"- There's no right way to calm the searing fever in your head when you know there is a war going on inside of you. It can take you out of your body for days at a time and question if you're the one whose really gone. It will come from outside or within you, and tear you apart to find an escape, and all you can do is pick up your pieces and try to keep the rest of you intact.
There's no step-by-step grieving process for how to fill the void inside you that has been shoveled out so unexpectedly. So regardless of if it leaves you feeling empty, relieved, heartbroken, or numb- a loss is a loss.
- Connotativewords | jl | Cigarettes & Loneliness. 

**

Luke's Point of View

Two Years ago.

"I'm here!" I shout into the quiet house, putting my keys and phone down on the table.

I walk around the house with the bouquet of peonies I bought for Ana on the way here, I was only away for a week touring around the country for shows and I missed her immensely. "Babe?" I call, listening for any sign that she is here. 

"In here!" She finally calls from the bedroom and I hide the flowers behind my back, making my way into the room.

I smell her perfume before I see her, and she jumps into my arms the moment I step into the room, throwing her arms around my neck. "I missed you!" she squeals as I smother her face with kisses. 

"I missed you more," I say, handing her the peonies and observing the way her brown eyes light up.

She bounces on the balls of her feet excitedly, smelling the flowers and reaching up for another kiss, but a painful expression crosses her face as she clutches at her stomach. "Shit." She grumbles and shoves the bouquet back into my arms, running into the bathroom.

I stand there for a shocked moment before I hear her throwing up. I rush into the bathroom to find her bent over the toilet. "Ana." I murmur, pulling all her hair back quickly and rubbing her back.

She throws up a couple of times, emptying the contents of her stomach and dry heaves for a long while. Finally, when she's certain there's no more, she straightens with my help and rinses her mouth in the sink.

"Did you eat something bad?" I question, leading her to the bed.

"I have something to tell you." She mumbles and sits up in bed without laying down. She drinks the water I pour for her and I sit across her on the bed, worried out of my mind. 

She traces the rim of the glass with her finger, refusing to look up at me. The moment was far too long before she finally takes a deep breath. 

"I'm pregnant." She blurts out suddenly and I feel the weight of her words come down on me like a sledgehammer. 

"Wha—What?" I sputter, my eyes widening.

"I'm pregnant, with your baby." She clarifies with a tiny smile.

"No way." I gulp, feeling a little light-headed, unspeakable joy seeping into my bones along with confusion. 

I'm going to be a father!

"Yes, way." She smiles back at me, that smile I adore so much. Before I know it I swoop her up in my arms and kiss her as hard as I can. 

 "Tell me you aren't playing one of your jokes on me before I embarrass myself in the next ten seconds." Ana looks down at my face and shakes her head. She reaches around me and drops her bag into my lap, rummaging through it as my heart beats loud. It nearly leaps out of my chest when she pulls out a piece of rectangular paper and hands it to me.

"The little dot there is our baby." She whispers and I feel the tears prick at my eyes. I trace my finger over the little dot on the picture and feel a kind of joy I can't put a name too but want to write a million songs about.

I hug Ana to me and twirl us around the room. "We're having a baby!" I yell and she laughs with delight.

"Whoa, puke coming back up please." She groans with a laugh and I put her down, kissing her with all the love I can muster.

---

Present Day

"What?" I gasp, feeling my bones grow cold at every second his pained eyes stare back at me.

"Ana was having my baby," Luke repeats himself, tears starting to stream down his cheeks.

"We were so young but we were so happy." He shuts his eyes, a little smile forming on his lips at the memories.

He had a baby...

A child...

"I—What—I..." I shake my head in the hopes that I'll be able to form words but I have no such luck as he runs his hands up my arms, leaving goosebumps.

I have to be strong for him right now.

I try again. "Where is um...where is he—the baby, I mean."

"It was a she."

---

Two years ago.

"No Michael, I can't go get drunk with you. I'm doing some—uh...stuff." I mumble into the phone, struggling with the pink wooden poles of the new baby crib I just bought.

"What are you even doing?" He asks and I try to think of a good enough excuse.

Ana and I haven't decided to tell anyone yet but we will in time.

"I'm gonna do some writing alone. I have a lot of ideas floating around." I quickly say and cut off the connection before he gets suspicious and asks me if he can join too.

Two hours later I finally get the crib done and admire it from afar, clutching the manual to my chest.

Satisfied with how it turned out, I start pulling out everything else I bought from their boxes. I remembered stuff my mother and I went and bought when my nephew was born. I bought everything in the stores for our baby girl in different colours and painted the walls a lilac colour last week.

Ana is almost three and a half months in and she will be getting home anytime soon from her work trip to Brazil.

I can't wait to see her expression.

I look around the room, finally satisfied with it and click a picture from the doorway. I hear the front door open and the sound of keys rattling.

I jog into the living room to find Ana in the middle of it, wheeling her suitcase to a stop and shrugging off her coat.

"There is my love, I have surprises for my favourite girls!" I sing, embracing the two of them.

Two of them. Damn, I already got it bad.

"How are my momma and little baby love?" I can't help how disgustingly soft it gets with happiness but my grin disappears when I realise that Ana is awfully quiet.

"What's wrong?" I ask her and notice the tear streaks down her cheeks.

She just stares down at her hands, her body shaking slightly. "Ana? Baby tell me what's wrong. Are you hurt?" She shakes her head as a reply and I lead her onto the sofa and she sits down as I kneel in front of her.

Ana was never the one to hesitate, she always said whatever was on her mind straight away. She never spoke in riddles so I brace myself for whatever it is.

"It's the baby." She breathes heavily, tears spilling from her cheeks and I feel a tornado spin into my world.

I blink my eyes and my hand's fist on either side of her on the sofa. "What about the baby?" I swallow the fear.

"I—I miscarried." She whispers and it's like the floor drops from underneath me. Pain rips through my chest and my head drops onto her lap. "No," I whisper.

This can't be happening. I just... I just built her crib...

"She's gone." Ana weeps above me and I raise my heavy head, wrapping her shaking body in my arms. "It'll be okay," I whisper, rocking us back and forth as her cries become the loudest thing in my universe.

"I don't know what happened." She sobs as I carry her into our bedroom, laying her down and lining her body with mine.

"Shhh. It's okay. It's—it's not your fault." I whisper shakily. I couldn't feel the tips of my fingers and the numbness starts to spread into all the parts of my body while I lay next to her.

*

Ana fell asleep hours ago. I laid here holding her for what feels like an eternity as the sun set and darkness fell over the city.

Ana stirs at my side and lifts her head from my numb shoulder. We stare into each other eyes for a long time before she finally breaks it off and sits up. "I'm sorry Luke." She whispers and I sit up beside her.

"None of this is your fault. Things—things like this happen to the best of us, right?" I croak out.

"Right." She murmurs.

"I love you. You love me. We will get through this." I tell her as she cuddles back into my side and I leave a lingering kiss on her forehead.

"We will. I should probably change." She sighs and gets out of bed, heading into the bathroom.

"I'll get your things," I say silently and stand up, walking into the living room but stopping by the room I was decorating today.

"Ana can't see this," I say out loud and look around the lilac walls, the toys, and the pink crib I spent hours building.

I hear the shower turn on and I can't help but drop onto my knees painfully, laying my forehead on the cold wooden floor, the tears I've been holding back shake my body furiously.

"Why us!? Fuck, fuck." I feel the scream stuck in my throat but I push it down.

"My love." I sob, collapsing onto my side on the ground, clutching a little teddy bear I got for her.

"I love you so much. I love you so much I'm so sorry I couldn't keep you safe." I shut my eyes and hope she hears, wherever she went, leaving Ana and me behind.

It gets to a point where I physically can't cry anymore so I wipe at my face with my t-shirt and stand up on shaky feet, laying the teddy bear in the crib and shutting the door behind me.

I lean against the door and take deep breaths. I have to be strong for Ana now.

I wash my face from the kitchen sink and wheel Ana's suitcase into the bedroom along with her other bags.

The phone starts to ring loudly nearby and it jolts me out of my state, I whip around with frustration to locate the sound and it sends Ana's handbag flying onto the floor, all the contents spilling out. "Bloody hell." Finding the phone, I press the red button to cancel the call without checking who it is and scramble to pick up her things.

I hear the bathroom door open and Ana walks out with a bathrobe wrapped around her. "Luke?"

A folder has scattered papers around the room and I pick them up quickly to stuff them back in but a blue line on the top of a page catches my eye.

"Abortion clinic." I murmur the words as I read them and it takes me awhile to process what I'm reading.

"Abortion clinic?!" I say louder, looking up at Ana and back at the piece of paper in my hands.

She is suddenly at my side and she snatches the papers out of my hands. "They—they aren't mine."

I snatch them back from her and scan the page. Her name is mentioned under the patient name and I feel my head spin.

"You lied to me..."

I look up at her and her face is expressionless. "You lied to me?" I gasp, blinking away the tears.

"I—no... I was going to tell you I swear."

"You told me you miscarried!" I shout and crumple the paper in my hand when it starts shaking like a leaf.

"You fucking lied to me! You...you took our baby and I was here building her a crib! You lied to me!" I scream until my throat strains and I turn away from her, punching the wall behind my head.

I storm out of the room without looking back at her and fumble out the front door, walking out as fast I can.

I walk around the streets and when I can't hide anymore and my hands are bloodied with punching every wall I can find and the self-inflicted pain shields the unbearable feeling of loss, I make my way back to my apartment.

I walk straight into the bedroom but she isn't there, I bang open doors and finally find her in the baby room. "Get out." I sneer, watching her in the middle of what would have been our child's bedroom.

"Luke..." She starts but I stop her.

"Tell me why you did it."

"I didn't think it was right to have a child now." She shrugs her shoulder, looking down at the carpet.

I stare at the wall above her head. "You didn't think that three months ago. You said you wanted this baby."

"My management and family don't want me to have a child... They weren't happy when I told them. They are right Luke, we are too young for this." She gestures around the room.

They say you feel your bones tremble the first time you experience the weight of actual hate that it scares you so much you start to doubt if you would live through it. That was this moment for me.

"You will take your things and leave right now. You will give me the body of my baby and I will bury her like she deserves to be, like a real human being and you will not be there, and then you will never come within my sight. Do you understand me?" I say slowly, making sure I wouldn't have to repeat myself.

"Okay." She simply nods her head, walking out of the room and into our bedroom to get her things.

I lean against the wall of the kitchen, waiting to hear the door shut and when I finally hear it without even so much as an "I'm sorry" from her, I feel the last of my resolve leave me.

I rummage through a box and find a baseball bat. I walk into the room I spent all my love on and smash everything into pieces. I don't stop until the sun is back up in the sky and the crib is in pieces on the ground and the lilac walls all have holes in them.

---

Present day

"She had an abortion because other people told her to and then lied to me about it." He whispers and I know for a fact that I have never been more speechless in my life.

"If she told me she didn't want a baby, I would have supported her decision with all my heart. I even asked her if she really wanted a child now. But she was so happy, just like I was and I was so ready to spend the rest of our lives together but she just—took it all like it never mattered."

"I'm so sorry." I caress his face and he leans his head into my hand.

"After smashing everything in that house to bits I...I got so drunk and I kept calling her..."

"I'm sorry you had to keep all this to yourself, you didn't have to. Any one of us would have listened."

He nods his head. "I know. But she was my little secret and for a moment in time she was all my hope and love in the world, I didn't want anyone to know I lost my hope and love."

It all starts to make sense and I never thought that with realisation my heart would break this much. All the times he spoke about loss, all the times he was angry at the world.

She would have been so beautiful I think. With her mother's hair and her father's eyes.

Luke reads my thoughts without me having to say it out loud. "She was beautiful." He smiles, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

A/N:

I cried myself silly writing this. Just a couple of chapters more x

Updated Authors note (2018):

Hello everyone! It's been a wonderful couple of years, the readers on this book have grown to massive numbers and I thank you for your endless support. I was very young when I wrote this story, and now I see that some things might not have been explained very well, but I can tell you with my whole heart that this story was written from a place of great understanding and love, despite my age then.

The storyline makes itself pretty clear and I don't feel the need to explain anything--but I thought I would anyway. The world is in the middle of this right now, and this is a highly subjective topic. 

It is my sole opinion and my sole belief, that women have the complete right to do what they want with their bodies. They can choose to have a baby, or not have a baby, it is up to them completely and no one should be questioning that right. 

In the case of this story, however, Luke and Ana had planned to have this baby, they had a future planned out around this baby. In cases like this, I believe the father has a right to know before the mother chooses to have an abortion. Luke's anger came from a place of heartbreak and shock, and not because he or I (the writer) am against women having the right to have an abortion. 

Women are allowed to do with their bodies as they please. Know it, learn it, teach it to your girls one day. 

Thank you so much for reading, your love is endless and I treasure every bit of it. 

Go on, keep reading then, it gets so much better from here! 

Ry x