuring out how to make our own bread when there wasn't any in the stores. Then those little everyday things that start getting on your nerves about your partner hit us tenfold. We couldn't leave and go shopping or for a walk when that happened. My security was scared to let me go outside because so many people were walking and taking in nature. The house was all we had."

Avery shifts in her seat. "I've talked about how this time affected me, but I never thought about how it affected you." She pulls her legs up, resting her chin on her knees. "I'm sorry you were so isolated."

I wave a hand in her direction. "A lot of my life is isolated just because it's how I have to live. This felt different than anything else though, because of the circumstances and the consequences of what might have happened should I or Mercer have gotten COVID." I gaze out over the lights of Nashvillle as they twinkle in the twilight below us. "After that second month, we started arguing quite a bit because there was too much togetherness. We would fight and then we'd angrily have sex to make up, to feel something with all of the dying going on everywhere. I was in the studio every night making music, and he was down there all day, but it wasn't enough to separate us. At month two, my birth control ran out. Because we weren't touring, I was using oral, and not on an IUD."

Avery's eyes widen. "I didn't even think about that."

"Yeah, obviously I didn't either." I clear my throat, a nervous chuckle working its way up my throat. "We were careful for a while, because who wanted an accidental pregnancy in what was the scariest of times we'd faced so far in our lives? But as the days went on, we got less careful and more careless. By June, I was pregnant. Kevin got me a pregnancy test, and stood outside the bathroom door as I took it."

Avery laughs hard, throwing her head back. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me about Kevin."

"Yeah, he's something special. I lucked up when I found him." I agree with her, thinking about how scared he looked when I came out holding the test. "My team worked to find me a doctor that could come and verify everything. Once they did, I told Mercer, and he said while he wasn't happy, he wasn't unhappy. He wasn't sure if he wanted kids or not."

Avery gasps. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. That was a slap in the face because we'd talked about it a few times, and he'd seemed excited. He'd said not right at that moment, but definitely in the future, and I was thirty. So I mean, I was ready." I slap my hand down on my thigh. "We were stuck inside for who knew how long, and touring wasn't an option. For me this was the perfect scenario, right? I didn't have to make careful plans. I could live my life like a normal human being for once in a reallly long time."

She clasps her hands in front of her face. "I remember you calling me after you confirmed. That FaceTime got me through a really hard day. Seeing how happy you were, the joy in your face and your eyes… It was the best thing I'd seen in months."

I roll my lips together. "I was happy. I was beyond happy, and he seemed excited. Until I started to show." This is the part that hurts. "It was as if once it wasn't some far-off thing, he shut down. I started showing at month four, which I kind of thought was early, but remember I took all those pictures of my belly? I was so proud of it, so happy to experience it."

"I do remember. You were, and then the next message I got was that you were headed to the hospital."

"Two weeks after that little photo shoot." I swallow. Hard. Because the lump won't go down if I don't work at it. My throat has swollen that much with the bitter words I'm about to tell her. "I started cramping really bad. I thought it was something I'd eaten, but Mercer and I had eaten the same thing, and he wasn't sick. At around midnight I started throwing up, and when I went to get in the shower to clean myself off, I saw it. The red-tinged water. Actually it was more pink, although I'd always assumed it would be red. I yelled for Mercer to come in, and he did. He looked at the water washing down my legs and folded his arms. He said, ‘Willa, don't you know a lot of first pregnancies end in miscarriage. What did you think would happen?'"

Avery gasps, her palm covering her mouth. "Are you fucking kidding me? He said that to you?"

"He did. He refused to take me to the hospital. Said other people needed the care, and I was being selfish. I stood in that shower for over an hour, trying to deal with what was happening to me. I closed my eyes, crying silent tears, because I knew what was going on. When I finally worked up the courage to get out, I was shivering, although the water was burning hot. I sat on the toilet, wrapped in a towel, crying. My phone was beside me, and I did the only thing I could do. I texted Kevin."

Avery blows out a breath. "Kevin is always there. Always coming in clutch when you need him."

"Every. Single. Time," I agree. "He came in, took one look at me, and knew something was wrong. I managed to croak out I thought I was having a miscarriage. He went to get a thermometer and took my temperature. It was one hundred and three. He brought me clothes, helped me get dressed, and carried me downstairs to a waiting car. The whole time, Mercer is screaming at him, ‘It isn't that bad.' That I'm being dramatic. Kevin turned to him and told him to shut the fuck up."

Avery groans, kicking her feet out in front of her. "God, Kevin is so fucking hot. He probably did it in that authoritative voice he's got, huh?"

I roll my eyes as she gets overly excited about my head security guard. She's been in love with him since the first time she met him. She has a thing for older guys, and Kevin hits all those marks for her. It's cute, and I'm here for it, so I play into it as much as I can. "Yes, it was in that voice. Mercer shrunk back as if he'd been hit, and I have to admit it gave me a thrill. Kevin told him if he wasn't going to be helpful he could get the fuck out of his way."

"That's book boyfriend material, right there." Avery sighs.

"Yeah, it really is. Anyway, we headed to the nearest hospital. I wasn't completely lucid by that point. I'd started sweating, and my fever was spiking. It was one of the scariest situations of my life. The doctor that Kevin had talked to met us outside and took us into an office that was definitely belonging to a private doctor. We still had to wear our masks. They took my temp, and Kevin assured the staff that I had been in quarantine, and he thought that the fever was from the miscarriage. The doctor agreed, but I kept the mask on anyway. They took my blood, got the sonogram machine out, and Kevin held my hand while they prepped me."

Avery wipes her tears away. "Kevin held your hand because Mercer wasn't there."

"Right." I wipe my own tears from my cheeks. "I went through one of the worst moments of my life with my security guard, and not the father of the child I was losing." I let that sink in for just a minute. Not only for her, but for myself. To remind me that when Mercer and I broke up, I didn't lose anything. He wasn't worth me hanging onto. "There was nothing on the sonogram where there had been a beating heart a few weeks earlier. I'd been able to get a doctor to come to the rented house and check on me. We'd seen the heartbeat, and there had been the outline of a baby. Now? There were just black and white swirls. It could've been the radar image of a hurricane for all I knew. The doctor was really nice. He said how sorry he was, he asked if I'd lost any blood clots, and I had before Kevin came in. Kevin made me take a picture of what I had lost, because you know he was a medic in the army."

"God, Willa. This is fucking heartbreaking."

I swallow roughly. "Oh, it gets better. The doctor agreed with everything Kevin said, and he told me at that point I'd need to have a DNC because of my fever, what they still saw on the sonogram, and the amount of tissue I had passed. They were afraid my body hadn't expelled everything. I was terrified. I thought that meant going into an actual hospital, but then he assured me he could do it in office. He asked if I wanted to have the father of the baby with me before they put me in under. I did." I shrug my shoulder, my bottom lip trembling. "I called Mercer. He wouldn't come."

"That motherfucker. What a dick. I am so sorry, Willa." She launches forward, wrapping her arms around me tightly. "I wish I had been there for you."

"Kinsley was." I mention our model friend who lives in London. "I was able to send her a message, ask if she was okay to come into a medical facility, and told her what was happening. She was there in thirty minutes, Avery. Thirty fucking minutes, wearing her mask and pajamas." I laugh. "She held my hand while they explained what they were going to do. She rubbed my forehead as I cried, promised me she'd be there when I came out."

"Remind me to send her flowers." Avery grabs my hand, squeezing tightly as I let some of the tears fall.

"I got to go home that night with medication and some painkillers. She came home with me. Both her and Kevin ripped Mercer a new one. He and I were battered and bruised after that. He asked me for forgiveness, and we tried to make it work up until last year, but I've always harbored resentment toward him. He didn't want that baby, he wasn't there for me in my time of need, and he let me go through the most emotionally devastating moment of my life by myself."

Avery gives me a grin. "He's not your happily ever after."

I take a big sip of my wine. "He never fucking was, and without letting go of him, I wouldn't have met Blake. All's well that ends well."

And looking out over that twinkling Nashville skyline, I feel healed for the first time since I lost my daughter. I feel hopeful and ready to give my heart away again.