Paradise City

"You lost the baby."

It was all that I could hear. All that I could think about. Those four words were stuck in my mind like a toxic thorn that poisoned my entire body. My cramps weren't near as bad as they had been, yet I continued to pump morphine in my veins to keep me asleep. I didn't want to think. I couldn't.

Violet had told me that it was a boy, and that he would have fit in the palm of my hand, he was so tiny. She said it with the saddest tone in her voice and a frown on her face. I knew that she was trying to be optimistic, because she thought that would help, but I wasn't in the mood. I felt dead inside.

When I woke up the next morning, a familiar curly, blonde head rested at the foot of my bed. Dean was hunched over in the tiny chair, sleeping soundly, using my bed as a pillow. My stomach flipped at the sight of him. I wasn't expecting him to be here yet. I moved slightly, pulling my feet towards me. The movement must have awoken him, because the next thing I knew, he was wiping the sleep from his eyes; looking at me with the most pitiful look.

"Dean, I-" He shook his head, signaling me to stop. I wasn't prepared to have this conversation. He wasn't supposed to be back for another month.

"Violet already told me." He said sadly. His eyes were glossy. Either he was about to cry, or he had already been crying. Or both.

It was silent between us for a moment. Neither of us knew what to say. This wasn't a situation you wanted to be in with anyone, ever. Especially if you were me, and your significant other was a professional wrestler. "Is it okay for you to be missing work?" I asked, unable to think of anything else. The question was stupid, I knew that. Of course it was okay for him to be missing work. This was a personal emergency.

"Fuck work." He replied. "Why didn't you tell me, Callie?" He asked me, looking straight in my eyes. I adverted my attention to the itchy white blanket that covered me, and silently picked on a stray thread. "Callie." He said again, this time a little louder. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"How could I?" I asked him, throwing my hands up in the air. "Every time I tried to call you, you wouldn't answer. Even if I did get a hold of you, how was I supposed to drop something like that on you when you were at work? I didn't want to distract you from your job. I figured it could have waited a few more weeks."

He stood up, pacing the tiny room that they had me in. His hand reached up to push his hair back. The exhaustion was evident across his features. I outstretched my legs, trying to soothe out a cramp that had formed in my lower stomach. Dean sighed loudly, throwing his hands up in the air like he was trying to tell me that he was at a loss for words.

"Why didn't you use protection?" I asked him, not being able to hold back the tears.

Dean frowned at me before turning his attention back to his pacing. "I honestly thought you would be on the pill." He said, running a hand through his hair. Typical answer from a guy. They just assume the woman is going to take care of everything. Maybe if I had known I would be sexually active within the first six months of moving to Vegas I would've been on the pill. Only I would be stupid enough to think that would never happen.

"I was a virgin, Dean." My voice laced with irritation. I sighed and looked away from him, wiping the tears quickly from my cheeks.

"You can't possibly be trying to blame me for this." He scoffed. "If you weren't on the pill and you knew I wasn't wearing a condom, why didn't you say anything? Pot calling the kettle black, huh?" I wasn't trying to blame him, but if it meant that I wouldn't feel as bad, then yes. I would blame him until the cows came home. Dean crossed the room and sat at the foot of my bed. I pulled my feet up to avoid any physical contact. "Would it have been so bad?" He asked, his voice softened. "Having a kid? We could have done it. I'm more than capable of supporting a- a family."

A sour taste formed in my mouth hearing him say those words. "I can't do this." I told him, looking directly at him. "It's been a long time coming, I mean with you sleeping with someone else and being gone constantly. You're gone what, two months and we talk for maybe an hour all together? This would have never worked anyways. It's probably better this way."

"How could you say that?" He asked.

"It's just how I feel. I don't want to be with you. I think the only reason I ever wanted to be with you is because you were the first guy to ever look at me and make me feel good about myself. Oh, and because the sex was great. But I'm over it now. I'm over fighting with you every five minutes. We're not together anyways, so it should be no problem, right?"

He let out a sharp breath, the expression on his face was heartbreaking. "You don't mean it."

"Yeah, I do." I crossed my arms over my chest and looked away from him. "Maybe this is what it took for me to realize it, but yeah, I do mean it. If you could get my things together in your apartment, I'll have Violet come pick them up, thanks."

Dean dropped his shoulders and frowned. "Sure, Callie." He said in a low tone. I met his eyes for a second before I tore them away again. Dean turned on his heel and left the hospital room. The sudden slam of the door made me jump.

Moments later Violet came back in. At the sight of her sad smile, I broke out in a violent cry. She sat next to me, holding me to her, letting me get it all out. She stroked my hair as I cried, my body shaking in her arms. This wasn't what I wanted, but I couldn't stand the sight of him. I knew that it wasn't his fault, it took two, but I couldn't stand to look at him without seeing the image of a dead baby in some hospital trashcan somewhere.

"What happened, babe?" She asked me after I had calmed down.

"I told him it was over." I replied softly.

"As much as I want you to be happy, I think that's for the best right now." She offered me a tissue, I took it and thanked her. "You guys barely got a chance to be friends before you jumped into this, whatever-it-is."

I blew my nose. "Do you think I could stay with you for a little while?" I didn't want to ask, but I couldn't stay at that apartment. Going back there, seeing the blood on the sheets, seeing Dean... It would just be too much. I needed something new. I needed to get out.

"Of course! I've got a spare bedroom with your name on it. Now, you should get to sleep and stop worrying your little mind, alright? You get to go home tomorrow." I shrugged, not really caring. I could stay here and rot in this hospital bed and be fine with it. "Hey, things are going to happen the way they are supposed to happen." Violet told me, squeezing my shoulders softly.

"Vi?" I said to her as she crawled out of the bed. She turned back to look at me and smiled, raising her eyebrows. "Thank you for everything."

She nodded, grabbing a blanket from the chair next to the bed and draping it over me. She gave me a quick kiss on the forehead. "You don't need to thank me, Callie."

I could feel the morphine coursing through my body, making me numb. I smiled to Violet, but I wasn't even sure if she was in the room anymore. I wasn't sure of anything anymore. It didn't take long at all for a deep, dreamless sleep to overcome me.

My dark slumber was interrupted the next morning when Violet loudly pulled up the blinds on the windows. The sunlight flooded my tiny hospital room, illuminating the white walls, white floors, and white counter tops. Everything was white, and it burned my eyes. She yelled a 'good morning' to me in a sing song voice, letting me know that it was time to get up and start moving. I didn't want to move. I wanted more morphine. However, I looked down at my arms to see that there was no longer an IV, no longer a morphine drip, nothing.

I made a face at Violet who was way too happy for a Sunday morning. "Stop." I told her. "Stop being so happy and cheerful. It's not going to make me feel any better, it's just going to make me hate you."

She laughed. "I won't stop, because it's a beautiful day and I refuse to let you give me the cold shoulder. I'm going to just pretend that you're moody because you're tired and I'm annoying you, and not because you just broke up with your boyfriend and went through a tragedy." Leave it to Violet to remind me in the nicest possible way. "I'm here to let you know that you don't have to do this alone. You're going to get up out of that hospital bed and we're going to start moving you into my house."

"I asked to stay with you for a couple of days, not to move in." I mumbled. I don't think I could handle living with Violet year round. Her genuinely optimistic personality and my frumpy, sarcastic one would not mesh well when put in a small house together.

"Nonsense, what's the point in staying with me a couple days? Sam is never home and I get lonely. You're my best friend." She was pouting at me now. Enter the part where I say yes because Violet is the nicest person I have ever met and saying no to her would make my heart hurt. "Besides, I already recruited Dean to help us move."

I spit out the water I was sipping on. "You what?"

She gave me an innocent look. "Well, seeing as he has a big SUV and we both have tiny cars, I figured he would be able to help us. He also offered to help." She added. "I think it was just so he could spend some more time with you before he goes back on the road." I sighed dramatically. "What? You guys needed to switch gears somehow! You don't have to jump in the bed with him, just be friends. Friend help friends move."

After I changed out of that God awful paper dress, we checked out of the hospital and made my way to the apartment. Kyle and Dean were already both there, and had already moved all of my big furniture down the stairs. Kyle would be taking over what was left of my lease, it wasn't much, but he would be able to renew if he wanted to. He had been living with his brother and his girlfriend, sleeping on their couch; this would be a major improvement for him.

I lingered in the front seat for a minute, not wanting to get out of the car and face Dean. First I end things, rather harshly, and then I up and move out of my apartment. If that didn't say 'I don't ever want to see you again', I don't know what would. He looked good, which was probably on purpose or I was just reading too much into it. His hair was slicked back and his tan skin was glistening with sweat, and he hadn't shaved.

He smiled at me when I finally decided to get out and gave me a small wave. He didn't say anything though, probably on the account that Violet and Kyle were there, and it would have most likely made the situation a million times more awkward.

"Alright," Kyle started. "All of the big furniture has been moved out. Callie, you're letting me keep the couch and coffee table, right?" I nodded at him. "Okay then, all that's really left are your clothes and other small belongings. "Dean and I boxed up all your DVDs and books, alphabetically, I promise. We even labeled the boxes."

"That was my idea, by the way. Jackass here was about to fuck 'em all up." Dean interrupted. I looked up at him and gave him a small smile before quickly putting my attention back on Kyle.

"So I guess we'll take this load to Violet's and meet you guys there." Kyle finished, wiping sweat from his forehead.

Violet tossed her house key at Kyle. "Don't fuck my house up."

Kyle flashed her a bright smile before climbing in the driver's seat of his truck. It would take both his and Dean's vehicles to move all of my shit out. Not including my mattress, it sat around back next to the apartment's dumpsters. I didn't want it anymore, besides, Violet already had a bed in her spare room. The only things that were going were my dresser, nightstand, bookshelves, TV, and TV stand.

Violet had already made her way to the front of the building, leaving me and Dean standing awkwardly in the parking deck by ourselves.

"Hey." He said softly.

"Hey." This was awkward. I chewed on my lip and tried to look at anything but him, but my eyes kept flickering back to his beautiful blue ones. "Thanks for the help, you didn't have to."

He rolled back on his heels and smiled. "I kind of did. Your friend Violet asked me, and she's really nice, so I couldn't say no." So he didn't offer? Remind me to kill Violet. "Besides, I wanted to see you."

My heart bounced off my rib cage frantically. "Oh." That was all that I could say. "Dean you know it's best if we just stay friends, right? We're not right for each other."

He nodded. "Well, I found these." In his hand were some crumpled up pieces of paper. "They were stashed away in your bed side table. Maybe they'll change your mind. Or at least remind you that maybe we are." He placed the papers in my hand and jogged off towards his SUV. Seconds later, he drove off, leaving me standing there alone.

I looked down at what he had handed me; A scrap piece of paper that said 'Don't worry kitten, I'll be back before you know it', a wrinkled postcard from Scotland that said 'Hi, Neighbor' with a big blue smiley face underneath. I sighed, not wanting to look at the reminders anymore. He was wrong and nothing was going to convince me otherwise. Especially not some stupid notes he left me because he thought it would be funny to get on my nerves. We weren't right for each other. We would never be right for each other.

I stomped off towards the apartment building to find Violet. Maybe yelling at her for lying to me would help me take my mind off of the fact that I there were constant butterflies in my stomach whenever I thought about him.