The Way We Feel

Chapter 27

He was sitting up in bed, the white blanket covering his legs and reaching up just a bit around his waist, his tattooed chest on full display. He looked only marginally more awake, but that just made my heart thump a little harder.

"Wow! Breakfast in bed! What a great Christmas gift!" he exclaimed.

"Shut up," I muttered, unable to keep from laughing. "If it's cold, it's your fault."

"How is it my fault?"

"Because you made me spill the coffee!"

I set the tray down on his lap.

"Where's yours?"

Hands on my hips, too busy being relieved to have made it without incident this time, I felt my brow furrow.

"I don't want to eat breakfast in bed alone on Christmas morning, even if it is part of my Christmas gift." He sounded so earnestly concerned, I couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm getting mine now." I was about to walk away when I felt him grab my hand.

His smile had softened when I looked at him. "Merry Christmas, my girl."

The butterflies in my stomach took off and fluttered up around my heart. "Merry Christmas, Harry."

I leaned over to kiss him and felt the kiss all the way down to my toes.

"Thank you," he whispered when it was over.

I grinned, reaching a hand up to his hair before pecking his forehead. "You're welcome. Be right back."

It wasn't easy leaving him, even knowing it would only take a couple minutes to plate my own breakfast and fix my coffee, so I did everything as quickly as I could.

Things had been... so good these last few months. Busy, but... our relationship had deepened. Intensified somehow. As if marriage had finally decided to sprinkle some sort of fairy dust over us. As if it had decided that because of everything we'd already faced together, we deserved to fall even more in love with each other a year in.

Not even a year. Our first anniversary wasn't until February. But so much had happened since our wedding. So much had changed.

And a lot of it wasn't fair. Losing that baby—we'd had to face parts of ourselves, of each other, that had the potential to ruin everything. They were deep, dark corners somewhere within that had broken stronger couples. Stronger people. But somehow, we'd made it to the other end of it all. Somehow—together—we'd survived.

It would never stop being amazing me—the way he loved me. The way I loved him. There were so many times over the course of our relationship when I was sure something would end it. Something that would change things irrevocably. Something that would scare him away for good.

It was something I still had trouble admitting to myself, but part of me had been terrified the miscarriage might have put him over the edge—that all those dark emotions would be too much for him, and looking at me might just be a constant reminder of everything he wanted to forget about the experience. It had happened to couples—a miscarriage or the loss of a young child tearing them apart. I knew it was a real thing.

And I also knew what Harry must've been thinking. I'd had two miscarriages already—I was young and healthy otherwise, the doctors couldn't seem to give me a specific reason why I'd lost two babies—so who was to say that it wouldn't happen again? Who was to say that I would be able to have a baby in the future?

It still plagued me sometimes—thinking that bearing children might never be a possibility for me. And if that were true, I wouldn't blame Harry for leaving if that was what he wanted. I would completely understand.