Molly's eyes began to flutter closed, her clutch on my shirt slackening, and a fresh bolt of panic felt like open blades shredding my chest. "Where's the fucking ambulance? She's pregnant, goddamn it... She's pregnant... Our little angel..." I trailed off, helpless to do anything.

Searching Molly's body, wading through the mass of white fabric of her dress now coated in blood, I tried to find something I could do. I couldn't. I wasn't a damn doctor. I wasn't prepared for this shit.

Her breath shallowed, and, whipping my attention back to her face, I spotted a gash on her lip. Using my thumb to take a closer look, I frowned. "Baby? Why's your lip bleeding? What the hell happened to you?"

I was losing her. Her eyes were glazing and her body was no longer reacting to the pain. I sent prayer after prayer to God, begging him to save my girl. I couldn't lose her. She was my everything.

"Mol?" I asked, and my body stilled as her eyes began to close. "Mol! Stay with me, Mol!" I screamed, holding her closer in my arms.

"Y-your mother hit her and she fell against the table. W-we... I d-didn't know she was pregnant... We were just trying to scare her off. Things got out of control..."

Shelly. Shelly stood shaking beside me.

Rage like never before surged through my body like pure octane at Shelly's confession. She went on to inform me that my momma had snuck away, and, acting on pure instinct, I made to move, to go after her. I wanted to end all this shit once and for all, but when Molly's trembling hand laid on mine and she begged me to stay with her, I could do nothing else but break down in sadness, whispering, "Baby, I'm so sorry... Our angel... Our angel..."

But she'd gone. Molly had gone still in my arms, her breath almost nonexistent as her blood continued to pour out.

"Rome," Ally's broken voice sounded beside me. "The EMTs are here. They need to take Molly to the hospital now. Come on, darlin', let them do their job."

Looking up, two men were moving frantically into the room and took Molly immediately from my arms. Standing, completely numb, I registered the mass of eyes watching the scene, and gripping Molly's limp hand on the gurney, I followed her out to the ambulance, ignoring the flash of cameras and whispers from the horrified guests.

The EMTs pushed the gurney into the ambulance and began firing questions at me.

"How far along is she?"

"Nearly three months."

"What happened?"

"Apparently she was hit and fell against a table edge... I wasn't there... I couldn't help her..."

The paramedic worked nonstop on my girl, attaching IVs and Christ knows what else. The ambulance flew through the city, but I never let go of my girl's hand. She'd asked me not to leave her; it was one promise I wouldn't break.

"Your girlfriend has suffered a severe blow to the stomach and that caused irreparable damage to the placenta, and I'm sorry to have to tell you, but she lost the baby. We have also found evidence of internal bleeding and are prepping for surgery as we speak."

I didn't know how to deal. I'd lost all feeling.

"Will she survive?" I rasped out, my voice rough from crying.

"We're going to try our best, son. Someone will be out to keep you informed of her progress." And with that, the doctor left me alone in an empty family room while he raced off to patch my girl back together. He might be able to repair her body, but fuck knows what her mind would be like when she woke.

A light knocking on the door sounded, but I couldn't look up, too entranced by the speckled pattern in the linoleum flooring.

"Rome!" a female voice cried, and I recognized it as belonging to Ally.

She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and sobbed uncontrollably. It went that way for a while-all of my friends crying, hugging me close. Even Austin, the strongest person I'd ever known, broke down, hugging Lexi afterward. Then when there were no more tears to be shed, we each took a seat in the room and sat in silence.

"Bullet, I can't tell you how sorry I am, man. Molly and I were given a note when I took her to the bathroom. We thought it was from you. I can't stop blaming myself." Cass rubbed at his back as tears streamed down her face.

"What did it say?" I asked tiredly.

Ally shifted forward, her eyes darting to the floor nervously. "I managed to speak to Shelly before we left. Your momma set it up, darlin'. Apparently she wanted to scare Molly away for good. Shelly admitted she'd told your momma about the notes you give Molly before a game, and while your daddy stalled you with football talk, she used it to get her alone."

I caught Jimmy-Don throwing his head in his hands at that bit of information, explaining, "The note said to meet you in the library, that you needed a break from the party, and for Molly to meet you there. I never doubted it was from you, not even for a second."

Ally's sympathetic gaze landed on Jimmy-Don, who'd broken into tears, but she managed to continue. "Apparently your momma starting telling Molly to leave you, had some private detective find out some real nasty things about Molly's past and started using it against her. It didn't work. Molly was unmoved, but when Aunt Kathryn began talking crap about you, Molly fought back, apparently in your defense and that's when your momma lashed out. She was drunk off her ass again. Molls fell against the table and, well, we know the rest. Your momma and daddy were nowhere to be found afterward. The police want to speak to your momma, but she's completely disappeared."

If I wasn't so numb, I'd have torn this room apart, but even my anger, this time, wasn't enough to make my body move. My momma investigated shit about her? Most likely about her daddy and grandma dying. I vowed at that moment that if I ever saw her again, I'd make her pay. Christ, all this happened because my girl defended me. Like that didn't make me feel even worse. She'd lost our angel because of me...

"I hate them. I hate them so damn much," I whispered, almost breaking the sides of the plastic chair with my grip. "They're dead to me. Fuckin' six feet under, dead."

My friends' silence told me they completely agreed.

28.

After several hours and a stupid amount of coffee, a nurse wearing pink scrubs entered the room and I froze and held my breath as my heart tried to cope with the fear suffocating my body.

"Rome?" the nurse asked as she searched the room. I stood and she moved before me. "Miss Shakespeare has made it out of surgery and she's stable in ICU. We were able to repair the stomach rupture she suffered and transfused her with blood to replace the heavy blood loss from the miscarriage."

"Can I see her?" I asked desperately. I needed to be there when she woke up.

"Soon. I'll send someone to fetch you."

After the nurse left, I slumped back on my chair and heard the sighs of relief from my friends.

"She's going to be fine, Rome," Ally said emphatically, trying her damnedest to be positive.

Nodding slowly, I replied, "Her body may heal, sure. But I still have to tell her we lost our baby, and I can tell you now, she's going to be anything but fine."

Silence resumed once again.

As I entered the small private hospital room, I had to grip onto the doorframe to stop myself from falling to my knees. Tubes and wires were coming from her pale skin, deep, dark shadows hung under her eyes, and she looked so small and broken, swamped under a mass of white cotton.

I focused on the constant beat from the heart monitor to control my breathing and slowly moved to the bed, kissing Molly's cold cheek and pulling a chair beside her, holding her hand in mine, and began the wait for her to wake up.

I must have drifted off, and a hand running through my hair woke me from my sleep. Convinced I was dreaming, I startled when confused golden eyes focused on me, Molly's hand weakly dropping to her stomach.

"Romeo? Did... did...?"

I knew what she was asking, but my voice was taken by grief, so I simply nodded, watching the complete fucking agony set on her pale, beautiful face and tears begin streaming from her eyes.

After days of missing my girl, needing her to share in my grief, I leaned over, holding her waif body in my arms, and whispered, "I'm so sorry... It's all my fault."

But Molly being Molly wouldn't hear of it, and pulling me on the mattress beside her, assured me there was nothing I could have done when I told her I'd let her down. I explained to her what happened-the note, Shelly, my momma, everything-and with every sentence, she grew more and more distant.

Over the next couple of days, Molly gradually turned in on herself. She wouldn't eat, barely spoke, and when she wasn't sleeping, she stared unseeing at the ceiling, ignoring me, ignoring our friends.

The guys came to see her and tried their best to cheer her up, but the worried glances coming my way showed me they knew Molly was fucking depressed. I didn't know what the hell to do to pull her out of it.

I couldn't bear it, day in and day out being in that fucking hospital, watching Mol drown in misery, watching the hours turn into days, and my girl letting the grief tear her apart from the inside out. So when the doctor came in and told us Molly was being released, I was so damn happy, thinking that once out of the prison cell of a hospital room, she would start to heal, start to help me heal too.

I was busy packing her bag when a text came through on my cell.

Coach: Rome, I hate to ask this of you now, but I really need you at this function tonight. You don't have to come for long, but you need to be here for the team, for the press.

Sighing and pinching my nose, I cursed inwardly. Coach had been great lately, but the fact of the matter was that football stops for no one, and our baby's loss was not going to change the fact that the championship was right around the corner.

"What is it?" Mol asked from the bed.

I turned to see her looking at me with her usual indifference, and answered, "It's Coach. He needs me to attend a charity function at the stadium tonight. I've missed a lot of game prep, and he needs the QB to be there to show I'm with the team all the way to the championship."

"Then go."

I stilled and dropped the packed bag to the floor. "I can't leave you like this."

"Yes, you can. I'm tired anyway. I need to sleep."

Anger seeped into my muscles. I was through with this fucking imposter lying on the bed, pretending to be my girl. I hardly recognized her. I wanted the old Molly back. The one who would laugh with me, the one who would make everything better... the one who friggin' loved me. I'd coped on my own for the last several days, supressing my grief to get her through hers, but I couldn't fucking do it anymore, and losing my grip on my anger, I swung a fist into the wall.

"For Christ's sake, Mol! How can you be tired? You've slept for days, done nothing for days! I understand you've had surgery, but the doctors said you should be feeling a lot better by now. You're wallowing, Shakespeare. You need to snap the hell out of it! I've tried, been trying to be patient, but enough is enough! I've lost a baby too, not just you, but you shut me out and act like I'm a damn stranger to you. I was the daddy, for fuck's sake! I can't do it alone. I have too much to think about-you being like this, leading the team to the championship, the hopes of an entire state on my head. I need you to help me, Mol, not to drown in your own fuckin' misery. Who's supporting me? I'm grieving too!"

Her lifeless eyes regarded me, unseeing, and pure desperation took hold as I pounded to the bed, all gentleness gone. I pressed my lips to hers, aggressive, rough, and how we usually liked it. But her lips didn't move. It was like kissing a fucking corpse.

I was scared.

When I saw her on the floor, covered in blood at my folks' place, I'd been scared. When I knew I had to tell her our baby had died, I was scared, but the fear of the girl I loved, the girl who saved me, being lost for good had me almost insane with panic.

"For fuck's sake! Please. Please. You're scaring the shit outta me! You need to start dealing with it, dealing with everything that's happened." I pleaded. But she turned away, not wanting to listen... and it felt like I was dying a slow and painful death.

"You can't even bear to look at me, can you?"

Her back stiffened, she whipped to face me, pure anger distorting her features, and she screamed, "There! I'm looking at you! Tell me, Rome, what would like me to deal with exactly? The fact that your mother killed my fucking baby?"

And there it was... My baby. She no longer saw us together... We were no longer in this together.

"Our baby, and don't you ever forget that. I was with you all the way until the end... still am! I'm still fucking here, trying to pull you out of hell!"

But there was nothing, not even a flicker of understanding in her eyes. She'd given up on us, and in that moment, I didn't care either. I was over this whole friggin' year.

"You know what? Fuck this! I'm out!"

I attended the dinner as requested and hours later found myself tearing through the hospital, my girl gone and nowhere to be found. Sitting in her empty room, one thing was abundantly clear: Molly had given up.

She'd left me. She'd run.

29.

Present Day...

"My God, Rome," Ally whispered, wiping at her eyes. "I never knew... never realized you both went through so much. How much you meant to each other. Saved each other."

"Yeah," I croaked out. "Now you do." I turned to Ally, who was looking around the room, biting her lip in worry. "We need to find her, Al. What if she does something stupid? She's not thinking straight. Hasn't been for days."

Her hand suddenly slapped on my arm and she pointed to the wall. "Rome, look at the date on Molly's calendar."

"Flight to Heathrow. Oxford presentation," I read out loud.

Shit. She'd gone back to England for the presentation she'd been working on. Of course. Professor Ross would have been the person in the car at the hospital. But the flight was long gone. She was long gone.

I immediately jumped from the bed, planning my next step.

"Where are you going?" Ally asked frantically.

"To Oxford. I need to get her back."

Ally's hand gripped my arm. "You can't, Rome! What about the National Championship? You'd jeopardize the draft! You can't just leave. It's your whole future we're talking about here!"

I let out a guttural scream and swiped the top of Mol's drawers with my arm, watching all her shit fall to the floor, then turned to face Ally once more. "No, that's where you're wrong! Molly's my fuckin' life, my fuckin' future! And right now she's on a 747 to Heathrow Airport, friggin' dying inside because of me, because of my psycho mother! Fuck the championship!"

For the first time in our lives, I could see I'd scared Ally. I could see it in her ashen face, her usual olive skin bleached white with shock.

Raking my hands through my hair, I dropped my ass to the edge of the nightstand. "Shit, Al. Sorry. I'm so sorry... I'm just going outta my mind. I don't know what the hell to do." It was no good; the tears I was fighting began pouring out of me. My shoulders shook and I buried my face in my hands.

Ally's arms embraced me while I let it all out. "Here's what I think, Rome." She paused, waiting for me to speak, but I couldn't. "I say we get outta here now and go to my folks' in Birmingham. We were scheduled to leave in a couple of days for Christmas anyway." I stiffened and went to argue, but she continued. "Give Molls some time. She'll come around. I know she will. I've never seen a couple like you two. You're perfect together. Just let her digest everything. She's sensitive, needs time to heal. Ring Coach. Tell him you're going to have to take a few days away, then return for training and win the National Championship. If she still hasn't returned, then do something. Hell, I'll fly to England with you if needs be."

I knew she was right, but even spending a day apart from my girl, without hearing her voice, was going to kill me.

Fuck. How did it all go so wrong?

I couldn't help but think of my folks and what they'd done. Year and years of their abuse flashed before my eyes and I hated myself for never fighting back. I wanted to hurt them, just like they'd hurt me, hurt Mol... our fucking baby! My palms felt like they were on fire and my hands curled into fists.

"Rome?" Ally said nervously.

"I can't go!" I shouted, Ally cautiously stepping back across the room. "I need to find my folks. They need to be held accountable for what they've done!"