All Your Perfects
Page 35
“Graham,” I whisper. He takes my hand and squeezes it. I know I should be full of so much devastation right now that not even a sliver of happiness or relief could find its way into my soul. But somehow, I don’t feel the devastation that should accompany this moment. I feel hope. “I was pregnant? We finally got pregnant?”
I don’t know how I’m focusing on the only positive thing about this entire situation, but after years of constant failure, I can’t help but take this as a sign. I got pregnant. We had a partial miracle.
A tear slips out of Graham’s eye and lands on my arm. I look down at the tear and watch it slide over my skin. My eyes flick back up to Graham’s and not a single part of him is able to see the positive in this situation.
“Quinn . . .”
Another tear falls from his eye. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him look this sad. I shake my head, because whatever has him this terrified to speak is not something I want to hear.
Graham squeezes my hand again and looks at me with so much devastation in his eyes, I have to turn away from him when he speaks. “When we got here last night . . .”
I try to stop listening, but my ears refuse to fail me.
“You were hemorrhaging.”
The word no is repeating and I have no idea if it’s coming from my mouth or if it’s inside my head.
“You had to have a . . .”
I curl up and hug my knees, squeezing my eyes shut. As soon as I hear the word hysterectomy I start crying. Sobbing.
Graham crawls into the hospital bed and wraps himself around me, holding me as we let go of every single ounce of hope that was left between us.
Chapter Twenty-three
* * *
Then
It’s our last night at the beach house. We leave in the morning to head back to Connecticut. Graham has a meeting he has to be back for tomorrow afternoon. I have laundry to do before I go back to work on Tuesday. Neither of us is ready to leave yet. It’s been peaceful and perfect and I’m already looking forward to coming back here with him. I don’t even care if I have to kiss my mother’s ass for the next month in order to plan our next getaway. It’s a price I’ll gladly pay for another weekend of perfection.
It’s a little bit colder tonight than the last two nights we’ve been here, but I kind of like it. I have the heater turned up high in the house. We freeze our asses off for hours near the fire pit and then cuddle up in bed to thaw out. It’s a routine I would never get bored of.
I just finished making us both cups of hot chocolate. I take them outside and hand Graham his, then sit down next to him.
“Okay,” he says. “Next question.”
Graham found out this morning that, even though I love looking at it, I’ve never actually stepped foot in the ocean. He spent the majority of the day trying to figure out other things about me that he didn’t know. It’s become a game to us now and we’re alternating questions so we can find out everything there is to know about each other.
He mentioned the first night we were together that he doesn’t talk about religion or politics. But it’s been six months now and I’m curious to know his opinions. “We’ve still never discussed religion,” I say. “Or politics. Are those still topics that are off the table?”
Graham edges the cup with his lips and sucks a marshmallow into his mouth. “What do you want to know?”
“Are you a Republican or a Democrat?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “Neither. I can’t stand the extremists on either side, so I sort of hover in the middle.”
“So you’re one of those people.”
He tilts his head. “What people?”
“The kind who pretend to agree with every opinion just to keep the peace.”
Graham arches an eyebrow. “Oh, I have opinions, Quinn. Strong ones.”
I pull my legs up and tuck them under me, facing him. “I want to hear them.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” I challenge. “Your stance on gun control. Immigration. Abortion. All of it.”
I love the look of excitement on his face, as if he’s preparing for a presentation. It’s adorable that a presentation would even excite him.
He sets his mug of hot chocolate on the table beside him. “Okay . . . let’s see. I don’t think we should take away a citizen’s right to own a gun. But I do think it should be one hell of a difficult process to get your hands on one. I think women should decide what to do with their own bodies, as long as it’s within the first trimester or it’s a medical emergency. I think government programs are absolutely necessary but I also think a more systematic process needs to be put in place that would encourage people to get off of welfare, rather than to stay on it. I think we should open up our borders to immigrants, as long as they register and pay taxes. I’m certain that life-saving medical care should be a basic human right, not a luxury only the wealthy can afford. I think college tuition should automatically be deferred and then repaid over a twenty-year period on a sliding scale. I think athletes are paid way too much, teachers are paid way too little, NASA is underfunded, weed should be legal, people should love who they want to love, and Wi-Fi should be universally accessible and free.” When he’s finished, he calmly reaches for his mug of hot chocolate and brings it back to his mouth. “Do you still love me?”
“More than I did two minutes ago.” I press a kiss to his shoulder and he wraps his arm around me, tucking me against him.
“Well, that went better than I thought it would.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” I warn. “We still haven’t discussed religion. Do you believe in God?”
Graham breaks eye contact and looks out at the ocean. He caresses my shoulder and thinks about my question for a moment. “I didn’t used to.”
“But you do now?”
“Yeah. I do now.”
“What changed your mind?”
“A few things,” he says. He nudges his head toward the ocean. “That being one of them. How can something exist that is that magnificent and powerful without something even more magnificent and powerful creating it?”
I stare out at the water with him when he asks me what I believe. I shrug. “Religion isn’t one of my mother’s strong suits, but I’ve always believed there was something out there greater than us. I just don’t know exactly what it is. I don’t think anyone knows for sure.”
“That’s why they call it faith,” he says.
“So how does a man of math and science reconcile his knowledge with his faith?”
Graham smiles when I ask him that question, like he’s been dying to discuss it. I love that about him. He has this adorable inner nerd that appears sometimes and it makes him even more attractive.
“Do you know how old the earth is, Quinn?”
“No, but I bet I’m about to find out.”
“Four and a half billion years old,” he says. His voice is full of wonder, like this is his absolute favorite thing to talk about. “Do you know how long ago our specific species appeared?”
“No idea.”
“Only two hundred thousand years ago,” he says. “Only two hundred thousand years out of four and a half billion years. It’s unbelievable.” He grabs my hand and lays it palm down on his thigh. He begins tracing over the back of my hand with a lazy finger. “If the back of your hand represented the age of this earth and every species that has ever lived, the entire human race wouldn’t even be visible to the naked eye. We are that insignificant.” He drags his fingers to the center of the back of my hand and points to a small freckle. “From the beginning of time until now, we could combine every single human that has ever walked this earth, and all their problems and concerns as a whole wouldn’t even amount to the size of this freckle right here.” He taps my hand. “Every single one of your life experiences could fit right here in this tiny freckle. So would mine. So would Beyoncé’s.”
I laugh.
“When you look at the earth’s existence as a whole, we’re nothing. We haven’t even been here long enough to earn bragging rights. Yet humans believe we’re the center of the universe. We focus on the stupidest, most mundane issues. We stress about things that mean absolutely nothing to the universe, when we should be nothing but grateful that evolution even gave our species a chance to have problems. Because one of these days . . . humans won’t exist. History will repeat itself and earth will move on to a different species altogether. Me and you . . . we’re just two people out of an entire race that, in retrospect, is still way less impressive at sustainability than a dinosaur. We just haven’t reached our expiration date yet.” He slides his fingers through mine and squeezes my hand.
I don’t know how I’m focusing on the only positive thing about this entire situation, but after years of constant failure, I can’t help but take this as a sign. I got pregnant. We had a partial miracle.
A tear slips out of Graham’s eye and lands on my arm. I look down at the tear and watch it slide over my skin. My eyes flick back up to Graham’s and not a single part of him is able to see the positive in this situation.
“Quinn . . .”
Another tear falls from his eye. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him look this sad. I shake my head, because whatever has him this terrified to speak is not something I want to hear.
Graham squeezes my hand again and looks at me with so much devastation in his eyes, I have to turn away from him when he speaks. “When we got here last night . . .”
I try to stop listening, but my ears refuse to fail me.
“You were hemorrhaging.”
The word no is repeating and I have no idea if it’s coming from my mouth or if it’s inside my head.
“You had to have a . . .”
I curl up and hug my knees, squeezing my eyes shut. As soon as I hear the word hysterectomy I start crying. Sobbing.
Graham crawls into the hospital bed and wraps himself around me, holding me as we let go of every single ounce of hope that was left between us.
Chapter Twenty-three
* * *
Then
It’s our last night at the beach house. We leave in the morning to head back to Connecticut. Graham has a meeting he has to be back for tomorrow afternoon. I have laundry to do before I go back to work on Tuesday. Neither of us is ready to leave yet. It’s been peaceful and perfect and I’m already looking forward to coming back here with him. I don’t even care if I have to kiss my mother’s ass for the next month in order to plan our next getaway. It’s a price I’ll gladly pay for another weekend of perfection.
It’s a little bit colder tonight than the last two nights we’ve been here, but I kind of like it. I have the heater turned up high in the house. We freeze our asses off for hours near the fire pit and then cuddle up in bed to thaw out. It’s a routine I would never get bored of.
I just finished making us both cups of hot chocolate. I take them outside and hand Graham his, then sit down next to him.
“Okay,” he says. “Next question.”
Graham found out this morning that, even though I love looking at it, I’ve never actually stepped foot in the ocean. He spent the majority of the day trying to figure out other things about me that he didn’t know. It’s become a game to us now and we’re alternating questions so we can find out everything there is to know about each other.
He mentioned the first night we were together that he doesn’t talk about religion or politics. But it’s been six months now and I’m curious to know his opinions. “We’ve still never discussed religion,” I say. “Or politics. Are those still topics that are off the table?”
Graham edges the cup with his lips and sucks a marshmallow into his mouth. “What do you want to know?”
“Are you a Republican or a Democrat?”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “Neither. I can’t stand the extremists on either side, so I sort of hover in the middle.”
“So you’re one of those people.”
He tilts his head. “What people?”
“The kind who pretend to agree with every opinion just to keep the peace.”
Graham arches an eyebrow. “Oh, I have opinions, Quinn. Strong ones.”
I pull my legs up and tuck them under me, facing him. “I want to hear them.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” I challenge. “Your stance on gun control. Immigration. Abortion. All of it.”
I love the look of excitement on his face, as if he’s preparing for a presentation. It’s adorable that a presentation would even excite him.
He sets his mug of hot chocolate on the table beside him. “Okay . . . let’s see. I don’t think we should take away a citizen’s right to own a gun. But I do think it should be one hell of a difficult process to get your hands on one. I think women should decide what to do with their own bodies, as long as it’s within the first trimester or it’s a medical emergency. I think government programs are absolutely necessary but I also think a more systematic process needs to be put in place that would encourage people to get off of welfare, rather than to stay on it. I think we should open up our borders to immigrants, as long as they register and pay taxes. I’m certain that life-saving medical care should be a basic human right, not a luxury only the wealthy can afford. I think college tuition should automatically be deferred and then repaid over a twenty-year period on a sliding scale. I think athletes are paid way too much, teachers are paid way too little, NASA is underfunded, weed should be legal, people should love who they want to love, and Wi-Fi should be universally accessible and free.” When he’s finished, he calmly reaches for his mug of hot chocolate and brings it back to his mouth. “Do you still love me?”
“More than I did two minutes ago.” I press a kiss to his shoulder and he wraps his arm around me, tucking me against him.
“Well, that went better than I thought it would.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” I warn. “We still haven’t discussed religion. Do you believe in God?”
Graham breaks eye contact and looks out at the ocean. He caresses my shoulder and thinks about my question for a moment. “I didn’t used to.”
“But you do now?”
“Yeah. I do now.”
“What changed your mind?”
“A few things,” he says. He nudges his head toward the ocean. “That being one of them. How can something exist that is that magnificent and powerful without something even more magnificent and powerful creating it?”
I stare out at the water with him when he asks me what I believe. I shrug. “Religion isn’t one of my mother’s strong suits, but I’ve always believed there was something out there greater than us. I just don’t know exactly what it is. I don’t think anyone knows for sure.”
“That’s why they call it faith,” he says.
“So how does a man of math and science reconcile his knowledge with his faith?”
Graham smiles when I ask him that question, like he’s been dying to discuss it. I love that about him. He has this adorable inner nerd that appears sometimes and it makes him even more attractive.
“Do you know how old the earth is, Quinn?”
“No, but I bet I’m about to find out.”
“Four and a half billion years old,” he says. His voice is full of wonder, like this is his absolute favorite thing to talk about. “Do you know how long ago our specific species appeared?”
“No idea.”
“Only two hundred thousand years ago,” he says. “Only two hundred thousand years out of four and a half billion years. It’s unbelievable.” He grabs my hand and lays it palm down on his thigh. He begins tracing over the back of my hand with a lazy finger. “If the back of your hand represented the age of this earth and every species that has ever lived, the entire human race wouldn’t even be visible to the naked eye. We are that insignificant.” He drags his fingers to the center of the back of my hand and points to a small freckle. “From the beginning of time until now, we could combine every single human that has ever walked this earth, and all their problems and concerns as a whole wouldn’t even amount to the size of this freckle right here.” He taps my hand. “Every single one of your life experiences could fit right here in this tiny freckle. So would mine. So would Beyoncé’s.”
I laugh.
“When you look at the earth’s existence as a whole, we’re nothing. We haven’t even been here long enough to earn bragging rights. Yet humans believe we’re the center of the universe. We focus on the stupidest, most mundane issues. We stress about things that mean absolutely nothing to the universe, when we should be nothing but grateful that evolution even gave our species a chance to have problems. Because one of these days . . . humans won’t exist. History will repeat itself and earth will move on to a different species altogether. Me and you . . . we’re just two people out of an entire race that, in retrospect, is still way less impressive at sustainability than a dinosaur. We just haven’t reached our expiration date yet.” He slides his fingers through mine and squeezes my hand.
