Heartkiller

Chapter Thirty Two: Dark Light

Shivers run through the spine
Of hope as she cries
the poison tears of a life denied

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Avery was having a bad night. Today had been the final day of the Henderson case, the one that had been plaguing her mind for months now. She had been working and preparing the evidence files and exhibits that she wanted to use to make her argument; she presented her take on the case well and had put up a strong fight against her opponent. When all had been said and done, the jury had had time to deliberate and they announced their decision today. It did not bode well for Avery or her client: after reviewing all the presented material, the 12 members concluded that the company was guilty. Avery’s client only had to pay a fraction of the damages sought by the plaintiff, but that didn’t matter. The money would come and go, but the decision of the case had caused irreparable damage for the Hendersons. Their reputation had been tarnished, and they had lost the faith and trust of the public. They would have to work tirelessly to revert to their standing.

Avery tried to keep her emotions at bay earlier in the day as she continued through the rest of her obligations. Now that she was laying in bed, the decision settled into her mind, tormenting her, and she couldn’t sleep. There were so many implications of the decision, affecting not only the client, but also Avery. Sterling-Ellis had been relying on her, and she saw the loss as screwup. She wasn’t used to that. She was really good at her job, and she felt at ease in the courtroom, allowing her to effortlessly handle a case and spin the story to the jury. This case, the one that mattered so much, was not one that she could afford to lose. The results made her anxious about what that would mean when she went into work tomorrow. Her mind was swarmed by the possibilities of what would happen to her. Would she lose her job? Would she lose her recent promotion? She couldn’t afford that, especially not at this point in her life.

She knew she needed to calm herself down for the sake of the baby, but, when she couldn’t, her hysteria compounded and resulted in full panic. Avery lay wide awake in bed staring at the ceiling with the covers pulled up to her chin. Her eyes seldom blinked, and she was stuck in a reverie with case lines and defense claims streaming through her line of consciousness. Avery didn’t know what she had done wrong; she didn’t know what piece of the puzzle she was missing from the case. She sifted through all the presented material trying to find her mistake. It was as though she was reliving the entire trial to see where she had stumbled.

After a few hours of laying motionless, she pulled the duvet over her head so that she was in complete darkness. It must have been one or two in the morning and she would have to be up in a few hours to get ready for the new day. She swallowed the lump in her throat and prayed that desensitizing herself in this dark environment would bore her enough to fall asleep. Avery lay there, eyes closed, for a few minutes… but no luck. Although her surroundings were silent and blank, her mind was alive and active with her worries. It was abuzz with musings of the future as well as dwellings of the past. After rolling over in the bed one more time, she couldn’t take it anymore. She needed help.

Her hand shot out from underneath the covers, and she felt around the bedside table for her cellphone. The cold metal came in contact with her skin and she quickly drew her Blackberry to her body underneath the warmth of the bedsheets. With her eyes closed, Avery dialed the familiar number on her phone with her left hand. She hadn't checked the time, but it was undoubtedly early morning in Finland. He probably wouldn't have woken yet.

Sure enough, Ville’s groggy, half-awake voice croaked, “Ave?”

Avery bit her lip and reigned in her emotions. It was unbelievable what that man could do to her heart just by uttering her name with his sweet voice. At the sound, the floodgates threatened to burst open, and she struggled to control herself. The worries of the case were overwhelming her and she was trying to slowly broach the topic with him, but at the sound of his voice, so sincere and so loving, she almost burst into tears and spilled her guts.

With tears in her eyes, Avery spoke, though her voice cracked, “Ba-by?”

The uncertainty in her reply was enough to signal her desperation. Ville rustled in the sheets as he adjusted his position, sitting up in bed alert and concerned by her tone. It wasn’t often that Avery made her sadness clear, and he knew this couldn’t be a good thing.

He tried to keep his voice level when he inquired, “What’s wrong?”

“Ville… I,” she whispered and couldn’t bring herself to admit her loss aloud. Hesitantly, she finished, “I miss you. I--I need you.”

“I’m here, darling, I’m here." he said. The tension and worry he felt coated every word he uttered. "What can I do to help? What happened?”

She sniffled. “I don’t know. I feel like… like my body knows something I don’t. I can’t sleep. I can’t settle down. I’m scared. Ville… I don’t know what to do.”

Her eyes were darting from side to side. Having been well adjusted to the dim lighting after being in darkness for so long, they were able to discern the dark shadows of the furniture in the room. She looked to the pieces and distracted herself as best as she could, trying to forget what had happened.

"What happened? Is everything okay?"

"It's about… it’s about the Henderson case I told you about, that's all." Avery whispered, ashamed that something like this would affect her so greatly. It was unusual for her to become so frail, and she was uncomfortable. She then rambled, "It's stupid. I'm sorry for calling and waking you, Ville. This is so ridiculous. I don't know why I bothered you. I can handle this. You should probably go back to bed… Fuck, forget I said anything."

“What was the final decision?” he asked, ignoring her pleas to disregard her call, and she didn’t answer. Though he could infer how the chips had fallen, he implored her to reply, “What happened to the case, darling? How did you do?”

“I lost.” she admitted in a low voice and chewed her bottom lip. "The client has to pay... Well, a few million in damages."

Ville sighed. He knew all about the case. The past few weeks, she had expressed how important and how difficult this case was. Every week there had been a new complication, a new piece of evidence that would force her to reconsider her approach. Avery had filled him in on every moment of the detail, so he knew how much this meant to her. He couldn’t even imagine what the implications of the decision were.

“I'm sorry..."

"It's not your fault. Don't apologize." She dismissed with a sniffle. "I'm just worried about going into work tomorrow... Or in a few hours, I guess. I don't know what's going to happen."

"Things are going to be just fine. People lose cases all the time, and I know you're not used to that all that much, but it's going to be okay. You're still an amazing attorney, Ave."

"No, I could lose my job over this, Ville. It's big." She paused to take a breath. “This isn’t any case that I lost. This was a big client, and I--”

"Honey, I know how much a loss affects you, especially since you’re so hard on yourself… I wasn’t expecting you to be so vulnerable, but... I don't know. I suppose it’s the hormones from the pregnancy that are making you so emotional; I know for a fact you wouldn't be this forward with me, otherwise... I promise you, though, it’s going to be okay. Things are going to be fine.” Ville quelled her anxiety.

“I don’t know.” she said unsurely.

“There’s no sense in losing sleep over something that’s been said and done. Whatever happens is going to happen regardless of how worried you are right now. It’s best if you just try to forget about it for now and get some rest, love. It must be… what, one-thirty in the morning in New York right now? Do you want me to help you get to sleep?”

She nodded, and when she realized that he couldn’t see her, she replied in a weak voice, “Yeah, can you please?”

“Of course. What would you like me to do? Do you want to hear a song?” he offered.

“I want you here, Ville. I want us to be together. I want you to be with me.” she whimpered. Her bottom lip quivered as she threatened to break down in sobs. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was just her hormones that was making her so sensitive and fragile, even the littlest things setting her off.

“I know.” he paused and gulped. His voice lowered to a whisper, “I know, I want to be with you, too.”

Even in her state of mind when she was so hurt, she became aware of her poignant words, and she realized what it may have sounded like. Avery didn’t mean to pester him and to make him feel guilty of being apart from her. It was something they were both responsible for, and she knew that. During the pregnancy, however, it was difficult to rationalize living 3000 miles apart from each other.

“I’m sorry. I know that’s hard for you to hear, but I… I don’t know what to do, Ville. I love you. I love you so much, and it sucks that we can’t be together every second of the day. Why is it like this?”

“Because you and I fell in love with our careers long before we fell in love with each other.” he answered almost immediately. “Perhaps our passions are what brought us together, but we can’t give them up. You’re far too good at what you do, and I’m too much of a hopeless bastard to put the guitar down forever.”

“I don’t want you to have to do that. You’re the best musician I know. You can’t give that up…” she sighed. “You know, these past few years, we’ve somehow made it work. We’ve spent more days apart than we have together, and it’s been okay so far. Somehow we’ve managed it, but… it shouldn’t be like that. We’re in love. We deserve to be with each other and spend every waking moment together and make memories. We shouldn’t have to carry out our relationship over the phone.”

“What choice do we have, darling?” he asked helplessly.

Without missing a beat, Avery replied, “I’m going to quit my job. I'll move to Finland to you and be a traditional stay-at-home wife. You can go out to the studio and when you come home, I’ll be there. And once we’ve eaten dinner, a nice home-cooked meal, we can hang out and be with each other. When you’re out on tour, I can come with you. We won’t have to spend a day apart any longer. That’s what I’ll do. Forget all this lawyer bullshit. It doesn’t fucking matter to me anymore. You matter. You’re the only thing that matters.”

Ville hesitated, not knowing what to say. He understood the sentiment behind her words, but he didn’t want her to do that. Being a lawyer was something that he loved about her. While it’s true that he would love her no matter what profession she chose, there was a fiery passion that burned within her when it came to the law, and it wasn’t something that she should put down. This had come up before. When she first told him they were pregnant, she had proposed the same idea in an effort to keep Ville close enough to witness her throughout the pregnancy. It seemed that the stress of the current situation was causing her to inch closer and closer to that decision again. He hoped she wouldn’t do anything rash.

“That doesn’t solve anything, Ave.” he reasoned. “You’re a human being. You deserve a life of your own, and you shouldn’t have to follow me around the globe. I know… I know it seems ideal in theory, but imagine this: if we’re always with each other, what would we ever have to talk about? We need to go on our own adventures that we can then share with the other person… Right?”

“No, you’re wrong.” she stubbornly answered.

Ville couldn’t help but smirk at her obstinacy. “Darling, I love you, and I know you better than you give me credit for. I understand where you’re coming from--and maybe a part of what you’re proposing is due to the fact that you want us to be together--but don’t you think you’re simply running away from the problem? You rarely lose cases, but this is a big one, and I think you’re only questioning your capability… It’s scaring me, to be quite honest, to hear you say things like this. You never give up, and that’s something I’ve always admired about you. Wha-What’s changed?”

Avery crept deeper into the covers. She turned onto her side, and her hand found its way to her stomach. She rubbed her belly, which was starting to make itself known now that she was almost two months pregnant. Her eyes closed and she searched deep within herself for an answer. He was right. He was right about everything. She was running from the fear that this was the beginning of a bigger problem. For the past few years, she had been steadily climbing the corporate ladder with only minor bumps along the way. Losing the Henderson case was a major speedbump. She didn’t know if she could recover. While she had spent hours mulling over the issue, Ville had been able to point this out to her within minutes.

When she opened her mouth for a reply, she didn’t have an answer to his question, but only a witty remark: “When did you turn into the rational one between the two of us?”

Ville let out a hearty chuckle and she smiled at the sweet sound. Her heart was in her throat. There was a twinge of longing in her chest because she wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in the comfort and safety of his arms. She imagined herself laying beside him on the bed as the vibrations of his laughter pulsed through her veins. She wanted to be with him so badly. To say that she missed her husband was an understatement.

“I’m not quite sure, darling.” he replied.

Avery bit her lip and cast aside all these ill thoughts momentarily, opting to savor the moment with Ville instead. Her tone became more lighthearted when she said, “I am gracious for that heartfelt revelation, but I do believe you promised to sing me to sleep tonight.”

“And I will! What would you like to hear?” he asked.

“Something soft like a lullaby.” she replied and sniffled to hide any remnants of her despair from him. “Care to grace me with a few lines of Gone with the Sin, doll?”

“Of course.” Ville grinned. “Please excuse my raspy morning voice, though, darling.”

“Ah, no matter, Ville. It’s the best part.” she encouraged and closed her eyes.

He opened his mouth and hummed the melody of the beginning of the song. His voice was so deep and raspy and she put the phone on speaker to allow him to echo throughout the room; it was her miserable way of being as close to him as she could manage. The tenor of his voice reverberated throughout the bedroom, and her hand instinctively went to touch her stomach. It was as if to say, “Listen, baby, it’s your daddy.”

“I love your skin, oh so white…” he sang, letting the note linger in the air. He took a sharp breath of air to prepare for the next line, “I love your touch, cold as ice.”

The corners of her lips lifted upwards and she let herself be transported into a different realm, using his voice as her only guidance. Damn, that man was talented. He was able to quell her fears and anxieties using only his voice. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she closed her eyes. She was filled with a complete sense of ecstasy. She didn’t need anything else but his voice. She was in complete serenity.

He continued to sing, and Avery quickly nodded off to sleep. He finished the song and could hear her softly snoring. He smiled, happy to have been able to get her some rest. He hung up the phone, but not before whispering one last “I love you” to her.

Avery's dream was peaceful and pleasant. The scene was of a green field with wild flowers blooming to their fullest. The weeds were present but they only added to the marvel of the serenity. She lay on a bed of daisies with the bright sun glaring in her face. She used her hand to shade her eyes and turned her head. Ville’s smiling face stared back at her, causing her to beam. The couple scooted closer to each other, admiring the nature around them. Avery had her head buried in his chest while Ville propped his head on one elbow.

"Isn't it lovely, Ville?" She asked and looked up at him to catch his reply.

"Indeed." He replied, his lips twitching into a smile.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

At the sound of footsteps approaching, she turned to see a toddler making his way toward the couple. His hair was a dark brown, almost black color, and his skin was olive toned. He was still a distance away, so she wasn't able to discern any more of his features, but in her gut, she knew that was her child. Their child. She sat up and cooed at the child to beckon him, and he immediately beamed a toothless grin.

Then something changed. Upon hearing a sound--whether it was within her dream or in the bedroom, she wasn’t sure--her eyelids peeled open. Avery tried to sit up in bed to see what it was, but her body remained frozen. She was paralyzed. Unable to move or even to roll over, she started to panic and looked around the room, though her line of vision was limited by how much her eyes could move. The bedroom remained still and empty as it had been before she slept. She tried to lift an arm to pull herself up, but with no luck.

Avery panicked and fervently tried to move her muscles. It took a few seconds of struggle before the paralysis wore off. Now that she was able to move, she finally sat up. Her heart was racing, and her forehead was drenched in sweat. Something was wrong. Her mind was alarmed by something. Had someone broken into her apartment? Was it simply rain pitter-pattering against the windows? She started to get out of bed and that’s when she felt something sticking to her thighs. She slid a hand underneath the covers and touched the substance. It felt sticky, and it stained her legs. When she brought her hand up, she could faintly see the gooey plasma-like material on two fingers in the dim lighting. There was a strong metallic scent, and she became alarmed. She didn’t have to turn on the light to guess what this was.

Without delay, she began to convulse into a shivering sob. Her quivering hand could barely reach over to turn on the bedside lamp, illuminating the red stains on her hands and confirming her suspicions. Blood. Avery threw off the covers from the bed so that her legs were exposed to the light. Lots of blood. She held clumps of the covers in her hands to steady her now shaking body. Her vision was blurring from the tears that were spilling out. She didn’t know what this meant, but it couldn’t be good.

It only took a few moments of crying before Avery found the strength to pull herself together. She wasn’t emotionally okay, but she fooled herself long enough to crawl out of bed and go to the bathroom. She turned on the faucet of the shower and let the water get warm before she stepped inside. She pulled her pajama shorts down and exposed herself to the warm water. It trickled down her leg and carried away the red fluid, cleaning off her skin. She stood there for a few more minutes in a frozen state, watching the water hit her now clear skin. She was transfixed by the image.

As suddenly as she had rushed into the bathroom, she turned off the water and ran back to the bedroom. Emergency room. She needed to go to the emergency room. That was the only thought occupying her mind. Avery frantically pulled out clothes from her closet to change out of her wet pajamas. It didn’t matter what she wore. Something. Anything. After finding a pair of sweatpants and a green tank top, she changed into the clothing. While slipping her feet into the leg holes of the sweatpants, she wandered through the bedroom to find her purse. She dropped her keys and wallet inside and went to the front door. Had she not spotted the flipflops by the door, Avery would have walked out barefoot into the cold January streets of New York.

It was three-thirty in the morning, and she wasn't dressed for the weather. She didn't care. Neither the wind blowing past her nor the goosebumps on her arms were as noticeable as the unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach. Avery couldn’t relax until she knew what this was; there was a strong suspicion of what this could mean, but she swallowed the lump in her throat. She wouldn’t allow herself to jump to conclusions. At the late hour, the city was still busy with business, though notably calmer than it was during the day. Avery hailed a cab and bounced on her toes at the edge of the curb as she waited for the vehicle to approach. When it pulled to a stop next to her on the sidewalk, she quickly entered the back of the taxi.

“Take me to the hospital,” she said as she adjusted her seatbelt.

“Which one?” the driver clarified.

“Uh, I don’t know… I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The nearest hospital.”

“Okay.”

The driver pulled away from the curb and merged into the traffic. The taxi ride and the waiting in the emergency room were all a blur to her. She wasn’t processing the actions and events around her. It seemed like she was frozen in a dream--no, in a nightmare--and she had no control over her actions. Her mind was busy trying to process what was going on. What was this? Could it have been a dream? Could she be imagining all this? Maybe she was laying in her bed back at home and this was all some sick delusion her mind had concocted. It didn’t make sense to her.

When she came to, she was in an exam room waiting for a doctor. Avery sat on the patient bed with her legs swinging back and forth. She stared into the white tile of the floors until the door swung open. Her face perked up to see the burly doctor in his white coat. He was tall, though not nearly as tall as Ville, and his hairline was receding. His round glasses framed his eyes, and he had bushy eyebrows that were knit together. There was a clipboard in his hand, and he took a moment to peruse the information on it before he finally introduced himself.

“Hi, I’m Doctor Glasson. What can I do you for?” he said with a hint of a Southern accent in his voice.

“Hi, um, I… I don’t really know what’s wrong. I woke up in the middle of the night, maybe about an hour ago, and there was blood all over… all over my legs.” Avery hesitated to explain. She became emotional at her next words, “I don’t know what happened.”

“Okay, well, are you having any other symptoms?” he asked.

“Um, I… I guess I have some abdominal pain, but it’s nothing unbearable. I have a really dry mouth, and I keep having to swallow air to soothe my throat.”

“Okay, and when was your last period?”

“Sometime in October. I’m eight weeks pregnant.” she whispered.

“You’re pregnant? Hmm, first thing I want to do, then, is check the status of the baby and make sure everything is okay. Then we’ll do a pelvic exam to check where the blood is coming from and we’ll go from there. Does that sound good?”

“Sure.” Avery replied solemnly.

“The nurse will be in here in just a minute to prep you.”

“Okay.”

The doctor made a few notes on his clipboard before he left the room, leaving Avery alone with her thoughts and anxieties again.

“Check the status of the baby. They’re going to check the status of the baby. My baby. My baby is going to be okay. It’s not the baby. It’s not.” Avery repeated to herself.

It became a mantra for her to get her through everything. When the nurse led her to another room with intricate equipment and had her change into a hospital gown, Avery kept assuring herself that it wasn’t the baby. She had just gone for a checkup three days ago, and her gynecologist had made sure that everything was proper. Nothing was out of place. It was only three days after the fact, and so she repeated to herself, “Nothing’s wrong with the baby.”

There was a lot of waiting involved and it only served to drive her mad. She needed an answer, she needed a definitive answer from a qualified person that everything was okay. She believed that it was just blood and that she had been precautious by coming to the emergency room. Nothing was wrong with the baby.

It took two hours for Avery to get through the blood test and pelvic exam. It was another twenty-five minutes before the doctor finally came inside to deliver the news. From the pained look on his face alone, she knew. Something was wrong with the baby. What was wrong? How bad was it?

“I’m sorry, but… according to the results of the exams, you’ve… You've suffered a miscarriage.” Doctor Glasson informed.

Avery bit her lip and looked down at the floor. Her mind immediately went into a trance, and she drowned out the words of the doctor who reassured her that this wasn’t permanent. He told her that she could try to conceive again as there didn’t seem to be any genetic mutations that had caused this. He tried to reason that there wasn’t anything she could have done and that these things sometimes happen. Dr. Glasson made it clear to point out that there wasn’t much known about the causes of a miscarriage, but that stress alone would not impact the pregnancy like this.

She wasn’t listening, though.

Her mind was far away. She fixated on the Henderson case, the one that she had been toiling over for so many weeks. She had poured so many hours into perfecting the details of the case, and she had inadvertently neglected her health. This is my fault, she thought. This is all my fault. She thought that she had been too stressed out over the course of the pregnancy and her work was impeding her personal happiness. Avery paid no attention to the doctor’s words, which contradicted all the worries she had; it wasn’t her fault.

“There’s counseling, if you need it. I highly suggest that you--”

“Can I leave now?” she muttered solemnly, still avoiding eye contact.

The doctor sighed deeply. He couldn’t imagine the pain she was in, and he didn’t know what to say to comfort her. “Yes, you can. We’re done here.”

Grabbing her purse, she brushed past the doctor to reach the door of the exam room. Avery was trying so hard to hold herself together. She was in such a public place. She couldn’t break down now. She walked out of the hospital and walked toward the street to return home. It was just about six o’clock in the morning and the sun was starting to make its way out. The dark of the night dissolved away. When she reached the curb, she didn’t even have the strength to lift her hand to hail a cab. Her arms were strapped over her stomach protectively. She was literally holding herself together and preventing herself from falling apart in the middle of Manhattan.

Avery walked until she finally found a cab that was stopped along the street. She peeked through the window, and the driver motioned for her to enter the vehicle. Her movements were sluggish as the lack of sleep got to her. Avery got into the cab and opened her mouth to tell the driver where to go… but no sound came out.

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Where do you need to go?”

“56th and Park Avenue.” she whispered inaudibly.

“Huh? Where?” he asked, insensitive to her current state of mind.

“56th.” she repeated louder. “56th and Park Avenue.”

“Ah, okay.” he said and started to pull into traffic.

With her head leaning against the window, Avery sat frozen and watched the scenery go by. There were people starting their day by getting a cup of Joe. Others had their hands full with children whom they were taking to a daycare center. People were ready to go on with their day oblivious to her loss. She thought it cruel that life around her continued when she had just been told such devastating news. Nobody else was aware of her pain, and she had never felt more alone.

The ride was silent and she thought about all the things that she and Ville were supposed to do with the baby. They were going to build a nursery together, they were going to buy an entire wardrobe for their child, and they were going to babyproof the apartment. Vacations, photos, milestones. Laughter, tears. And now?

Now, they had nothing.

"Ma'am," the cab driver said, pulling her attention back to reality.

“Hmm?” Avery replied, looking away from the window.

“We’re here.” he said, subtly rolling his eyes at her behavior. He didn’t understand what she was going through.

Avery looked outside and saw the familiar entrance of the apartment building. "Oh, sorry." She pulled out a few bills and paid the fare before getting out.

She held her frame tightly as she went up the steps to the lobby of the building. She held herself together as she took the elevator up the forty-three floors. She clutched her sides as she walked down the hallway and slid the key into the doorknob. Once she had entered the apartment, she closed the door shut behind her and fell to her knees. She couldn’t resist any longer.

The tears came out freely, and she rolled into a ball. Her shoulder was leaning against the wall near the front entrance, and her arms gripped her knees to her chest. She began to wail and sob. Her body began to shake, and she only pulled herself tighter to try to control it. Avery bit her lip to muffle the sobs and clenched her eyes shut. She couldn’t believe that she had lost the baby. She was supposed to be able to do this. She was a woman; her body was literally designed for this very purpose, and when she couldn’t carry to full-term, she felt like a failure. The loss of the Henderson case didn’t even matter anymore. Her career didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that she cared about at this point was having a baby.

She didn’t bother to call in to work and say that she wasn’t coming in today. There was no way she could make her trip to the office and try to carry herself casually throughout the day as though she hadn’t been obliterated by this news. It wasn’t even a possibility to go into work today, but she couldn’t call in sick. Her voice would waver, signalling trouble, and Paige would be at her doorstep within minutes to figure out what was wrong. No, no, it didn’t matter what the consequences were, she couldn’t call in sick. Avery stayed in the position and continued to cry. She cried and cried. And just when she thought her river of tears had run dry, she’d cry some more.

A shrill noise broke the silence in the apartment, and Avery perked her head up. It was her alarm in the bedroom, waking her up to take on the new day. She stood and dragged her feet towards to the bedroom. Her movements were slow and the alarm continued to blare its ring. She paused at the entrance of the corridor and gripped the wall to steady her gait. She continued on her way to the bedroom. When she reached the device that sat atop her bedside table, her hand limply extended out to turn off the alarm. It silenced itself mid-tone. She turned her head and saw the blood on the bedsheets; her shoulders slouched defeatedly and she turned around.

Tears were still streaming down her face as she walked to the bathroom. Once her feet made contact with the cold linoleum floor, Avery closed the door behind her. Her eyes connected in the reflection and she saw the weight of the day having left its mark on her skin. There were dark circles on her face, her eyes were puffy and red, and her hair was a disheveled mess.

She stood in front of the bathroom mirror. She tentatively lifted the hem of her tank up to her breast to expose her stomach. Desolate. Her left hand touched the skin of her stomach uncertainly. Avery wasn’t sure if she wanted to put herself through this. She was tormenting herself by looking at herself like this. Like she was a hurt, damaged animal tossed to the side of the road. As she circled her bellybutton with her index finger, fresh tears flowed down her cheeks. No baby. There was no baby there anymore.

When she looked at herself, she no longer saw a strong, confident lawyer. She didn’t see the woman who felt like she had conquered the world. She didn’t see the person who was able to hide her pain and muster a smile to calm her loved ones’ concerns. When Avery looked in the mirror, all she saw was an empty pair of eyes staring back at her.