Sweet Rome

  Screams and cheers went up from around the room, except for our table. Coach looked over to me, shaking his head at my momma in disgust.

  “We couldn’t be more proud of our son who threw like a true professional in all four quarters, or all of the Tide for that matter. Your state and school adore y’all.”

  I actually felt nauseous as she lied her way through the speech. Proud? Talented? They’d never been proud of me, but here they were, fucking showboating to the crowd, the cream of Tuscaloosa society smiling at me, congratulating me on my amazingly supportive parents.

  They had no friggin’ idea.

  “I love you, baby,” Molly whispered into my ear, and I turned toward her face, slackening my tense jaw and pressing my lips against hers, breaking only momentarily to say, “I love you too.”

  My folks didn’t even acknowledge me much after that, too busy networking and putting on their show.

  We had nothing left to say to one another anyhow.

  The dinner moved on to the party side of things, and I relaxed when I managed to convince Molly to dance—keeping her close, keeping her protected.

  “Rome?” The band finished playing “Sweet Home Alabama” to rapturous applause from the team and fellow guests, and, turning at the sound of my name, I saw Coach behind me.

  “Oh, hey, Coach.”

  Facing Molly, he said, “Miss Shakespeare, can I borrow Rome for a while?”

  I stiffened, not wanting to leave my girl, but, giving Coach a big smile back, she nodded. “Sure, my feet are killing me anyway. I need to sit down. My damn ankles are like balloons!”

  Taking Molly back to the table and sitting her down with her friends, I said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Stay with someone, okay?”

  Pressing a kiss on my cheek, she answered, “I promise.”

  Turning back toward Coach, I managed to signal to Austin and Jimmy-Don to watch out for Molly, and they both gave me a thumbs-up.

  Over an hour passed, and I was still talking over game tactics for the BCS against Notre Dame—the most effective plays and the weaker parts of the Dame defense. I felt as though my eyes were crossing with boredom, and when my daddy joined the mass of business men and boosters, also throwing in his two cents, I had to hold back from launching across the group and throttling the bastard, especially when he looked at me and smiled—no, not smiled, gloated—my heart sank.

  Something was up.

  I began backing away from my daddy’s smug face, Coach frowning worriedly at my behavior, and I ran around the house, bursting into the backyard, and searched furiously for Mol. I beelined for the table we’d been sitting at and did a quick count: Cass, Austin, Lexi, Ally, and Jimmy-Don.

  No Mol.

  Jimmy-Don stood and looked behind me, beaming. “Where is she, man? You made her damn night with that note, you cheesy bastard!”

  My hands began to shake, my breath choppy. “Where’s Molly? What’re you talking about?” I gripped onto his arms, my move silencing the table. Jimmy-Don’s mouth worked, but nothing came out.

  “Where is she?” My hold on his arm tightened, hurting him, until a sharp push from Ally stopped me. Jimmy-Don stumbled back into Cass’s arms, completely white.

  I looked down at my cousin and whispered, “Mol?”

  And then I heard it…

  “Rome! ROME!!!”

  Whipping my head to the entrance of the house, I saw Shelly practically sprinting down the stairs in my direction.

  All the blood in my body seemed to drain away as she approached me, panicked and hysterical, her face laced with tears.

  I began to run and, grabbing her, asked, “Where’s Mol?”

  “She’s… we didn’t know… the library… She’s… Oh my God, Rome…” was all she could get out.

  Throwing her to the side, I ran into the hallway, tens of my teammates staring at me with a mix of sadness or shock. I had no idea why, but it only served to scare me further.

  I could vaguely make out our friends following behind me, and seeing the heavy crowd blocking the entrance to the library, I shouted, “Move the fuck out of my way! MOVE!!!”

  Scattering at my command, the doorway cleared and I almost collapsed at the sight of what I found, my legs buckling with instant terror: Molly curled on the floor, covered in blood, screaming and writhing in pain.

  No…

  In seconds, I was by her side. “Mol! Fuck! Baby, I’m here! I’m here!” I didn’t know where to hold her, how to stop her pain.

  Golden eyes, dulled with pain and sadness, looked my way, and she whispered, “Romeo, our baby, our baby… I-I think I’m losing it. Help me… Please…” and she wailed in pain again, clenching her legs together and hugging her stomach before crying so hard into the carpet she could barely breathe.

  Lifting my head, I saw our friends staring at us in horror, and I shouted, “Somebody call 9-1-1. She’s losing our baby!”

  Fuck. She was losing our baby… Questions of how and why were circling my mind, but I couldn’t tear my attention from Mol, who looked like she was dying—fuck! Was she dying?

  I flinched as someone touched my shoulder—Jimmy-Don telling me the ambulance was on the way.

  Desperately needing to hold my girl, I picked her up, having no idea whether it was a good thing or not, and brought her to my lap. Rocking back and forth, I tried to soothe her, but her jerks of agony were tearing me apart. “Shh, baby, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I cried out, my tears like never-ending torrents.

  Her skin slowly paled to a deathly white, and she touched my cheek, her weak hand like a feather against my skin. “I think our baby’s gone. It hurts so much. I think our baby’s gone…” She tried to finish, but her eyes widened, body stiffened, and she screamed, the most haunting fucking scream I’d ever heard, as I felt a sudden wetness on my legs and, looking down, saw blood trickling down her thighs onto our intertwined bodies.

  I didn’t know what to do. Hell… I didn’t know what to do!

  Molly’s eyes began to flutter closed, her clutch on my shirt slackening, and a fresh bolt of panic felt like open blades shredding my chest. “Where’s the fucking ambulance? She’s pregnant, goddamn it… She’s pregnant… Our little angel…” I trailed off, helpless to do anything.

  Searching Molly’s body, wading through the mass of white fabric of her dress now coated in blood, I tried to find something I could do. I couldn’t. I wasn’t a damn doctor. I wasn’t prepared for this shit.

  Her breath shallowed, and, whipping my attention back to her face, I spotted a gash on her lip. Using my thumb to take a closer look, I frowned. “Baby? Why’s your lip bleeding? What the hell happened to you?”

  I was losing her. Her eyes were glazing and her body was no longer reacting to the pain. I sent prayer after prayer to God, begging him to save my girl. I couldn’t lose her. She was my everything.

  “Mol?” I asked, and my body stilled as her eyes began to close. “Mol! Stay with me, Mol!” I screamed, holding her closer in my arms.

  “Y-your mother hit her and she fell against the table. W-we… I d-didn’t know she was pregnant… We were just trying to scare her off. Things got out of control…”

  Shelly. Shelly stood shaking beside me.

  Rage like never before surged through my body like pure octane at Shelly’s confession. She went on to inform me that my momma had snuck away, and, acting on pure instinct, I made to move, to go after her. I wanted to end all this shit once and for all, but when Molly’s trembling hand laid on mine and she begged me to stay with her, I could do nothing else but break down in sadness, whispering, “Baby, I’m so sorry… Our angel… Our angel…”

  But she’d gone. Molly had gone still in my arms, her breath almost nonexistent as her blood continued to pour out.

  “Rome,” Ally’s broken voice sounded beside me. “The EMTs are here. They need to take Molly to the hospital now. Come on, darlin’, let them do their job.”

  Looking up, two men were moving frantically
into the room and took Molly immediately from my arms. Standing, completely numb, I registered the mass of eyes watching the scene, and gripping Molly’s limp hand on the gurney, I followed her out to the ambulance, ignoring the flash of cameras and whispers from the horrified guests.

  The EMTs pushed the gurney into the ambulance and began firing questions at me.

  “How far along is she?”

  “Nearly three months.”

  “What happened?”

  “Apparently she was hit and fell against a table edge… I wasn’t there… I couldn’t help her…”

  The paramedic worked nonstop on my girl, attaching IVs and Christ knows what else. The ambulance flew through the city, but I never let go of my girl’s hand. She’d asked me not to leave her; it was one promise I wouldn’t break.

  * * *

  “Your girlfriend has suffered a severe blow to the stomach and that caused irreparable damage to the placenta, and I’m sorry to have to tell you, but she lost the baby. We have also found evidence of internal bleeding and are prepping for surgery as we speak.”

  I didn’t know how to deal. I’d lost all feeling.

  “Will she survive?” I rasped out, my voice rough from crying.

  “We’re going to try our best, son. Someone will be out to keep you informed of her progress.” And with that, the doctor left me alone in an empty family room while he raced off to patch my girl back together. He might be able to repair her body, but fuck knows what her mind would be like when she woke.

  A light knocking on the door sounded, but I couldn’t look up, too entranced by the speckled pattern in the linoleum flooring.

  “Rome!” a female voice cried, and I recognized it as belonging to Ally.

  She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and sobbed uncontrollably. It went that way for a while—all of my friends crying, hugging me close. Even Austin, the strongest person I’d ever known, broke down, hugging Lexi afterward. Then when there were no more tears to be shed, we each took a seat in the room and sat in silence.

  “Bullet, I can’t tell you how sorry I am, man. Molly and I were given a note when I took her to the bathroom. We thought it was from you. I can’t stop blaming myself.” Cass rubbed at his back as tears streamed down her face.

  “What did it say?” I asked tiredly.

  Ally shifted forward, her eyes darting to the floor nervously. “I managed to speak to Shelly before we left. Your momma set it up, darlin’. Apparently she wanted to scare Molly away for good. Shelly admitted she’d told your momma about the notes you give Molly before a game, and while your daddy stalled you with football talk, she used it to get her alone.”

  I caught Jimmy-Don throwing his head in his hands at that bit of information, explaining, “The note said to meet you in the library, that you needed a break from the party, and for Molly to meet you there. I never doubted it was from you, not even for a second.”

  Ally’s sympathetic gaze landed on Jimmy-Don, who’d broken into tears, but she managed to continue. “Apparently your momma starting telling Molly to leave you, had some private detective find out some real nasty things about Molly’s past and started using it against her. It didn’t work. Molly was unmoved, but when Aunt Kathryn began talking crap about you, Molly fought back, apparently in your defense and that’s when your momma lashed out. She was drunk off her ass again. Molls fell against the table and, well, we know the rest. Your momma and daddy were nowhere to be found afterward. The police want to speak to your momma, but she’s completely disappeared.”

  If I wasn’t so numb, I’d have torn this room apart, but even my anger, this time, wasn’t enough to make my body move. My momma investigated shit about her? Most likely about her daddy and grandma dying. I vowed at that moment that if I ever saw her again, I’d make her pay. Christ, all this happened because my girl defended me. Like that didn’t make me feel even worse. She’d lost our angel because of me…

  “I hate them. I hate them so damn much,” I whispered, almost breaking the sides of the plastic chair with my grip. “They’re dead to me. Fuckin’ six feet under, dead.”

  My friends’ silence told me they completely agreed.

  28

  After several hours and a stupid amount of coffee, a nurse wearing pink scrubs entered the room and I froze and held my breath as my heart tried to cope with the fear suffocating my body.

  “Rome?” the nurse asked as she searched the room. I stood and she moved before me. “Miss Shakespeare has made it out of surgery and she’s stable in ICU. We were able to repair the stomach rupture she suffered and transfused her with blood to replace the heavy blood loss from the miscarriage.”

  “Can I see her?” I asked desperately. I needed to be there when she woke up.

  “Soon. I’ll send someone to fetch you.”

  After the nurse left, I slumped back on my chair and heard the sighs of relief from my friends.

  “She’s going to be fine, Rome,” Ally said emphatically, trying her damnedest to be positive.

  Nodding slowly, I replied, “Her body may heal, sure. But I still have to tell her we lost our baby, and I can tell you now, she’s going to be anything but fine.”

  Silence resumed once again.

  As I entered the small private hospital room, I had to grip onto the doorframe to stop myself from falling to my knees. Tubes and wires were coming from her pale skin, deep, dark shadows hung under her eyes, and she looked so small and broken, swamped under a mass of white cotton.

  I focused on the constant beat from the heart monitor to control my breathing and slowly moved to the bed, kissing Molly’s cold cheek and pulling a chair beside her, holding her hand in mine, and began the wait for her to wake up.

  I must have drifted off, and a hand running through my hair woke me from my sleep. Convinced I was dreaming, I startled when confused golden eyes focused on me, Molly’s hand weakly dropping to her stomach.

  “Romeo? Did… did…?”

  I knew what she was asking, but my voice was taken by grief, so I simply nodded, watching the complete fucking agony set on her pale, beautiful face and tears begin streaming from her eyes.

  After days of missing my girl, needing her to share in my grief, I leaned over, holding her waif body in my arms, and whispered, “I’m so sorry… It’s all my fault.”

  But Molly being Molly wouldn’t hear of it, and pulling me on the mattress beside her, assured me there was nothing I could have done when I told her I’d let her down. I explained to her what happened—the note, Shelly, my momma, everything—and with every sentence, she grew more and more distant.

  Over the next couple of days, Molly gradually turned in on herself. She wouldn’t eat, barely spoke, and when she wasn’t sleeping, she stared unseeing at the ceiling, ignoring me, ignoring our friends.

  The guys came to see her and tried their best to cheer her up, but the worried glances coming my way showed me they knew Molly was fucking depressed. I didn’t know what the hell to do to pull her out of it.

  I couldn’t bear it, day in and day out being in that fucking hospital, watching Mol drown in misery, watching the hours turn into days, and my girl letting the grief tear her apart from the inside out. So when the doctor came in and told us Molly was being released, I was so damn happy, thinking that once out of the prison cell of a hospital room, she would start to heal, start to help me heal too.

  I was busy packing her bag when a text came through on my cell.

  Coach: Rome, I hate to ask this of you now, but I really need you at this function tonight. You don’t have to come for long, but you need to be here for the team, for the press.

  Sighing and pinching my nose, I cursed inwardly. Coach had been great lately, but the fact of the matter was that football stops for no one, and our baby’s loss was not going to change the fact that the championship was right around the corner.

  “What is it?” Mol asked from the bed.

  I turned to see her looking at me with her usual indifference, and answered, ?
??It’s Coach. He needs me to attend a charity function at the stadium tonight. I’ve missed a lot of game prep, and he needs the QB to be there to show I’m with the team all the way to the championship.”

  “Then go.”

  I stilled and dropped the packed bag to the floor. “I can’t leave you like this.”

  “Yes, you can. I’m tired anyway. I need to sleep.”

  Anger seeped into my muscles. I was through with this fucking imposter lying on the bed, pretending to be my girl. I hardly recognized her. I wanted the old Molly back. The one who would laugh with me, the one who would make everything better… the one who friggin’ loved me. I’d coped on my own for the last several days, supressing my grief to get her through hers, but I couldn’t fucking do it anymore, and losing my grip on my anger, I swung a fist into the wall.

  “For Christ’s sake, Mol! How can you be tired? You’ve slept for days, done nothing for days! I understand you’ve had surgery, but the doctors said you should be feeling a lot better by now. You’re wallowing, Shakespeare. You need to snap the hell out of it! I’ve tried, been trying to be patient, but enough is enough! I’ve lost a baby too, not just you, but you shut me out and act like I’m a damn stranger to you. I was the daddy, for fuck’s sake! I can’t do it alone. I have too much to think about—you being like this, leading the team to the championship, the hopes of an entire state on my head. I need you to help me, Mol, not to drown in your own fuckin’ misery. Who’s supporting me? I’m grieving too!”

  Her lifeless eyes regarded me, unseeing, and pure desperation took hold as I pounded to the bed, all gentleness gone. I pressed my lips to hers, aggressive, rough, and how we usually liked it. But her lips didn’t move. It was like kissing a fucking corpse.

  I was scared.

  When I saw her on the floor, covered in blood at my folks’ place, I’d been scared. When I knew I had to tell her our baby had died, I was scared, but the fear of the girl I loved, the girl who saved me, being lost for good had me almost insane with panic.