Prologue

One Year Ago

I heard his voice, a slow breathy draw over the static of the telephone. “F*** you.” My heart dropped. I heard everything in that single moment. Every time he said he loved me, said I was beautiful, all those promises of growing old together, all of it, suddenly equated to this one statement. My jaw slackened. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t utter a single sound. He had been my absolute everything…
The dial tone rang through my head. I was sitting in the upstairs bathroom of my father’s house, a child stirring inside me and unshed tears were suddenly over heating me. I turned on the bath water as cold as I could. I needed to be shocked. I needed to prove this wasn’t happening. I held that dial tone to my ear like a lifeline, hoping his voice would somehow patch through the static and tell me that he was sorry, that he loved me, and that everything was going to be okay.
The frigid water swelled around me, soaking through my jeans and tank top. My underwear thoroughly drenched, I laid against the back of the tub. I couldn’t feel anything, not the cold, not the pain of his words, not the hollow sting of the aloneness, nothing. Hot tears splashed down my shocked cheeks, how I’m not sure because I hadn’t yet blinked, I don’t think. I laid my hand on the side of the bath, the phone dropped to the floor on a towel with a soft thud. His face filled my vision. I couldn’t see anything but him. His messy brown hair, soft, stormy eyes, wide lips, even his glasses; stared back at me with that look I was so used to. The one that was filled with mystery and love like I couldn’t read him at all, but now it was contorting with anger and swelling red.
All I could think of was, “it’s really over this time… and this is the time I need him the most, and he’s gone…” I felt his unborn child stir beneath my ribs and more tears splashed down my face… he’s gone…