My head was pounding, almost like someone was thumping a hammer against my skull. I was in the hospital, and I didn’t even have to open my eyes to know that. The constant beep of a monitor beside me was one of the first things to annoy me enough to wake up. I felt so weird. Something about me felt really weird, but I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to open my eyes and find out what was wrong.
But then I remembered the reason why I was so exhausted. Last night after the police came (which was just seconds after Ryan was shot), the ambulance arrived and rushed me into the hospital, Ryan on the stretcher beside me. As soon as we got into the hospital, we were separated, both taken to different operation rooms. Where was he now? Was he okay? He dropped me so he could take the bullet. I felt like killing him, if Travis didn’t already.
All of that blood, both mine and his on the patio … and the pain in my stomach. The pain was just too horrible to even begin to describe it, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy – not even Travis. For those crucifying hours of tears, blood and unbearable cramps, I truly believed I was going to die. But I didn’t, my baby did.
I opened my eyes, moving my hand to my stomach, my heart shattering in horror. My baby was dead, all gone. It was all my fault. If I just would’ve listened to Ryan for once in my life, I’d still be pregnant. If I left when Ryan told me to, my baby would still have a beating heart, it would still be growing inside me, it would still be a part of me.
Hot tears flooded down from my eyes and covered my cheeks, my shoulders shaking with the sobs. I couldn’t stop crying, and I don’t think I ever would. My poor baby … Ryan’s poor baby … Our poor baby was gone forever. What on earth did we do to deserve this? I never even felt it kick or move … and I’d never get the chance to. It was just lifeless proof that my life was a mess.
The door opened slowly, and Sinead stepped into the room. Her lips were pressed together in a thin white line as she walked over to my bed, holding a box of Kleenex. She sat down, placed the box on the little table beside me and held my hand comfortingly. She just stayed there in silence with me, letting me cry until my tear ducts seemed to dry up, and then let out a deep sigh.
‘You must feel so bad,’ she said, moving over to sit on the end of my bed. ‘I can’t imagine all the pain you’re feeling … But you’ve got to understand that none of this is your fault. Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want them to … but everything happens for a reason, right? That’s what you always say, isn’t it? Maybe you weren’t ready to have a baby.’
I shook my head, letting go of her hand. ‘How could you say that? I was ready to have a baby! I loved my baby, and now it’s dead! My baby’s gone all because of me! If I just stayed away from Travis this would’ve never happened! It’s dead, Sinead! I killed my own baby –!’
‘That’s not true, Laura –!’ Sinead said sharply, but I cut her off.
‘Where’s Ryan? I need to tell him …’ I said, looking at the drips connected to my wrist and ripping all of them away. It hurt a lot, but it was nothing compared to the pain I was already feeling. I pushed myself up off the bed, my legs quivering as I first stood up. Sinead tried to stop me from going anywhere, but I just pushed her away from me, determined to see my boyfriend.
I hurried out of the room, out into the corridor where nurses where rushing around, and looked around for a door with Ryan’s name, or some type of clue to show me where he was. And then I found him, in the room right next to me, in a deep sleep on his bed. I crept into the room, trying my best to close the door quietly behind me, and sat on the end of his bed.
I was afraid to touch him, a little thrown off-guard by how vulnerable he looked. There was some type of ventilator connected to him, helping him breathe. Blood was being supplied into his wrist through a tube connected to a big bag of it, and IV fluids were dribbling into his bloodstream next to it. I had never seen him like this, and it scared me.
Tears began streaming down from my eyes again, but I wept silently, afraid to disturb him. I was dreading the thoughts of having to tell him the bad news when he eventually woke up, but I knew I’d have to sooner or later. It’s not like I could pretend to be pregnant. He was going to be so disappointed …
‘There you are,’ someone muttered behind me, walking into the room.
I turned around to see James, dressed in his uniform and carrying a clipboard. ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘Why are you working?’
‘Last time I checked I did work here, and I’m not sick or injured … so I suppose I just want to be with you guys after everything that has happened. It’s also a nice way to stay away from the reporters swarming around this hospital and all of our houses. We’re famous here in Roseville … but for the most unfortunate reasons, of course …’ he added, glancing down at my stomach.
I bit my lip, trying my best to prevent the fresh batch of tears in my eyes from falling. ‘Why can’t Ryan breathe on his own? What’s that ventilator for?’
‘When Travis shot him the bullet lodged itself into the bottom of his left lung, just missing his heart … His lung collapsed, so there’s a flexible plastic tube inserted through his chest wall that’s attached to a suction device to help keep his lung inflated. Once it heals, though, the tube will be pulled out and his lung will be able to stay inflated on its own. The ventilator’s going to assist his breathing, but as soon as he can breath on his own we’ll be taking it away as it can lead to a lot of complications if it’s left in for several days … He’ll be on plenty of antibiotics to prevent infections, and as soon as the ventilator is removed he will begin respiratory therapy …’
He walked over to Ryan and recorded a couple of the readings on the monitors beside him. ‘It was a tricky operation … If the ambulance arrived a couple of minutes later, Ryan probably wouldn’t have had a chance. He’s very lucky … Sinead told me you ran out of the room on her … Is everything okay, Laura?’
‘What do you think? My boyfriend’s been shot, my baby’s dead, and she thinks that everything’s great because things happen for a reason! She doesn’t understand how empty I feel, and not to mention the guilt! My baby is dead because of me!’
‘You know that’s not true, Laura,’ James sighed, wrapping his arms around me and hugging me. ‘Nothing that happened last night was your fault … No matter which way you look at what happened, it’s all Travis’s fault, and he’s got what he deserved now.’
‘Where is he?’ I mumbled into his chest, one of the pens in his pocket digging into my cheek.
James sighed again. ‘As soon as the cops got everyone in the house and were just about to go out to the back yard, Travis put his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. You lost consciousness by the time that happened, and then you woke back up in the ambulance. Travis didn’t even make it to an ambulance before he was dead.’
‘Oh my God …’ I whispered. ‘He’s dead …’
James frowned at me. ‘Are you upset that he’s dead, or are you just relieved? Laura, he murdered your father and he tried to kill you twice. You’ve lost your baby because of him and you could’ve lost Ryan, too. He never deserved to live after he killed your dad, and no amount of time in jail could cure a freak like that. Just think of it this way, he’s never ever going to be able to bother you again.’
‘Unless he’s a ghost,’ I muttered, glancing up at the clock on the wall. ‘Where are everyone else? It’s two o’clock … Why aren’t there more visitors? Where’s Ryan’s mam?’
‘Everyone else that was upstairs in Travis’s house is in this hospital, too. Travis somehow got his hands on some chlorine gas, which is extremely poisonous when large amounts are inhaled. He locked them up in three rooms, used tons of insulation to make sure none of the gas could spread elsewhere, and got a couple of his gang members to guard the doors and make sure no one got out. Some people didn’t get too affected, like Sinead, other people – on the other hand – weren’t so lucky. It’s only Sinead and Gabby that seem to be fine, because they were taken out of their room for a bit and … Well, they just didn’t get as much of it as everyone else did.’
‘How bad is it?’ I said, biting my nails. ‘Have they talked to the police yet?’
‘Not yet. Most of them can’t really talk properly because of the chlorine … Different people reacted differently … Some of them can’t breathe properly, some people’s noses, eyes, ears, lips and tongues are burning, some people are vomiting up blood, some have swollen throats which is almost stopping them from breathing, some people have severe abdominal pain, and some people’s food pipes are burned … But as far as the police are concerned, we’ve nothing to do with the gangs except for the fact that they almost tried to kill us.’
‘What room are my friends in? Do they even understand what happened? I’ve got to go talk to them –’
‘No you don’t, Laura,’ he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re not even supposed to be in here anyway. You’re supposed to be resting in your room … especially after last night. Oh and look, you ripped the tubes from your wrist already. How on earth did you manage to do that? You need to catch up on all the blood you lost. Come on, you can visit Ryan later. There’s no need to be worrying about him because the operation’s all over and he’s going to be fine.’
‘Can’t you just move my bed in here? What if he wakes up and I’m not around?’ I said, not getting up off his bed just yet.
‘Trust me, Laura, with all the medication he’s on, I don’t think he’ll be waking up until later tonight. You really need to lie down and get some rest, and if you don’t, I’ll go and call the doctor and get you into trouble.’
‘Fine,’ I grumbled, rolling my eyes. ‘Can I have a sleeping tablet, or something?’
‘Of course you can’t,’ he chuckled, holding the door open for me. ‘Haven’t you slept enough already?’
~*~
Ryan woke up that evening, in both pain and confusion. When the doctor was finished making sure everything was okay, James helped me into Ryan’s room, where I sat down on the seat beside his bed. As soon as he saw me, he tried to get up out of his bed, but James stopped him. Ryan groaned, looking under the covers to examine the bandages covering his wound. He pointed at the ventilator with a frown on his face, clearly annoyed that he couldn’t talk with it, but James shook his head.
‘You can’t take that off yet, Ryan. You’ll have to wait until the doctor tells you that you can …’ he told him.
Ryan’s shoulders sagged, and I gently held his hand. His eyes were barely half-open as they looked miserably into mine. Each breath he took reminded me of someone dragging the dreary metal of a shovel along the ground. He looked terrible, his skin was clammy and pasty and there were big dark circles under his eyes. I had never ever seen him look so bad. Usually it was the other way around.
I was planning on telling him the bad news then, but I just couldn’t think of the right words to say. He was going through enough pain as it was anyway. I didn’t want to add to that. To be honest, I didn’t ever want to tell him. Tears started blurring my sight and Ryan squeezed my hand. What did we do to deserve this? Why on earth did our baby have to go?
By the next morning, the ventilator was taken away from Ryan and from then on he was recovering at a remarkably fast pace, according to the doctors. Everyone who was poisoned with the chlorine gas was released from the hospital three days after that night, and each of them came at least once to visit us and make sure we were okay. I still never told Ryan what had happened, and I made everyone who knew to swear not to tell him.
I was freed from the hospital a week later, after the doctors confirmed that everything was fine … even though it most certainly was not. Sinead brought me home, and I went straight to bed, closing the blinds and lying awake in the dark for the rest of the night. I was so miserable that the darkness didn’t even bother me once.
The next morning I went downstairs and made breakfast for Sinead and I, plastering on a fake smile as though everything in the world was okay. The doctors reckoned that Ryan could be released any day now, and until then, I had to think of how to tell him. He already knew something was wrong with me, but I just changed the subject every time he even tried to ask me.
After every time I went to visit Ryan in the hospital, Kyle would collect me and bring me home. He was great to talk to, which was very surprising at first, and eventually I was sobbing my heart out on his shoulder. He even started pretending to be Ryan just so I could practise telling him, but we spent so much time laughing at Kyle imitating Ryan’s habits that I never once got to practise before Ryan was released.
Since his apartment and all of his things were ashes now from the fire, I brought him home to my house where he complained about how small my single bed was and the fact that Sinead was singing a little too loudly along to Katy Perry downstairs. He was so exhausted that he just fell asleep straight away after I told Sinead to shut up, so I didn’t even get a chance to tell him.
The next day the police came and my mam with a lawyer, who also happened to be her fiancé. We both gave our statements about that night, which didn’t even need to be rehearsed as we already knew what not to mention. My mam stayed back for a cup of tea with Sean McCarthy, the lawyer, and went over that night’s events over and over again, to the point where I had to run upstairs and get sick in the toilet.
Sinead was the first one upstairs to check if I was okay, after telling my mam and the lawyer to get out of the house as politely as possible. Ryan, who couldn’t move without someone helping him, was stuck downstairs as Sinead began nagging at me for not telling him yet. But I told her that I was going to tell him. I really was. Just not that night, or any of the nights during the week after that.
I did eventually tell him, though. It was the moment he asked about what we were going to name the baby when I finally stopped smiling and told him the truth. He didn’t believe me at first, telling me that joke wasn’t one bit funny. But when he looked at me and saw how serious I was, he froze. His face went white as he suddenly grabbed me and pulled me closer to him, holding me in his arms.
We didn’t say anything for ages, simply clinging to each other and crying. My heart was searing, suffering the whole of three people’s pain – Ryan’s, our baby’s and mine.
‘We can try again,’ Ryan mumbled into my shoulder after a while. ‘When we’re ready, we can try again.’
I pushed away from him. ‘What if this happens again? What if I can’t have a baby? Sinead can’t … What if I’m like that, too?’
He held my face in his hands, gently pushing a few strands of hair around from my face. ‘This isn’t about you not being able to, Laura, but if you want you can get doctors to test if you’re able to … Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault, Laura. It was Travis, and I swear to God, if he didn’t already kill himself I’d be straight over to him right now. He did this, not you. We can wait until we’re both ready and try again.’
I couldn’t look at him, so I stared down at my hands. ‘We’ll never be able to … replace that baby. Babies aren’t things you can just restore. That baby could’ve grown up to be amazing, and we would’ve loved it, and it would’ve loved us –’
‘Laura, every single baby that we ever give life to is going to be amazing no matter what, because you’re amazing and I love you so, so much regardless what happens. I know we’ll never get that baby back, and I know you’re going to feel lost without it. We’re both going to wish none of this had happened, but no matter what we have each other. I’m going to be there for you no matter what, okay? I know you’re going to probably hate me for saying this, but maybe this was just the world’s way of showing us that we wearing ready to be parents. When we’re ready, we’ll have a baby that’ll probably have a much better life than this one would’ve had –’
‘Just because it was unexpected doesn’t mean that it deserved to die,’ I hissed, moving away from him to the other end of the sofa.
‘I didn’t mean it that way, Laura …’ Ryan sighed. ‘No baby ever deserves to die. I’d never say that. All I’m trying to tell you is that there’s a reason for everything.’
~*~
December rolled by, and then January. Every single person in Jason and Travis’s gangs (except for Ryan’s friends) were locked up in jail and we hadn’t heard a word from them, thankfully. I still hadn’t returned to school, but Sinead or Ryan didn’t know that. Ryan left school after I told him about the baby and started working in the local Italian restaurant so he could save up to buy his own apartment rather than having to depend on his mam’s money again.
On schooldays I left the house after Sinead left for work and walked over to the cemetery and stayed there until three o’clock before walking back home. I took refuge every weekday beside my father’s grave, my father who shared the same murderer as my baby. No more words were spoken about my baby, everyone obviously silently agreeing that it was best not to talk about it. So I refused to talk about it to anyone but my dad, which seemed stupid, but at least I didn’t get an inconsiderate reply from him.
Sometimes when it was too rainy to sit out in the cemetery I’d get a taxi to the prison where Quinn was being held behind bars and sit and talk to him for a while. Soon, however, he got into a fight with another cellmate and from then on he wasn’t allowed visitors. I ignored all of the many phonecalls from my friends, refused to go out during the weekends and stayed in my room for most of the night with the blinds closed and door shut. I wouldn’t even let Ryan in, so he eventually stopped trying.
Eventually Ryan caught me skipping school after he received a call from my school wondering how long it was going to take me to recover from the ‘accident’. In my eyes, the answer was ‘never’, but Ryan soon convinced me to try and get some help. Since I didn’t want to talk to him or Sinead or anyone else about what was going on in my head, he persuaded me to try a therapist at least once.
I was prescribed antidepressants, which I didn’t necessarily agree with at first, but eventually I realised how they were helping me. I warmed up to the therapist too, after a while. Since she was sworn to secrecy, I could talk about how the gangs destroyed my relationship with my boyfriend (I never mentioned any names). From then on, I was slowly getting better.
I stopped taking the medication after a month just to see if I could be okay without them. But soon times got tough again, and when I had very bad days, I’d lock myself in my room and cry into a pillow so no one could hear me. Ryan soon cottoned on however, and used to sit down on the other side of the door on those days. On one of the last of my very bad days, he pushed a note under the door and kept knocking until I read it:
I’m here, Laura, and I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, into a pillow or on my shoulder, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it – I will love you through that as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. You can talk to me, Laura. I’m here for you no matter what. There’s nothing you can ever do or say to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than depression and I am braver than loneliness and nothing will ever tire me out. Now please, just let me in.
Eventually I realised how stupid I was being and slowly started letting people back into my life and stopped being such a melancholy recluse. Ryan and I got closer than ever before, and I could now even talk to Sinead without getting into a fight. On days when I felt miserable, I talked to either Ryan, Sinead or one of my friends about it. I cancelled the therapist and the medication because I really did start feeling happy again. The burning wound had healed. As my dad used to always say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
I didn’t graduate from high school that year, so I chose to repeat senior year instead. After that I moved onto college and studied law. Ryan graduated from a local culinary school with a degree and worked his way up until he owned his very own restaurant. By the age of twenty-four I was a practising lawyer, and I was very happy with my job.
A year later, Sinead and James got married, where my mam brought her husband Sean McCarthy, Kyle brought Gabby, Drake brought Katie, Pete brought his fiancée Nicole, Sam brought the mother of his little girl who he had started dating again and Scott brought Caroline.
A year later, Ryan brought me to Paris for two weeks where we went on a romantic cruise on the River Seine, explored as much as we could of the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay, lived on crêpes with Nutella and deliciously fresh croissants, climbed the Arc de Triomphe, went on every single rollercoaster in Disneyland Paris, and finally got proposed to on the top of the Eiffel Tower – after I almost peed my pants from how high we were in the sky.
We got married six months later, went to Rome for our honeymoon and we fell so in love with the city that we never wanted to go home again. We did return to Roseville, though. A year later I got pregnant, and roughly nine months later I had a healthy baby girl, Fiona Morris, and then two years later a baby boy, Alan Morris.
We moved to New York City when Fiona was five and Alan was three, where Ryan set up another restaurant, and soon he had restaurants all over America and even one in Connemara, Paris and Rome. We then moved to a small town in Pennsylvania called Blacklake where we settled down for the rest of our lives and watched our children grow up happily.
Ryan Charlie Morris, my first and only lovely love, made me fall, but that sure as hell is okay.
THE END.
*****
Hello! Yes, this is the end! The story is over! I know it was kind of short, but I just don’t want to be dragging out the story like I did for the last book. However, I will be spending a lot of time editing my two stories because they’re not as good as I want them to be. I need to get them perfect, and then maybe when I leave school I might see if I can get them published!
Thank you all who have tolerated all of my ridiculous chapters and appallingly late uploads. Thank you all who have voted and commented – I may not write back most of the time, but I do read each and every one of them. I’m sorry if you didn’t like the whole miscarriage thing, but I just thought it was wayyy to soon for her to have a baby, and I wanted her to build her life up before she started having children. I just think after everything Laura has been through over the couple of months she knew Ryan just made her deserve the ideal life (well, the ideal life in my opinion).
I will be starting a new story soon, but I’m going to spend the rest of the summer working on it until I know exactly what I’m doing. I even made up my own map of the town where it’s going to be set in. It’s going to be really different compared to this book, but when it’s uploaded please give it a try because it’s going to be a thousand billion times better than this story!
Anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ll probably be uploading next at the start of September, or maybe in the middle of August if you’re lucky … In the meantime could you start voting for the chapters you forgot to vote on? Or maybe tell a few friends about this book? Whatever you do, I love you all!