The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Chapter 192

Arrick hands me water and helps me sit up on the bed to take a drink before laying me back down.

“I’m sorry” I say for the hundredth time since he picked me up and carried me back to bed and tucked me in. He’s spent the last two minutes sweeping off petals and pushing stuff off the bedside to lay a bowl from my bathroom for me and feels my head with the back of his hand.

“For throwing up? Don’t be … It’s not your fault you’re sick.” He seems a little odd as he says it and I catch a flicker run across his face. My stomach drops that after all the effort he made in here, I destroyed it all. He’s disappointed, I know he is.

I am. I’m devastated.

“What is it? Are you upset because I ruined our wedding night?” I catch his arm and pull him back to me needily as he lays my glass down. Hating that I could ruin our special day in this way.

“It’s just sex, Sophs, we can have plenty of that when you feel better. You haven’t ruined anything.” He runs his thumb across my bottom lip and leans in to kiss me on the cheek gently. Trying to show me he’s not upset, that it’s okay. Meanwhile, I’m gutted.

“Then what is it?” I catch his fingers and pull his hand to my chest, now covered by a satin sheet, tucked under my armpits as I lay here looking up at him.

“It’s nothing, ignore me.” He brushes my hair from my face and places a damp cloth on my head to cool my sudden flash fever that started when I threw up.

“Arrick don’t … Talk to me, you’re making me anxious.” I sit upright and have to grab his arm as another bout of dizziness hits me from sitting too fast. He steadies me, pulls me against his arm to keep me upright and then rubs his face nervously. Looking me over as he takes the same damp rag

that fell between us and throws it back on the bedside table. He looks wary and unsure and my stomach tightens with nerves.

He is mad at me.

“It’s just… The last couple of weeks…” He trails off and shakes his head like he can’t believe he’s saying this out loud. It only hitches my tension and I watch him obsessively, trying to figure out his head.

“What? Spit it out.” I snap in frustration at him and feel antsy with how he is being. I have no clue where this is coming from as he has said nothing to me in the last couple of weeks about me being anything. We’ve been getting on fine, despite wedding plans and all that crap. He is springing this out of nowhere and now he has me imagining the absolute worse.

Does he regret the wedding? Marrying me? Is that what this is? Doubts now he’s starting to sober a little and reality is setting in.

He sighs heavily, scans my face, and must see how distraught he is making me. I’m close to hysteria.

“You still seem pregnant, and this… Tonight. It got me thinking that’s all.”

What?

I recoil as though he has slapped me, and I gawp like he’s lost his mind. Words falling out of my mouth defensively.

“We haven’t had sex since, Arrick. How could I be pregnant?” I stare at him in stupefaction. I have no words for that level of absurdity coming out of him. He is clearly over intoxicated and it’s dumbing him down. This has come completely out of left field and I do not know how to even react to this.

“I don’t know. That’s why I said ignore me.” He looks crestfallen and goes back to staring at the cloth on the table.

“You think I cheated on you?” I blurt out in complete shock, head faltering that that’s the only way he could imagine that I might be, but he sits straight immediately and grabs my hand as my eyes glaze over.

“No. No Sophie. No way in fucking hell, I swear. I trust you and know what it would take to let a guy touch you the way I do. I never thought of that at all.” He looks utterly overwrought that I would think that, and it calms my frantic thoughts almost instantly. I wouldn’t, even if I could let someone else touch me that way. He is all I have ever wanted, even when we were falling apart. I would never betray him like that.

“Then why would you think that? It’s impossible for me to fall pregnant with no sex.” I can’t think straight, head cloudy with feeling shit and trying to rationalize where he would get such a dumb idea.

“What if you didn’t really lose it?” He comes back looking sheepish and I pull myself back and look him dead in the eye, blood draining from me as his words start to cut me in the heart. He has no idea how deep the wounds from that day are inside of me.

“I saw it, Arrick. With my own eyes. I touched it and held it. Please don’t tell me that I don’t know what I went through. Don’t make me feel like it wasn’t real.” I start to cry, falling apart at this turn in our conversation and what he thinks I have gotten wrong. Arrick pales and pulls me against him instantly, hauling me onto his lap and burying his face in my hair.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. Don’t cry, Sophs. I’m sorry. It’s that… You went two years of never getting sick and now in less than two months, you throw up after you drink alcohol. The last time it turned out you were pregnant.”

“Maybe it’s left me with a stupid intolerance or something. I don’t know. It’s happened twice, not like a hundred times, it could be a coincidence. Why are you doing this?” I’m getting hysterical, breaking up inside and feeling heavy with the weight of pain caving in on me. He gets up, letting me slide off him and paces around.

Being drunk is making him stupid. Insane. Grasping at straws over something so dumb.

“I know I sound crazy, and everything that’s happened, I know I am making you upset, but there are things I can’t help seeing… Like these.” He motions at my breasts and I have to admit, the last couple weeks I had to up a bra size because they felt firmer, but it means nothing. I gained weight from sitting around sewing for two weeks and eating take out. I was already gaining weight in Paris. It means nothing.

“I have bigger boobs, therefore I’m pregnant!” I snap drily, wiping my tears, but he looks agitated.

“Do you want the list, because I have one, Sophs. I notice these things and tried to tell myself they were because you were recovering, but …”

I shake my head at him and throw my hands up as if to say ‘Go, be more insane if you really have to’ completely blown away that we are actually arguing about this today of all days. I hate alcohol, I should have known it would sweep in and ruin this.

“You’re eating more, eating crazy foods still. Sleeping more. Emotional and touchy. Moody with everyone else except me now. Your breasts are bigger and your softening around the waist and ass enough that I actually noticed, not that it’s bad. You look crazy beautiful with more curves; it’s just I see these things.”

“Arrick?” I try to stop him, feeling deflated but he’s on a roll and I can see he is putting it together all in his head and trying to make it fit.

“You have started bypassing all the food you normally eat and choosing food you never touched before. Like gherkins in your burger, or pickles with salad the other day and last night you sat and straight ate a family sized bag of prawn crackers. You hate them when we get Chinese food. I know it’s cliché, but the stereotypes come from somewhere.” Arry looks convinced and his conviction in what he’s saying enrages me.

“You have lost your ever-loving mind.” I state flatly and glare at him for being this weird.

“Sophs, it should be getting less, not more. Recovery would mean it trails off, but you seem to be going the opposite way.” He seems frantic and I keep telling myself it’s because he’s really drunk. My normal clear thinking and logical Arrick is not here right now and I shouldn’t be mad for this thoughtlessness, but I can’t help it. He’s making me crazy. “Please, if I go find a twenty-four-hour pharmacy, will…”

I get up like lightening and snap at him.

“No!” I don’t want to do this on my wedding night to appease his doubts. I know it will say negative and break my heart all over again. I know that my baby died, I was there, and maybe he’s having a harder time accepting it than I thought he was, because he wasn’t. If this is him finally coming to the realization it’s gone and experiencing some sort of traumatic break, then I don’t know how to handle it.

Why today of all days?

I stare at him in utter heartbreak for making this one night about this one thing. He’s ripping me to shreds, knowing that I did this to both of us. Arrick sits back down and looks at me with a broken expression. Taking in my face and visibly pulling himself together, like he realizes what he’s doing to our special night. What he’s doing to me.

“I’m sorry. I know you got checked out, and I guess I hoped that maybe there was a chance. I kept trying to ignore all the little signals as nothing, but tonight it seems too coincidental.” His voice is torn and low and it stabs me with hos broken he sounds. I blanche at him and how his head works and feel

utterly powerless. I know that no sex means no baby, but I can see how desperately he is clinging on to some stupid hope.

“I get that you want me to be. I do. I get that it hurts you still, but I’m not, you need to accept it.” I am trying to keep my tone level and kind, because I don’t want to be harsh.

Please, for me. Let this go.

“This is what you were like last time, denying it and adamant you weren’t, and you were wrong about it that time.” He takes one last attempt at pleading his case and my temper starts to rise.

I feel like I am really going to lose it with him, but my compassionate side is trying like crazy to curb my rage and understand that maybe this is grief talking. Gritting my teeth, adopting the tone I use to talk to Mia, while clenching my fists in the sheets of the bed.

“Arrick listen to me, your drunk and not thinking straight. We haven’t had sex; we can’t be pregnant again. Your ruining our wedding night with this and I want you to stop.” I start to cry hopelessly, letting it out in sheer desperation and he climbs on the bed and scoops me up in his arms.

“I’m sorry, baby. I … I want our baby. It’s in my head all the time, and I hoped that you throwing up again, that it meant something.”

I take in that sad expression and my heart dies a little inside. His pain on show without any masks and it ruins what’s left of me. He’s hurting and broken, and I can’t fix this for him. He needs to know so he can let it go or else he will drive himself insane with over thinking. All I can do is give him what he needs, even if it is excruciating for me.

“Get a test. All it will do is tell you what I already know. I wasn’t entirely honest, Arrick. I didn’t go see a doctor when we came back and maybe I should have. I might be sick, maybe I have something going on down there and that’s why I still feel unwell, but I can promise you. We lost our baby and I am no

longer pregnant.” I say it slowly as tears pour down my face and we stare at each other. Both desperate in our personal hell and as much as I don’t want to do this, I feel like somehow, he thinks he needs me to. He takes a moment to let my words sink in and I see some of logical Arry register on his face.

“If it’s negative, I want you to go to hospital with me tonight. If there’s no explanation for all of it in a test, then I’m scared that maybe something else is wrong with you. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I don’t want to spend tonight in a hospital. The test will be negative, and I swear you can take me tomorrow before we head off on our honeymoon to your family boat. Just go find somewhere and get this over and done with.”

It’s a compromise for his sanity and as much as I still don’t want to do this, I have to let him see the truth.

*** All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

It doesn’t take him long to source a pharmacy thirty minutes away and he leaves me to hop in a cab. We don’t have a ton of overnight stores here, so he’s gone a while and when he gets back, I dutifully take the three tests he brings home. It felt like he was gone for an eternity and I used the time to get dressed back into my clothes and calm myself down, so I can deal with him like this.

I don’t even try to argue and hand them over emptily as I stroll back to bed and lay down. Numb to this request now and willing it to be done already. I am holding myself together so when he falls apart, I can try and console him in some way.

I can’t even bear to watch his face when it tells him I’m not and I stare out across my room dejectedly as he lays them on my vanity and sets his cell clock with a two-minute timer.

Setting himself up for heartbreak and I don’t want to be involved.

“Don’t hate me, baby.” He leans out across the bed and strokes my leg softly, but I shake my head at him. In pain, knowing what’s coming and wishing he could see that this is only going to hurt him too. I try so hard to separate myself from this moment in a bid to not fall apart.

“There are a million other things we could have been doing on our wedding night. Not rehashing old pain and torturing ourselves.” I answer him quietly as he slides on the bed beside me. Pulling me to him as he moves down the length of me to mold himself closer and I stay stiff. I’m defensive and I am trying so hard not to push him away like I normally would.

“I’m drunk, and maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and realize what an asshole I was tonight and regret putting you through this, but right now, I want you to know I’m grateful that you took tests, even if it rips my heart out all over again. I love you. I’ll make this up to you.”

Arry makes me feel wretched, guilt gnawing at me for being cold with him when all he wants is answers to something that has been driving him insane. I turn on the bed and curl into him, holding him tight and bury my face against his throat in a bid to tell him I’m not mad. I don’t want to talk about it, I wish it was tomorrow already. I want this night to be over.

I could sleep, despite our party still carrying on nearby, we can hear it. We should be there, but all desire to be back there is gone. My mood is ruined, and the nausea is still swirling around like an unwanted bad smell that won’t leave me alone.

We lay quiet, cuddling for what seems like an eternity when his cell starts chiming like the London clock and I eyebrow raise him for his weird choice of alarm. I know it’s random and beside the point, but it’s better than focusing on him turning those tests over. I can almost taste the tension in the room.

He gets up and crosses the floor, but I remain where I am and stare at the empty space he left on my bed. I’m waiting on his reaction, for him to get upset and fall apart, but I hear nothing but the ticking of

my bedroom clock and faint music outside in the neighborhood.

We should have stayed down there.

“Sophie?” Arrick’s voice is torn and soft and I close my eyes despite knowing the answer would be this. Knowing he was setting himself up for a night of sorrow. Tears well up and I can’t control the aching need to cry. Not just for me, but for him too.

“Sophie?” Arrick’s voice sounds stronger and I flinch when a warm hand cups my ankle at the base of the bed, startled to open my eyes and look at him. Bracing myself to handle this, to be strong for him. He needs me to be.

He’s standing holding one of the tests in his hand and I want to bawl for him. He looks white and in complete shock and I know it’s going to be a hellish night consoling him after this. I swallow it all down and pull myself to sit. Stop myself from reacting and keep reminding myself that I have to be his rock too. I have to be here when he needs me.

“I’m sorry…” I start to reach for him, but he blinks at me weirdly and holds it out to me. I think he needs me to read it maybe, tell him that what he is seeing is a negative. Maybe he is in shock? I should treat him with kid gloves and limit the damage to tonight as best I can.

I take it gently and pull it to my lap, watching him carefully, smiling softly to reassure him it’s going to be okay, before I glance down at the test in my hand and do a double take.

My heart stops beating, and my blood runs cold.

Pregnant. 5—6 weeks.

What the actual fuck?