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The mattress dips and my head shoots up as Hawke nols toward me His eyes bore into mine as he kneels beside me With his hands to my shoulders, he pulls me up and closer to hi ently, "A baby We had a baby?"

Tears brim and then fall unabashedly froo away I nodinto my shoulders

"Did you know?" he asks, voice raw like his throat had been scraped with sandpaper

I shake , I just assumed it was my period I was pissed you wouldn’t leave with me, so Avery and I left after you went on the beer run I started really hurting in her car and that’s when I started bleeding She took ivesin fury and pain "Why didn’t you call s back all of the anger I was feeling toward hirasp, roll to ht out of the bed He doesn’t make a move for me but watches me like a hawk--ironic--as I le ofon the floor Since Hawke never bothered with my top, I instantly feel more protected the minute I slip them on I also feel incredibly connected to hi out ofmy panties

The sao

"Why didn’t you callmy hands out to the side, I shout, "I was pissed, okay? It was ht than be withwell"

"You said it was your period," he defends

"Well, it wasn’tsoain over the bitter reminder Immediately, my temper cools because I kno painful this is for hi he had lost a baby So I try to explain to hi on at first I had no clue I was pregnant"

"Was your period late?" he butts in, deuess?" he sneers "Don’t you keep track of that shit?"

"Yes," I yell at hiister to ister?" he says incredulously "How can that not register? You get it once a s practically down to the , and I yell right back at hi me every day, period or no period Why didn’t you keep track of it? You had the sas his legs to the floor, and turns his back onhis elbows on his knees, his head bo for just a moment I watch as his muscular back expands with a deep breath and coh He pushes up from the bed, shoulders hunched and with the tired posture of a ninety-year-old man

When he turns to me, his voice is broken, barely audible "You should have called reement "I know As I sit here and look back on it all, I know I should have"

"And because you were pissed atYou preventedyou coht to be there with you, all because you were ht"

"You chose your buddies over ht to have felt abandoned

"I chose theht in Sydney I thought you’d understand that"

"I didn’t," I tell him softly…oh, so tiredly "I didn’t understand All I kneas that I was in a hospital bed with bloody clots co out of me with every wave of pain, and it was ht in Sydney It was irl you claimed to love"

"I would have coain, and this I know is true The only reason I didn’t call was because I was pissed And even in thatHawke, I knew deep in ut that he’d feel terrible about all of this That the next day, he’d beg iveness, take rief and ain I just knew all of that would happen eventually, so it was easy to hold on to er and not call hiether

Hawke is looking at the opposite wall vacantly, his hands shoved down deep in his pockets The fight has gone out of hiive it to him

"I didn’t break up with you because of that," I tell hi with confusion and curiosity Pulling his hands out of his pockets, he steps around the corner of the bed that separates us and co a step closer to Hawke, I reach out and put ht over thesteady and true I can al out pain and grief "Because you and I were bad for each other"