H E A T H

Leonie was due at the hospital soon. We had an appointment at half twelve to get a glimpse of our peach. Or was it plum? Yeah. I think this week it was a plum. I looked down at my phone again and felt a bit restless. She was supposed to have met me here by now. I tried calling her again, but there was no answer.

"You're Heath, right?"

I looked up at a familiar face. A tall thin girl with bleach blonde hair and tanned skin stood in front of me in the same uniform that Leonie wore. I swallowed when I saw a few smears of blood on her blouse. She looked at me with a cautious stare.

"Leonie's boyfriend?"

I nodded.

"She's in the ER. She doesn't have her phone but she asked me to come and find you."

I didn't even stop to ask her what was wrong. I just took off down the corridor and passed the elevator, opting for the stairs. I heard the girl call out after me.

"She's in cubicle three!"

Shit. What the hell happened. Was it a car accident? A fight? Fuck, that'd be so like her to fight regardless of whether she's pregnant or not. Ugh of course she wasn't in a fucking fight. She's not stupid. I'm stupid for even thinking that it'd have been a fight. But what? What happened? Shit. Please, God. Please let her be alright.

I pushed the ER doors open and found a full waiting room. Patients were lined up along the wall because all of the seats were taken. I weaved through the room and barely stopped at the reception window. I knew the woman who was working, so I waved at the locked door and she smiled, unlocking it for me.

I walked in and the closer I got to cubicle three, the harder my heart was pounding. It was cancelling out the noise of the ER. The constant beeping of machines. The wail of the injured. The nurses sneakers squelching on the floor. I pulled the curtain back and saw Leonie on a bed. She had her hands over her face while the doctor and two nurses stood beside her.

"There might be some mild pain during the injection to numb the area," the doctor said. I heard it through a haze. All I could see was Leonie, trembling. "I promise that we'll take care to be gentle. The nurse will explain the entire process of a D&C with—"

"D&C?" I felt sick. This wasn't happening. No. A D&C meant one thing.

The doctor turned around and fixed me with an apologetic smile. It did nothing to soothe me. I couldn't breathe.

"You must be Heath," he walked forward and folded his arms. "We just confirmed about two minutes ago that the baby didn't make it. I'm really sorry. It's a sensitive and painful time so we'll give you a few moments alone while we organise the D&C. That's a procedur—"

"I know what a D&C is," I muttered. I hadn't stopped watching her. She'd uncovered her face now. She was staring at the ceiling with tears rolling down her cheeks. "Excuse me."

I stepped around him and walked to Leonie's bedside. Her expression was still, blank, almost void as she stared at the ceiling. Her cheeks were blotched and red. I knew that I was shaking. There was this desperate need to fix the situation. To do something to right it. But I couldn't.

Our plum was gone.

"He's gone, Heath." Her voice was quiet. Defeated. A new tear rolled down the side of her face. "I lost him."

"You didn't do this," I grabbed her hand and leaned down so that I was closer to her, pressing a kiss on her forehead. "Sometimes these things happen and there's no reason for it. No explanation."

"No. There's always a reason. I did something. My body is defective or I drink too much or it was the meds—"

"Alright," the doctor walked in with the nurses in tow. There was sorrow in their expressions but also a strong sense of professionalism that kept them from feeling too much. I knew it well. Mom often spoke about her fears of compartmentalising. She never wanted to lose her empathetic nature. There was a fine line between feeling for the patient and not letting the pain of every struggle, deteriorate your mental health.

"Leonie," he said. "Karla and Jonathan are going to wheel you up to the surgical ward. You'll get into scrubs and we'll give a local anaesthetic to numb the cervix."

Leonie didn't answer. Her hand felt limp in mine. It was as if she wasn't even there. She was a shell. It scared me. Seeing her vacant stare directed at the ceiling made my skin crawl. The doctor asked if Leonie was following and her slight nod prompted him to continue with a gentle tone. "The procedure is fairly straight forward. There is a slight risk of damaging the uterus during the procedure but it's uncommon.

"What we do is dilate the cervix so that we have clear access to insert the is a curette. With that we remove the lining of the uterus and the foetus."

Leonie's chest started rising and falling. Her face remained set in stone aside from the brief flinch of her lids which caused her lashes to flutter. The explanation for the procedure was awful. But she had to know what was going on. She had to be informed. Still, I couldn't help but feel sick. The baby wasn't supposed to be coming out right now. He was supposed to be grow. He was supposed to come out in six months. Alive.

"Do you understand the procedure that will be taking place today?" The doctor asked. "There will be a form to sign upstairs, but I want to be sure that you know what's going on?"

Leonie nodded and the doctor gave her a small one in return before he looked at me.

"Heath, you can go as far as the surgical waiting room."

So I did. I walked alongside the bed while it was wheeled into the elevator and taken up a few floors. I watched Leonie wince in pain and grab her stomach. I saw her panic turn into realisation which then turn into despair. I watched her emotions roll over her face in such speed that it might have been easy to miss. But I knew her too well to miss that. I knew her enough to know that she was heartbroken and scared.

"Do you want me to call someone?" I asked as one orderly came to get the bed. Leonie was in her scrubs now. She'd signed the form. Her clothes were in a bag in the corner of the new cubicle, blood drenching the skirt. A nurse began to usher me towards the doors so I leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. "You want me to call Meredith? Or Jess? Bray?"

She shook her head and the desperation that I felt when she wouldn't look at me, was unnerving. She was meant to be her happiest right now. We were meant to be seeing our plum on the screen. Leonie was meant to be cracking jokes about this that and the next thing because that's what she did. She was meant to be smiling and talking about our future. But instead she was in pain. I knew that she was in pain and there was nothing that I could do to help her.

I felt as if I had lost two people that day. Leonie hadn't come back to me. It had been two weeks since  we lost our baby and she had shut down. After I'd taken her home and taken care of her, I said that I needed to go and get a few things to keep at her apartment while she healed. So that I wouldn't have to leave her.

She locked me out and wouldn't let me back in. I'd called. I'd sent her messages. I'd gone and knocked a few more times. The only line of communication that I had to her, was Meredith who came from London as soon as I phoned her to let her know what had happened. She'd tell me that Leonie was on the mend. But her voice betrayed her. She was worried. I could hear that much.

I sat in a diner not far from the high school while I waited for Jess who had managed to get in and see her once with the help of Meredith. For some unknown reason, I was an absolute no. And Meredith said that she felt terrible about it, but she had to respect Leonie's wishes.

I hadn't slept properly in the last week and a half. I hadn't eaten much. My studies were falling behind. But all I cared about was how she was feeling. I wanted to comfort her and support her. It was killing me that she wouldn't let me and I had no fucking clue why.

"Hey," Jess sat down in the seat opposite mine and dropped her backpack on the floor. It was lunch time and the senior students were able to go off campus if it was within walking distance. She sighed and looked me over. "You look awful."

"Thanks."

She winced. "Sorry. You haven't slept much huh?"

"Fuck all if I'm being honest. But how is she? You've seen her? Is she okay?"

Jess exhaled, slow. As if she needed to gather herself before she lied to me.

"Be honest," I warned. "Please."

She pursed her lips and nodded. "She's not well at all. I mean, women have miscarriages all the time and some get on with their lives afterwards. But she's just spiralled. Well she had. When I saw her yesterday, she said that she was better. She smiled and laughed but it was. . . Off. I can't explain it."

"When you say that she spiralled at the beginning, what does that mean?"

"She wouldn't get out of bed. She cried. She wouldn't eat. She's so thin right now, Heath."

I ran a hand down my face, feeling the slightly longer stubble than I would usually have. I needed to shave. "Did she say why she doesn't want to see me? Or why she won't answer my calls or messages."

She hesitated to answer and I could see her biting the inside of her cheek. Great. I was about to be sucker punched in the stomach.

"She didn't say a lot. But she did tell me that you deserve better. You deserve the world and she isn't good enough. She was kidding herself to think that she'd ever be good enough. A man like you doesn't end up with a girl like her. She has nothing but baggage to offer and it's not fair to be selfish. That's what she said."

I made a fist under the table. I couldn't tell if I was upset. Or angry. Or sick. All of the above perhaps. She'd said that to me before but I believed that we were past that. Past her thinking that she wasn't the most selfless, generous, breathtaking woman that I'd ever met. Did she really think that I wouldn't love her just because she had a miscarriage?

"Jess." We both looked up at the girl standing beside the table. The same girl from the hospital. The one who told me about Leonie being in the ER. I'd later put it together that she was the girl that Leonie had fought at Jade's all of those months ago.

Jess frowned. But quickly smoothed out her features again. As if she was reactionary to this girl but maybe she shouldn't have been. "Harlin," she nodded and pointed at the third chair at the table. "You want to sit?"

"No I'm here with the girls," she pointed over her shoulder. "I just wanted to ask how Leonie is."

Jess blinked, her gaze fell to the table with a slight pinch in her brows. "She told me that you were the one who called the ambulance. And waited with her until Heath came. I just thought you hated her."

Despite her decline before, she sat down. "Leonie and I don't get along but I'm not going to find her bleeding on the bathroom floor and just turn around as if it's not my business."

My stomach twisted. It fucking hurt to imagine my girl in that kind of pain. Scared.

"She said that you were really kind to her. You held her hand and didn't let go until she asked you to go and get Heath," Jess folded her arms on the tabletop. "You could have just called the ambulance and stayed at school. That wouldn't have surprised me considering what a bitch you are to her most of the time."

Harlin rolled her eyes. "Because Leonie is innocent, right? She never starts the arguments. Or the fights? She never makes the first dig?"

Jess pursed her lips and shrugged. "I suppose that is a good point. She can have a loud mouth."

"We piss each other off," Harlin said, flippant, as if it was the norm. "We fight and we don't get along. Never have. I know that I've said some shit to her that was too far. Like when I talked shit about Benny. That was horrible. But I was high. Super high and she set me off with her insults about my appearance and she can be nasty sometimes. I shouldn't have said what I said. But I did."

"You were high? You do drugs?"

"Not the point," Harlin said, twisting her hair around her fist. "The point is, we aren't friends but I wasn't going to leave her when she was going through that. I know what losing a baby is like."

Jess's lips parted in shock. "What?"

Harlin looked tortured. Her pain was evident but she fought it back and lowered her voice. "My dad forced me to have an abortion last year. I didn't want one."

"Harlin," Jess shook her head. She couldn't believe what she was hearing and neither could I. "I'm— I don't know— that's horrible."

"Yeah. Well I didn't get to tell the father. I didn't even tell dad. I told mom. You know, she was distant and self obsessed. But I thought that she'd care. Or want to help. But she told dad and then she stepped aside when he put the pressure on," she wiped at her eye before a tear had the chance to drop. "They told me it would be bad press for their campaign. Dad's been going for Senate for a long time. And that wouldn't have helped. I had no choice. It was get rid of the baby or get out of the house. I would lose all association. Money. School."

"Well what about the father?" Jess asked. "Couldn't he have helped? Provided?"

She wore a sad smile as she shook her head. "He was from the wrong side of the tracks. You know? I had a plan. Ask him to move in with us. Give him a real home. Raise our baby together because he would have been a great dad. And then it all went to hell. And I felt so bad, that I couldn't even look at him anymore. So I let him go."

Fuck. My heart went out to this girl. The last time I'd seen her, I thought she was the biggest piece of shit on the planet. And now I wanted nothing but the best for her. The demons that people carried truly had the power to change a person.

"Don't tell anyone," Harlin added as Jess opened her mouth to talk. "Don't. Please. I just want to move on. But I thought it'd be worth knowing that I understand Leonie. I know how much it hurts when you don't have a say. It's not exactly the same. But it hurts. So— I hope she's healing."

Jess nodded and watched Harlin stand up. After she'd left to join her friends, Jess looked at me with wide eyes. "That's got to have left a scar, man. Choice is one thing. Being given no other option, unimaginable."

"It goes to show how lonely she must have felt at the time," I added. "To not feel as though she could have turned to someone else for support. Her parents are assholes."

Jess nodded and looked down at her phone. "I'm due back at school soon and I haven't eaten so I might head off and find Bray."

"Oh we could have ordered something. I'm sorry. I didn't even think about it," I told her as she stood up and collected her back pack. She waved a dismissive hand.

"It's alright. The cafe will have something. Look, I wanted to let you know that Leonie will be back at school this week. Her mom is going back to London and Lee has her convinced that she's all better now. I don't know. She might be. But I'll be watching her. I'm going to attempt to drag her along to Jade's this weekend. I can't promise that she'll be there. But she might be. So. . . you could be as well."

"Thanks, Jess."

She nodded and waved goodbye. But she'd taken a mere few steps when she spun around again. "It was a boy."

My stomach twisted into a knot. Leonie had been right. She said that she had a gut instinct and she was right. Even before he was born, she was an intuitive mother. My nose stung and my jaw hurt as I tried to hold back painful tears.

"She called him Hank Gilmore."

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