Nae's eyes were red, puffy and nearly swollen shut from crying all night. She knew something had happened to Coco. She hit the buzzer all night but no one answered her.
At 6AM when the doors unlocked themselves all of the girls gathered in Nae room comforting her and assuring her that everything was ok even though some of them knew that something was off.
"Do you think something happened to her?" Bahja whispered to Breaunna as Breaunna stood staring at herself in the mirror.
"I don't know Bahja, but I have a bad feeling in my gut right now." Breaunna sighed. "Real bad."
"What do y'all think happened?" Zonnique asked as she sat on the bed with Bella.
Bella shook her head. "I don't know. She's 8 months pregnant right? Maybe she went into early labor or something."
Bella nodded, "Yes that has to be it. Worst case scenario she lost the baby."
Zonnique seemed as if she was about to say something but then turned her attention to the footsteps she heard coming down the hall. The footsteps were coming slowly. Painfully slowly. She walked to the door and eased the door open to a perfect view of Jacob. Gently she opened the door another inch.
Zonnique immediately knew something was wrong by the look in his eyes. "Jacob, what happened?"
He didn't answer.
"Are you taking us to see Coco?" Bahja asked. He still didn't answer.
"Is the baby ok?" Cymphonique said as the others joined them in the hall.
Nae looked at him and sensed something was wrong and started crying loudly.
There was a moment of total silence, the rest of the girls also sensing something was wrong with Jacob but he somehow gathered his wits and smiled easing their fear momentarily.
They walked into Skylar's office to see Willow already seated and eating breakfast.
"Hello." Skylar said as she sat on the edge of her desk. At first she smiled, and then her face changed to a somber expression. She stared down at her coffee mug.
"Where's CoCo?" .Nae asked. And what happen to the baby?"
"The baby is fine." Skylar sighed. She didn't know how to break it to them. Somehow she knew telling them the baby survived wouldn't soften the blow.
"When can see Coco and the baby?" Nae asked.
Skylar had her head down avoiding eye contact. "Courtney." They knew instantly that something was wrong. They could tell from the sound of Skylar rare calm and quiet tone, but before they could ask, she continued. "She passed away last night."
"She died." Skylar said again, almost as if she couldn't believe it and was trying to convince herself as well as the girls.
Nae's sobs returned at full force, escalating swiftly into a piercing scream
Tears flowed in the room like cold rain, filling empty gutters.
Zonnique was speechless, she didn't know what to say, but managed, "What happened?"
"She had a miscarriage." Skylar answered, wiping her own tears with a napkin.
"How do you miscarry at 8 months?" Cymphonique asked as tears stung her eyes. She openly wept.
Bahja's brown eyes were moist with tears and her lower lip slightly trembled. Her cheeks and nose were flushed from crying. This was too much for her to bear. She needed to step out for a minute. She quietly slipped from the room, her heart pounding against her chest.
With her head hanging down she brought up a hand to brush away her hair from her face. Unexpectedly, she bumped into something hard. Her head flew up and found herself staring up at green eyes. "Diggy." She said as fresh tears rushed down her face.
Diggy wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she accepted his heartfelt embrace as tears pricked her eyes. "What are you doing here? I thought you were going back to Atlanta."
"I was going but when I heard about what happened I decided to postpone. It's funny because the most I thought would happen in my absence would be you being sent to the psych ward after going into a violent rage stemmed from you missing me."
A shaky pain-pinched smile formed on Bahja's quivering lip. She wiped her eyes and didn't bother to contradict him.