The Boy with the Whiplash Tattoo

Thirty eight

For seven hours I have waited. I have been pushed around in a wheelchair, moved from waiting room to bed to nurse to doctor and back again. I've had tests and questions and rough hands and cold things in unspeakable places. And to every new person I have asked the same thing. Am I still pregnant? And each time they have looked away and said we don't know yet. I am tired.
Aaron is holding my hand so tight that it's going numb. My whole body aches like I've been running all day. The inside of my elbow is purple. I didn't know the human body contained so many different colours.
The doctor is saying important things but it sounds like he's underwater.
"What?" I say it too loud, it startled everyone.
"Camilla, the baby is gone."
I stare at Aaron like he's speaking Chinese. My face crumples up and my eyes begin to water.
"What do you mean?" I whimper.
My mother hasn't said a word for hours, but I can still hear her voice slip into my mind,
'Useless girl, you can't even do this right. Can't do the one thing everyone woman should. He's not going to want you now.'
I can't see him through my tears and he feels so far away now.
"You lost the baby."
'Yes Camilla. You lost the baby. You did this.'
"No," I say. " Why? Why can't you fix it?"
"It's too late. You need to rest now."
My chest is hollow and yet heavy, like someone has ripped out my heart and replaced it with stone. My maternal instincts are telling me that someone has taken my baby from me, that I need to be angry and vengeful, but I haven't the strength, and my body has lost all feeling.
"You need to stay overnight so we can observe..." But Aaron has turned away. He pushes me out of the room, unable to listen to anymore. In my hospital bed he curls himself around me as if he can hide me from our reality, but all I want is to be left alone with the sound of my own flailing heart.