Fades To Black (Complete)

November- The Time To Say Goodbye

Camila

I'm sitting in my car outside my house and I can't bring myself to go in

Everything that was once familiar and safe is now foreign and strange and unstable

I recently returned to work and although I had dreaded it, known and feared the way people would look at me and whisper about me. The things they would call me...

'That's the woman whose daughter died'

'That's Mrs. Mendes, she used to work here until her daughter died'

Daughter...

Died...

I knew I would be defined by those two words as I returned to work and probably for the rest of my life

The first few days were hard, the sympathetic looks, the condolences but after that I fell back into my normal routine of answering emails, making phone calls, smiling and pretending

Always pretending

That I'm happy

That things are okay

That my husband and I aren't living like strangers

That I'm not pregnant

Fuck! I'm really pregnant!

I look down at the tiny bump that lies beneath my pink and grey floaty dress and feel the sting of tears

For this baby, the hell its being born into

For Elena, the thought that she might be out there somewhere thinking how easily we replaced her has robbed me of the tiny amount of sleep I was finally claiming as my own

For myself, carrying a child I know I will never love, can't love, can't feel anything other than pity and resentment for

And for Shawn, the once beautiful man who is now lost to the darkness of his mind.

He can't look at me, can barely bring himself to be in the same house as me, although he isn't drinking anymore his working hours now seem to start at 4am and finish at 1am.

He no longer comes to bed, preferring instead to toss and turn on the sofa

Our marriage is disintegrating just like the life we had spent the best part of a decade building around us

Pushing open my car door, I drag myself from the vehicle and then force my legs to carry me up the steps and then place my key in the lock and twist it open

To my surprise I see Shawns car keys in the bowl "Shawn?" I call in surprise and head into the living room, my eyes seeing and then disbelieving and failing to comprehend what I'm seeing

"Sit down" he says, his voice low and quiet, his eyes dropping from my face to my stomach and then to the suitcase that is sitting at his feet

"You're leaving" I say stating the obvious

"I have to"

"You're leaving us" I reiterate

"I have to"

I shake my head as I feel my hands begin to tremble, my world spiralling even further out of my control than I ever thought possible

"Camila you blame me for everything" I don't answer "For what happened to Elena, for..." he motions to my stomach with his head, unable to even acknowledge the situation we have found ourselves in "I can't live like this, we shouldn't live like this"

"So that's it?"

"What do you want me to say? What the hell do you want me to do? I can't fix this. I can't bring Elena back, I can't put our relationship back together I can't..." Again he motions towards my stomach "I just can't Camila"

"And I can?"

"I wish I was a better man. I wish I could fix everything that's been broken. I wish to God I hadn't taken Elena to that party, I wish I hadn't got distracted; I wish to fuck I had known what she was eating"

"You should have been watching her" my eyes drop to my feet, knowing the grenade I just threw into the conversation

"And there it is. There is the truth, you blame me"

"No"

"I see it every time you look at me! I should have been watching her, do you not think I know that?! Do you not think that for every second of every day since it happened I haven't told myself the same thing?! I shouldn't have been talking, I should have been watching but I'm a fuckin human being Camila, I make mistakes. Do you have any idea what it's like to live knowing that one of your mistakes cost your child their life?!"

A tear rolls down his cheek but he swats it away

"Do you know what it's like to live with the images in your head of your child dying? Of them struggling to breathe, of them looking at you, begging you to fix it, expecting you to fix it cos you're daddy and you fix everything. Do you know what it's like to hear screaming and look around only to realise the sound is coming from your mouth?"

"Don't"

"Why not Camila? Because you can't hear it, you can't bare to think about it? Imagine living it and then reliving it, over and over until it's all you can think about, all you can hear, all you can see, until it consumes every tiny bit of your being because that's my life! That's what it's like for me a never ending nightmare and I have no where to turn, no one to turn to because you blame me. You believe every terrible thing I tell myself. It was my fault, I should have done more, I should have been watching her closer, I should have saved her"

The tears are streaming down his face as I feel my own begin to fall

"I was her daddy Camila, it was my job to protect her and I couldn't. Do you..." he hiccups a sob "Have any idea how fuckin hard..." he sobs again "That is for me to live with?"

Shawn wraps his arms over his head as he sobs more uncontrollably than I have ever seen him sob before.

I should go to him

I should hold him and tell him he's wrong because he is wrong, it isn't his fault but I can't

I sit on the sofa as he picks up his suitcase and mumbles his apologies

I sit on the sofa as he walks to the hallway and picks up his car keys

I sit on the sofa as my husband, My Shawn, the love of my life, the father of both of my children walks out of the door and out of our home

I don't follow him and beg him to stay because he's right, I do blame him and we can't live like this anymore

*so the next chapter was supposed to be the last one but I'm not sure I can wrap it up properly in one so there might be two more and then it's finished

*thank you so much for sticking with it, I hope I am doing the topic justice x