The characters and story of Twilight lived in Stephenie Meyer's head long before I came along and read it. They belong to her. This story however, has lived in my head long before you read it and it belongs to me. I don't intend any copyright infringement and you better not either.
Big wet sloppy kisses with too much tongue to drunknessie, sugartits, kstewfangirl & agirlreckoning. I don't know how y'all put up with me.
More in the a/n at the bottom, let's get into this, shall we?
These tears I've cried.
I've cried a thousand oceans.
And if it seems I'm floating in the darkness
Well, I can't believe that I would keep,
Keep you from flying.
~~1,000 Oceans, Tori Amos
Winter
~~BPOV~~
Edward Anthony Cullen Today 3:02 am
Where have you been? You didn't answer my last message. Everything alright?
They've just given me the topic for my class at the conference this year. They actually were concerned about having me back, something about needing more security. Like they think all the Masenites are going to riot or something? They're surprised I still want to do it. It's funny how they think I'm so dedicated to it. If they only knew what really brings me back each year. Anyways, I think you should take my course, "I'm Being Published, Now What?"
I know, I know, it's not published yet, but it will be. It's too fucking good to even worry about a jinx. Sign up soon, they expect it to fill up quick. Not that I wouldn't let you in, enrolled or not, but save me the trouble, okay?
Oh, and Merry Christmas.
~BH
I bit my nail until the pain of the quick swallowed the ache in my heart. I hit the "x" in the corner of the screen and bent over to retch in the trash can at my feet.
How could I answer him? What could I say? Was there any explanation I could give that would make it better?
I stared at the pile of puke and began to cry, again. With every day that passed I felt worse, not better. The puking, the fatigue, they were all part of it and there was an end in sight, that I knew. The depression, however, bled through me each day filling every nook with its darkness. It wasn't like this before.
But I guess that was the difference between wanting to be pregnant and not.
With Sarah we'd huddled in the bathroom together watching the second line appear seconds after I'd set the stick down on the counter. We refused to believe it until the timer indicated three minutes had passed and I had jumped into Jake's arms as his fist flew in the air, and he yelled "that's what I'm talking about!"
When I thought I might be pregnant with Charlotte, I took the test alone. I was naïve at the time, thinking that a new baby was just what we needed to feel like "us" again. To me, those two pink lines were building a bridge from me back to him. I went out and bought Sarah a shirt that said "Big Sister" and waited for him to notice her.
This time, there was no careful counting of cycle days or bated breaths while waiting to test. I had a blood draw after a follow up visit to my doctor when I complained of flu like symptoms after Thanksgiving. He was concerned after the "Summer of Cough" as I called it. He called with "good news," I didn't have the flu. The heavy hitting antibiotic he'd prescribed had not only killed the cough but the effectiveness of my birth control. He offered congratulations and I hung up the phone to call my OB, and asked for a sonogram to determine the due date.
She squeezed me in the next morning and I cried what I pretended were tears of happiness as she showed me the flicker of a heart beat on the screen. She took measurements and announced I was due in July. I shed a tear for every step I'd taken to make changes in my life, a few for Jake who was missing this moment, and mostly for the baby who didn't deserve to be born to a mother who could do nothing but cry about it's existence.
My doctor handed me a tissue and the print outs of the sonogram pictures. I texted Emily and asked her to keep the girls a little longer and I got in my car and drove. I drove for as long as I felt like driving, crossing the Sound on a ferry at one point, until I found a place to stop. Sitting in a harbor, holding the pictures in my lap, I watched the ships load and unload preparing for their journeys at sea.
I couldn't bring myself to say the words aloud to Jake. I kept the secret for a few more days, resigned to wait until I could muster at least an ounce of happiness. I unpacked the boxes of the girls' baby clothes hoping to stir longing into my heart, but all that I found was bitterness and pain. Even the photos of their first years did nothing to absolve me of fear and panic. Instead of cooing over their wrinkled faces and tiny feet, I only saw the exhaustion in my eyes, the weariness of my face.
This time, I knew better. A baby band-aid for this marriage was about as helpful as using bubble gum to hold a crack in the Hoover Dam. We were at a breaking point either way and having a baby only meant there was one more heart to break.
I gave up waiting for the maternal feelings to appear and put the sonogram picture in his lunchbox one morning. It was better than having to tell him to his face because I wasn't that good of an actress. He was thrilled. Of course.
"Ah, Belly. Did you get sick again? You poor thing, I thought it was getting better," he said, massaging my shoulders that were still bent over the trash can.
I straightened up and tied the bin liner in a knot.
"Some days are better than others," I answered.
"Why don't you go lay down for a bit before we head over to my dad's? I just put the girls down, a nap would be good for you."
"Thanks, but, I still have a few presents to wrap and I need to put the side dishes in the oven to warm—"
"To bed. Now. I'll take care of that for you." He pulled me by the hand and walked me to the bedroom.
I let him put me to bed though I knew sleep would never come. I didn't deserve midday naps and a husband that doted on me. I resented an innocent baby just because he existed no matter how much I tried not to. There were no words for mothers like me.
I fell into the kind of sleep that isn't really sleep, when your mind keeps landing on thoughts for a moment before shuffling to another like the turning of a Rolodex. When Jake woke me, and pulled me from the bed to leave for the holiday dinner at his father's, I might as well have been sleepwalking.
I ate, I smiled, and I nodded at conversation I wasn't listening to, since most of it centered on the impending arrival of Rebecca's baby. She was having another boy and Jake and her husband were deep in discussion of cup plates for toddlers.
"I think T-ball will be first, they can start that pretty young. And soccer, soccer for sure. We need to get him on skates early, if he'll be any good at hockey—"
"For goodness' sake, Jacob, you haven't even let the boy finish baking yet! Give the kid a break, already!" Rebecca said, chiding her younger brother.
She smiled at me and patted the belly that was just starting to look less like I'd had a big meal and more like I'd had a few of them. Being pregnant, she should have known better than to touch without asking.
"We don't even know if it's a boy, he's just using some powerful wishful thinking," I said, rolling my eyes and thinking of all the blue that was under the tree this morning.
"When do you find out?" she asked.
"End of February? Something like that. I'm not even twelve weeks yet. I told Jake we should wait to tell everyone, you know? But he was too excited, I guess."
I pulled at the ends of my limp hair and begged the queasiness in my stomach to mellow. I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired.
"Well, what's a few days early? I'm so glad you told us, how else would we know to buy for a new little nephew." She bent over and cooed the last words at my belly button. "I can't believe you didn't even tell us you were trying! Such a surprise."
"We weren't," I said, the dullness of my words catching Jake's attention.
"Nope, we weren't. It was just fate, wasn't it Belly? This little guy just wanted to be part of our family so bad, he made himself happen," he said.
Jake had told every single person we'd ever met that I was pregnant before he'd even finished his lunch that day. My phone rang for hours and I feigned excitement before turning it off and dunking myself in a bath. I'd spent most days since staring at the walls and willing myself to get the fuck over it. Yet, every time I tried to return to being me, I couldn't be bothered to find the energy. My novel sat, completed, waiting to be queried. Friends were forgotten, housework ignored, children signed up for additional days at preschool. I failed at everything.
Emily knew something was up but she figured it was just a case of the I've-gotten-my-body-and-semblance-of-a-life-back-and-now-I'm-knocked-up-again Blues. She had no idea I wasn't mourning the life I was losing, I was morning the life I wouldn't have.
I tried to smile at Rebecca as she talked about sons versus daughters, sports leagues and circumcisions. Jake brought me another piece of pie and kissed my forehead before going to check on the girls. I stabbed the fork into the crust as she talked, twisting and turning it and making a mess out of the desert on my plate.
Sam and Emily's house was filled with party-goers, and merriment making resolutions, and promises for the year to come. I only had one resolution and I wasn't sharing it with the masses. Slipping out the backdoor a few minutes before midnight, I made my way across the dark yard to sit and look up to the stars.
My butt froze as soon as it touched the cold wood of the chair in the grass. A wet drop of tears or snot hit my knee and I felt the dampness through my jeans. I gave myself a good cry knowing it would be the last time I shed tears over this.
I usually wasn't one for resolutions but if anyone needed to make a vow for change, it was me.
"This is it," I said to the air, the sky, the nothingness around me. "These are the last tears I cry for me. No more wallowing in a vat of self-pity. No one else made my bed and I sure as hell don't have anywhere else to sleep."
I laughed at myself for talking to the trees and wiped at my nose with the back of my sleeve.
"It's a new dawn, it's a new day, and it's a new life for me. And I'm feeling….like total shit. But that ends now. Everything I feel about all this stays in this year. I will not take it to the next. The clock strikes midnight and day one. We're starting over, little one. You are my baby, and I will love you. Even if it kills me."
I leaned all the way back in the chair and wrapped my hands around my middle. The mood was hidden by the clouds, her glow missing from the sky. I made more promises I intended to keep. The burst of acceptance was rallied on earlier in the week by the disappearance of early pregnancy symptoms that had plagued me for months. The first trimester was officially over. In a few weeks I'd be noticing the first fluttering of the life inside me.
The clouds broke and the moon reflected on my face. I lifted my chin to bathe in her light and the salt of my tears. They dried sticky on my face but I was relieved there were no more new ones to wash away the old. I was all cried out.
"You do know the baby might not be a boy, right? No matter what Jake says?" I said and shook my head as Emily piled more clothes in my arms.
"I know, I know, but I couldn't resist! Besides, now that we're done, Sam said I have to get rid of all this and I couldn't bear to part with it. But giving it to you makes me happy. Win-win."
"That for baby, Mama?" Charlotte asked pulling a sleeper off the pile.
"It is, sweetie. Well, if you have a brother. Auntie Emily and Daddy think you're having a brother."
Charlotte fingered the blue outfit and cocked her head to peer at my stomach.
"He dis little?" she asked and held it up.
"He's even littler now honey. That won't fit him for months after he's born. Gah! Emily, now you've got me doing it." I smacked my hand to my head.
"He's totally a boy and you know it. Just give into it."
"You could be wrong! I'm cool with it either way, boy or girl."
"You say that now, wait until you have a son. There is nothing in the world like a mother's bond with her son."
I shot Emily a look and pointed at the back of Charlotte's head. She was not on board with the new baby idea and the last thing she needed was to hear Emily romanticizing how special a little boy would be. She mouthed an apology to me and shooed Charlotte off to play with all of our kids.
"You're looking good, Bells. You feeling better?" she asked.
"Much. I haven't been sick since before New Year's. Settling quite nicely into the second trimester don't you think?" I asked before stretching my shirt across my rounded middle.
"So stinking cute! Look how tiny you are. You're not even in maternity clothes are you? And you're what? How many weeks?"
"Fifteen yesterday. I was so much bigger with Charlotte by this point. I'm kind of surprised."
"Boy," Emily sang, wagging her finger at me. "Absolutely, positively, a boy. You're carrying different, you were sicker in the beginning, it's a boy."
"Whatever. When I wasn't sick with the girls everyone told me I was having boys because girls make you sick and boys don't. Those wives tales mean nothing."
I smoothed my hands across my stomach and smiled. I meant it when I said I would be happy either way, but my dreams had been filled with sweetest baby boy touching my cheeks and calling my name. Mommy.
I felt a twinge in my side that I recognized as my muscles stretching, and rubbed at the spot letting myself give into a yawn.
"You poor thing, you're exhausted aren't you?" she said.
"No, I'm better, really. Just woke up this morning super early for no good reason."
"Why don't you head home for a bit, leave the girls here? I'll feed them dinner and have Sam bring them over before bedtime."
"Emily, no. You don't have to do that. You've got four of your own to chase, you help me out far too much as it is."
"Oh, they're no bother. Besides, I'm already outnumbered. Two or ten, makes no difference.
"Okay, if you truly don't mind. I'd love it. Jake's gone in Port Townsend until tomorrow. I could use the time to do…some stuff I've been avoiding," I said.
"What's he doing in Port Townsend? And why don't they just stay the night then?"
"Side job, or something he said. And no. That's too much."
"Baloney. Go. Enjoy. They'll be home sometime tomorrow," she said and pulled me up pushing me to the door.
"Wait, let me say goodbye."
"No, that will give them a chance to guilt trip you into taking them. Just leave, they're fine and you know it," she said, handing me the box of clothes I'd come over for in the first place. "I've got plenty of pajamas and toothbrushes and sippy cups, I don't want to hear from you 'til morning, get out of my face."
"Thank you," I said, and wrapped my free arm around her.
When I arrived home, I didn't quite know what to do with myself. I wandered around, pausing on tasks I considered completing. I could have done the dishes, or folded the laundry, or scraped whatever that sticky brown tar substance was from the bottom of my refrigerator, but there was one thing I needed to do.
I dropped the box of baby clothes on my bed and it toppled over and spilled as I climbed up on the pillows. Picking up my laptop, I opened up my email program. Other than the cordial "Happy Holidays"I finally had gotten around to a few weeks ago, I'd ignored all of Edward's messages. He kept writing, asking about me, but I didn't have an answer for him. I had to tell him, of course, I couldn't just let him see me. I owed him the heads up.
I pressed "reply" to his latest message and watched the cursor blink for at least an hour. I set the computer down on the bed, the blank message screen still open, and sorted through the clothes again. I hoped that the words would just come to me, like a narrative, and I'd find a way to come clean.
There were piles all around me, organized by size, by the time I was through. I was no closer to having the answer than when I started so I minimized the screen and stalked his page instead.
He was in New York for the trial. His updates made it sound like he was there on book business or movie ass-kissing and what not, but I knew he was there for the trial. If I needed an excuse not to tell him now, this was it. I tapped the keyboard with my fingertips and sighed.
I typed him a quick message of support for the trial and opened a new message in my email to compose a draft of what I actually had to say. It was dark when I finished and pressed save. My stomach clenched at the motion and I felt like someone had wrung the water from me and left me in a wrinkled heap.
I pushed the laptop off me and curled into a ball around my body pillow. The anxiety-induced queasiness gripped my stomach again, which was ridiculous because I hadn't even sent the letter, but the mere act of writing it had left me clammy and shaky.
It was dark when I woke, drenched in sweat and shaken by the most painful gas bubble. My middle was round and hard, and tender to the touch. I stood on quaking legs to hobble to the bathroom.
The pain rocked me as I grabbed the sink and tore through the medicine cabinet for a bottle of Pepto. I chugged straight from the bottle and sat on the toilet to do my thing. My fingers trembled as I reached for the toilet paper and out of some strange instinct, I looked after I wiped. I couldn't process what I saw.
Blood.
A streak of bright red blood smack dab in the center of the paper. I fumbled with my jeans trying to pull my underwear from their center. They stuck to my pants from the blood that had wet them. I wiped again, and again, and there was more. It was on my thighs, on my hands and dripping into the water of the bowl. I grabbed a towel and wet it in the sink trying to wash the red from my skin. I kicked off the jeans and replaced my underwear adding a thick cotton pad for absorbency.
I made it back out to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of yoga pants. The clock told me, in red, that it was two in the morning. Of course it was. These things never happened at two in the afternoon when your doctor was in her office and someone could give you a ride.
I threw my phone in my bag, shoved the dog out of the way, and grabbed my coat from the closet. The dog whined and sniffed at me, making the dread in my chest heavier with worry. I wasn't thinking about what this could mean. I couldn't think about what this could mean until I was safe at a hospital with someone who could figure it out.
The roads were dark and icy and I drove them with caution, slower than normal due to the conditions, and the way the pain made me a spotty kind of blind. I found a spot close to the emergency room entrance and took a few deep breaths of the biting cold air before going inside. The nurse's station was empty and there wasn't a single person in the waiting room behind me.
"Hello?" I called out. "Is anyone here?"
Footsteps echoed in the hallway as a figure moved in closer.
"I'm sorry, we were slow. I told the nurse to take her break. Can I assist you with someth—Bella, is everything okay?"
I recognized Dr. Cullen even though I couldn't make out his features. The floor tilted to the left and I reached out to hold onto the counter.
"I-uh, um. I'm bleeding and I'm pregnant. Um, I'm bleeding," I said, raising my hand to my hair. It clung to my damp forehead and resisted my fingers pushing into it.
"Okay, are you here alone? How did you get here? Nevermind, let's get you to a bed and we'll worry about checking you in, in a minute. Can you walk? Bella, can you walk?"
"Yeah, sure. I can walk."
I let go of the counter and followed him down the hall. He pulled aside a curtain and pointed at the empty bed.
"Please remove your clothes and put on the gown. I'm going to call up to obstetrics and find out if the on-call is in house. I'll be back in just a minute," he said and pulled the curtain behind him as he left.
I undressed folding my clothes in a pile and placing them on the chair beside the bed. The pad wasn't as stained as I thought it might be and I was relieved as I got in under the blankets. A nurse came in and asked me the standard questions, left again, and came back with a bracelet and an IV. Dr. Cullen soon followed.
"Alright, Bella. The on-call isn't actually available at the moment so I'm going to check you out until he arrives. Is that okay?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Now, I don't want you to worry. Bleeding in pregnancy is frightening but can be quite common. The most important thing for you to do right now is try to relax. Can you do that for me?"
"Sure. Yeah. I can relax. I'm okay."
"So tell me, how many weeks are you?"
"Fifteen and a couple days now, I think."
"And your pregnancy has been normal? Any complications?" he asked, flipping through what was likely my medical records.
"Totally normal."
"Previous pregnancies and deliveries, normal?"
"Yes."
"No diagnosis of placenta previa?"
"I don't even know what that is."
"Have you had sexual intercourse recently?"
"What? No! Um, I mean no, I haven't. Could that cause this?"
"Sometimes women experience a streaking of blood following rigorous intercourse, due to increase of blood flow and sensitivity to the cervix. Totally normal."
I didn't care if he was a doctor, discussing "rigorous intercourse" with Edward's father just got weird.
The nurse returned again, wheeling an ultrasound machine around the curtain.
"We're going to just take a quick peek at the baby and the placenta. Could you lie back and lift up the gown please?"
I did as he asked and craned my neck to see the screen but he turned it away from me. He moved the ultrasound wand to a hundred different places, frowning and hitting buttons on the machine.
"Aside from the bleeding have you felt anything else abnormal today?"
"Just a stomach ache, like gas or something? I'm kind of dizzy, but I hate blood so that's what always happens. Can you see anything, is everything alright?"
"I'm just gathering some information for the on-call OB, he should be in shortly."
There was something in his tone of voice that told me what I needed to know.
"Dr. Cullen, please," I said, the words choking in my throat.
He replaced the wand in the holster and rubbed his eyebrows. He didn't want to answer me.
"Bella, is there someone you can call, to be with you?"
"It's the middle of the night."
"Are you sure there isn't anyone I can call for you? Your husband?" he asked and I shook my head. "Possibly…"
I knew what he was thinking, I just couldn't believe he'd say it.
"No, please don't tell him I'm here. He doesn't know I'm pregnant. He doesn't need to know about this, not with…please don't tell him."
"I am bound by HIPPA regulations; I won't discuss your health with anyone without your expressed consent. I just thought maybe—"
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Did he think Edward might be the father? And if he didn't, how could I tell him he wasn't without admitting that I had, in fact, slept with him.
"My husband is out of town, I'll call him, of course but he won't be here right away. I'm scared he'll drive down here at a hundred miles an hour in the middle of the night. He's already so bonded to his baby."
"Of course. I understand your point. I want you to try and rest. I'll have the nurse give you something for the pain and something to help you sleep."
"Will you please tell me what's going on? I know you know something."
"I think it would be better if we waited for the on-call. He'll do a follow up sonogram for verification, as well as observe the labs I'm going to have drawn."
"Verification of what exactly? You want me to rest? I won't rest until I know my baby is okay."
His face gave it away. The cramp in my stomach moved up to grip my heart.
"Dr. Cullen? Is my baby okay?"
"I'm very sorry to tell you this, Bella. It appears your body has begun a spontaneous abortion."
The spots in my eyes clouded over what was left of my vision. I was aware of my heartbeat in my ears and the sting of bile at the back of my tongue.
"What? But I'm out of the woods. I…I don't understand. There has to be a mistake," I said, shaking my head.
"Unless the OB has a drastically different finding, you'll be scheduled for a D & C until later this morning. Hopefully that will give you time for a support person to arrive."
This was so surreal and so fast. One minute changes everything. One freaking minute.
"A D & C? That's when they'll…they go and…what is that?"
"Bella, I know you must be terribly upset. You really need to rest. We're going to move you over to the maternity ward—"
"Don't. Don't put me in there with all the new babies. Is that what they do? When someone is losing their child? They make them do it while everyone else is having theirs? That's so wrong."
My words gave way to tears and I pulled the pillow out from behind my head to press it against my face.
"Shh, it's okay. You can stay here. There's no one else in here. I just thought you might be more comfortable in your own room. You can stay here, if you want."
"I can't go up there. I can't. Why did this happen? What happened?"
"I don't know the why, right now. The procedure may give answers to that. Your doctor will discuss that with you."
"But I'm fifteen weeks. This doesn't just happen at fifteen weeks, does it?"
"It appears, from the measurements I took, the pregnancy had progressed only to twelve weeks and three days. I was unable to find a heartbeat and when I took the measurements it became clear that the fetus had expired."
The bed rotated as though it had formed a tilt-o-whirl axis and I gripped the sides to keep from puddling to the floor.
"You mean…my baby has been dead for…three weeks?" The words weren't even a whisper.
"I'm sorry, yes."
"That was before New Year's. My baby died before New Year's. I carried a dead baby around for three weeks. But I made my peace, I made my peace and he was dead."
"Bella lay down," he said, motioning to the nurse.
She stepped over and pushed a clear fluid into the tubing of the IV. I knew they were giving me something to relax but I didn't believe it could work. Dr. Cullen's firm hands pushed me with a gentle force back onto the pillow. Within seconds a calm rippled through my body.
"I just don't understand, why?"
"Shh, it's okay. I told you, they'll run tests to try and determine the cause of the demise."
I took a deep breath and the exhale came much later. I fought against my eyes' insistence on closing.
"No, not that."
"Then what?" He asked, stepping away from the bed.
The fluorescents above offered sharp clarity to my thoughts. I saw myself sobbing over the news of the pregnancy, Jake's joy, and the girls' cautious questions. I heard the promises I'd made, the ones that fell on dead ears.
"Why? Why would I hold on to something that had been gone for so long? All this time, it makes it so much worse. Why couldn't I have just let him go?"
The words faded before I could finish them and my world was black.
"Bella, you need to eat." Jake sat a tray in front of me on the bed.
"I'm not hungry."
"That's what you always say. You can't starve yourself, that's not healthy."
I snorted in response and looked out the window.
It'd been one month since the day he arrived at the hospital to find me as one instead of two. One month was all, and he expected me to go on as though it hadn't happened.
"You know I'm upset too. I lost a baby too. You seem to forget that."
Where the fuck was that coming from? And there was no way in hell I was letting him infringe on my grief, my guilt. It belonged to me.
"It wasn't your fault, Jake. You'll never understand that."
"No it wasn't. And it wasn't yours either, when are you going to understand that?"
I shook my head and pulled up the blankets. He didn't get it. He couldn't. He didn't know what I had done. None of it. All the things I'd done to us. The way I'd hated my own child. The way my child had been nourished on my hate and selfishness, the way he died before I made my amends. Fetal suicide.
"Please just give me some time."
"I think maybe you should consider that counselor they told you about at the hospital. I heard there is a support group and—"
"Oh, that's ironic coming from you. So counseling is only appropriate when it's me with the problem, huh?" I said, turning over to glare at him.
"I'm not saying that, Jesus! I'm just thinking, this can't be good for you, you can't just sit here all day and cry, and not at least try and get better."
"Don't even pretend to know what's good for me. You have no fucking clue." I rolled over before I could see his hurt face. I didn't need to add another log onto the fire of shame.
"At least I'm trying. You know, I was thinking I did know what might help. We had talked before all this, about you skipping your conference next month, but I think you should go now. It's not too late and you always come home so happy—"
"No. Fucking. Clue. There is no way, I can't, are you kidding me? No. No. That is the last thing I want. Please. Just leave me alone."
"Belly, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to help. I'm sorry."
I reached out and lifted a pillow onto my head and shoved it hard over my ears. I couldn't take any more of his constant apologizing. I wanted to tell him why he wasn't to blame, but I couldn't bring myself to hurt him any more with that truth. It wouldn't make anything better, only worse. I was just glad he had the brain cells to know not to come clean to me right now either.
There was no way I was absolving the weight of our sins on the skin of our dead son.
~~I'd love reviews more than you'd love for me not to go almost 3 weeks without updating again~~
Hmmm, reading that back, it sounds a wee bit conceited, lol. I just know via twitter and PMs and some reviews that y'all were getting a little worried about where the update was! I do apologize for it taking so long, lots of real life crap (and some good stuff too) getting in the way of the one thing I truly love to do. This is not a WIP that will never finish, I promise you that. Even if an update is taking longer than normal, it will come. There is no way I could not finish this story after the time and love y'all have put into reading it.
So sorry for the heart fail, I think that was one of the reasons I was dragging getting it done. I did not want to write it, it made me too sad. :(
