Driftwood 14
Title: Driftwood (14/?)
Pairings/Characters: Stephen/Other
Rating: R
Summary: Stephen gets something off his chest
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 |
A week had gone by. I hadn't said a word to anyone about the pregnancy test, but I did go into my doctor for a confirmation and exam. I was 6 weeks along. I was starting to feel familiar symptoms--my breasts were aching, and I found myself more emotional than normal. I was waiting for morning sickness, as I had it bad with Lucy and expected something similar. I pushed myself through the days, feeling depressed and worn out. Work was picking back up again, thank god. I found myself at random parts of the day, standing in front of my bedroom mirror and staring at my stomach. I went through my days in a haze, waking and playing with Lucy, bringing her to daycare, coming home to work. My family seemed relieved I was coming back to normal. I didn't think I was at all, but they couldn't tell. At every moment of the day, I felt the pregnancy, gnawing away at the back of my brain. Decide. Decide.
After a Saturday night of no sleep, I found myself sitting in the pew for Sunday morning Mass. I went through the old familiar motions, flashing back to my childhood spent doing the exact same thing, followed by lunch at a BBQ joint, and missing Lucy, who was with her father. I hadn't attended church in several years beyond Christmas and Easter, but it all came back to me immediately, and I felt relieved no one stood up and shouted "adulteress" at me in the pews. I remained seated for Communion, out of respect for the rules (I was certainly in need for a confession, I thought ironically), and a strong childhood memory hit me--staring through the slated pews to the priest, dressed in gold Christmas vestments as he held the round host above his head, chanting the old words of consecration, thinking it was magic that Jesus was actually in the room with us. I hoped a bit of that magic feeling might come back, but instead I felt cold and faintly shakey, my lower back aching. A little old lady approached me afterwards and said they were having a rosary prayer group in 15 minutes, and would I like to pray with our Mother? I did, I discovered. I took the offered beads, a pretty pink and white set that felt pleasantly heavy in my fingers, and took a seat in the same daily chapel. I found out with the exception of a young married couple, and several young men, I was the only person in the room under 65. I was handed a laminated piece of paper with the words written on it, but I found quickly that I didn't need it. The familiar prayer came back instantly to my lips, and as I chanted along in the Hail Mary, slipping beads from finger to finger in an old motion, I found my mind wandering. My eyes landed on the small shrine in the corner, the statue of a teenage Mary holding the infant Jesus in her arms, her face serene and peaceful, draped in colorful rosary beads and surrounded by small tea lights set into red glass. I stared at the stone baby in her arms, and felt nothing but cold and tired.
When the prayer group was over, I slipped out of a backdoor, putting the borrowed beads and sheet on a nearby chair. I sat down in my car and cried, right there in the parking lot. I had hoped a dosage of old Catholic guilt would change my mind, but it hadn't.
On Monday morning, at 8am, I sat at my kitchen counter with a cup of coffee, staring at my cell phone. My lower back was killing me, and my thighs and hips felt sore. I had the sniffles, a persistent runny nose. With a deep breath and a clunk as I set the cup down on the counter, I called an abortion clinic, and scheduled an appointment for the following week, briskly answering the questions they had. I didn't give myself the chance to second guess the decision. I felt relief when I clicked the conversation off. I always felt better when a decision had been made, even if it was a wrong one. Living in limbo was more upsetting to me.
I went through the motions of my day, feeling increasingly more tired and sore. My joints ached, and I felt nauseous. I was worn out from chasing Lucy around that evening, her 3 year old energy reserves much deeper than my 34 year old ones. When I collapsed into bed that night at 9, cold, exhausted, I was grateful for the silence. I fell asleep quickly, chilly under my covers, but like every other night, the last thought on my mind before my eyes nodded shut was him.
When I woke up the next morning, it was to Liz, standing over me with an absolutely terrified look on her face.
"My god, Kathryn, you didn't answer the door or your phone so I got the key, and I came in here to find you. Lucy was just sitting in the middle of the living room eating cheerios. We had a breakfast date, remember? Is everything okay? It's 11am."
I lifted my head up and blinked, confused. I stood up slowly, wobbly on my feet, my hips and lower back aching. I slept that long? Liz reached over and grabbed my elbow to help me, and recoiled, her hand flying to my forehead and cheek.
"You're burning up. Lie back down, let me get you something to drink and some medicine."
Her eyes took me in from top to bottom, and got wide.
"Shower first, then medicine."
I stared at her, not comprehending at first. I followed her gaze down, and to my legs.
There was blood. It had streaked and smeared down my thighs and inner legs. I looked back at the bed, and saw the brown stain I had been lying in. Her lips pursed in a silent gaze of disapproval. I'm sure she thought I was a disgusting slob. My brain spun slowly, my thoughts sluggish and thick. I felt shivery.
Blood. Blood is not good.
I was in the shower when the cramps hit me. I doubled over under the jets of luke warm water (no hot water, said Liz), groaning in pain. This was way worse than any cramp I've had before. I called out for Liz and asked her to call my doctor.
4 hours later, I was home and tucked back into bed, a fresh change of clothes, and a set of prescriptions on the table next to me. Liz was sitting silently on the overstuffed reading chair in the corner, her head leaning on her fist. She had taken the news well, I thought, but I could sense her anger. I felt numb. Intellectually I knew what was happening to me, but I felt so ill and sick it was hard to wrap my mind around it.
"Are you going to tell him?"
"I don't know. Whats the point in it?"
"I don't know either. Maybe he'd just like to know what has happened to you. It was his fault too."
"But it's over now. We missed a bullet, big time."
"Looks to me like you didn't miss."
"Trust me Liz, I missed."
I was foggy and slow from the medication, my body and joints aching from the confirmed flu I had caught, my fever still high, my heart heavy and confused. I was simultaneously relieved and broken when the doctor announced he was unable to find a heartbeat. He said it in a gentle tone, as if I might crumble in the office. My first reaction was relief, pure unadulterated shameless relief. I felt like hitting my knees in the office and thanking God for making the decision for me. And then I asked for forgiveness for being thankful.
But I wasn't sure whether or not I needed to tell Stephen. As much as I missed him, and wanted him, and hadn't felt any real lessening of my love for him, only a better ability to cope with it, I knew my life would be better without him. I had been given a real second chance, and the amount of gratitude I felt for that was nearly overwhelming.
Processing through what it meant to be losing a pregnancy, actively losing it...it ripped a new place in my heart I hadn't known existed. I had tried desperately for the last few weeks to detach myself as much as humanly possible from what was going on, but when I was alone that night after Liz went home, I realized how much I had failed. I cried again, because it hurt so much, and the painkillers barely made a dent. And I cried because I was alone, and hurting, when the other person responsible for this was gone, and unaware, carrying on with his night like normal.
I thought about that as I sat on the floor of my bathroom, smoking a bong, and crying, again. If Stephen walked in my bathroom right now, I would kick him right in the fucking jaw.
But when the sun started to rise, and my vigil that night came to an end, I laid on my bed, exhausted and weak. Every light in my house was on, as I had wandered around trying to find relief from the cramping. A bath gone cold was still in the tub, and my sheets were crumpled on the floor, needing to be washed. I rolled up in the comforter and pulled out my cell phone. My face and eyes felt swollen and dry. I didn't have any tears left.
'I miss you' was all I texted. A reach out, just a small one. I felt woozy, and cloudy. Tired. I let myself fall asleep, still holding the cell phone.
Stephen
The phone buzzed loudly on the desk next to me. I blinked in surprise, pulling myself away from the internet and towards the phone. I saw the text in an instant. I was up early, unable to sleep well the night before, killing time on the internet before I needed to leave.
I froze, thumbs extended. Do I answer it? It had been a little over a month. I hadn't contacted her. Life was starting to shift back into normalcy for me, and I was learning to live the guilt of what I had done. I hadn't seen her in the news in several weeks--the worst of the storm has passed. Surely things are calmer for her too.
I missed her too. I wasn't fooling myself. I did. I didn't love her any less in that moment then I did before.
But again I felt fear that I could hurt her, and myself. I deleted the text. The memory of her crying in the bathroom came back to me. I couldn't do that again. I tried to go back to the book review I was reading, but I had lost my focus, the guilt and Jon's words nagging in my brain. I shut the laptop down and started to get ready for work. I told myself again on the drive in that I had made the right choice, but I didn't really believe it.
It was the next day that my phone rang in the afternoon, and I saw she was calling. I didn't answer the call because I had three writers in my office, hammering out a segment. I turned my phone over, and the buzzer off.
Half an hour, when I checked it again, I saw I had missed a text from her.
'Please call me. I need to talk to you.'
This time, I didn't hesitate. I immediately called her back, sitting up in the desk and shutting my office door. She answered quickly, but her voice sounded tired, and anxious.
"Hi there," I tried to say lightly.
"Hi. Do you have a minute to talk?" She sounded stressed.
I really didn't--but this was clearly something important. "Of course, yes I do."
"I found out ago a few weeks ago I was pregnant," and my heart thundered to a stop in my chest, "and two days ago I miscarried."
The blood rushed out of my face, pooling in my stomach. My mouth opened, and closed. I floundered for what to say. The implication of her words struck me immediately.
"I just thought you should know," she said quietly, small.
"I'm glad you told me. Are you... are you okay?" That felt inadequate, but I was frantically scraping my brain for the right words.
"I am okay. I caught the flu. My doctor thinks it was the fever. I also hadn't done a great job of taking care of myself before I...found out."
My mind wheeled backwards. I hadn't had a baby in nearly a decade, but I remember doing the math each month with Evie, as we counted down days and hoped. She wouldn't have found out right away. She was talking about the weeks immediately following the photos breaking.
The weeks I was silent.
"Kathryn, I..." I paused. I didn't want to talk to her--I wanted to be standing in front of her, and I wanted to feel how soft her hair felt in my fingers, and I wanted to wrap my arms around her. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay Stephen."
"No, it's actually not okay. I came into your life and caused all of this, and then I left you alone to deal with it. And now this, and I'm not there, and...I'm so sorry." I felt my voice begin to break and I pushed through it. "This is my fault, all of it."
There was a knock at my office door, and one of the writers popped their face in. I turned away from them, waving my hand off, and they closed the door quickly behind them.
"Stephen, you really don't need to--"
I interrupted her. "I do. I do need to apologize." I took a deep breath, nerving myself. "I pursued you at every chance, because I couldn't shake you from my mind. When I saw you walking on the road last summer, I thought I was just doing the right thing by picking you up. But when I saw you..." I clutched the phone to my ear. Don't get emotional Colbert, don't make this worse.
"I know we had agreed to it just being a fling. I never should have called you after the vacations were over. I never had any intention of leaving my wife, but I still...wanted you. I set all this in motion."
"I could have stopped it at anytime. You were clear on all of that."
"So could I. I should have. It was my life that was going to encroach into yours. You wouldn't have gone through any of it if you hadn't met me. I should have called you after the news came out, and checked in with you. I was so worried if I called you, I would do nothing but hurt you again. And now...this. I'm so sorry Kathryn. I'm so very sorry. The last thing I ever wanted to do to you was hurt you." The tears welled up in my eyes and I shoved them away, taking a deep breath and stopping myself from crying. I can't do it in the office, not before taping. Fuck. But I felt the relief in my shoulders, the muscles loosening. I didn't realize how badly I needed to say that.
The other end of line was quiet, and all I heard was her breathing, fast and erratic.
I felt the need to fill the silence with something, but I remained quiet, waiting for her to respond.
"Thank you for apologizing," whispered. I winced.
"Are you really okay?" I asked, hoping she could hear my concerned. God, I wanted to kiss her. I wished I was there.
She hesitated. "I'm still cramping a bit, but it's better. I'm okay. This was for the best."
I didn't want to get off the phone with her, but I could feel the clock looming above me.
"I think of you often, Kat," softly.
"I think of you too. Everyday." She whispered it to me.
"Me too."
The only sound in the office was the ticking of my clock, the other end of the line silent. I could sense the miles between us, stretching out thousands long, down the east coast, right into her living room, where I imagined her sitting. I wanted to say more to her. I want to say, I love you. I'm sorry again. I love you and I'm sorry. I love you, but, I'm sorry.
Instead, I said goodbye, gently. She returned it, and I heard the line fall to silence, the call over. I turned back from the windows and put the phone down. I dropped my forehead to the desk and felt my heart ache, weary and full.