Chapter 445 - Pop Rocks Crystal
Angela had stopped crying for a while now. She calmed down as Gael laid both of them in her bed, keeping her tucked in and molded against his body as he soothed her.
For a long time, she could only dream about tonight—of her confessing everything to him, of her being vulnerable, and of him mourning with her. Before the incident, she had only heard about women who had miscarriages. Back then, she thought it was sad, that there was still hope to make another baby. She couldn't fully understand what it was like—until it happened to her.
The little embryo inside her tummy—no matter how tiny it was—was still her baby. It didn't matter how many days or weeks old her baby was. It was still hers. She was supposed to carry it for nine months and raise it for the rest of her life. But she wasn't even given that chance. It died inside her. She failed to protect it. No matter what everyone said, there would always be part of her thinking she didn't do enough. And those days were the darkest moments of her life.
Even though Angela felt much better now that Gael had finally learned about his child, the heaviness in her chest remained a dull ache that she didn't think would ever go away. Most times, she'd brush it off. She had gotten good at not acknowledging it as if it didn't exist, but it didn't work out that way all the time. She'd fall back into a depressive state where she'd be less functional and sleep for hours on end as if she was practicing death itself.
It was such a horrible feeling that she wouldn't want anyone to experience, which was why she didn't want Gael to know. Now that he did… It felt… comforting in a way.
Her eyes were closed as she thought of these things, but she didn't want to sleep. Not yet. Angela wanted to feel more of his warmth surrounding her as his hands stroked her arms and back, careful not to press on her bruise.
Sometime later, Gael's phone buzzed. Without moving so much, he reached for it from the nightstand with one hand, the other still holding Angela.
"Everything okay?" she mumbled in a hoarse voice.
"Yeah. My guys just landed from New York. They're on their way here. I'll have to meet them downstairs when they arrive."
She looked up and watched him through her sleepy gaze. "Are you leaving?" she asked.
Gael could hear the disappointment in her tone. He shook his head in response and brushed the hair away from her face. "No, baby. I'm not. But I'll have to go out for a bit to set up parameters. We need security. I'll have them coordinate with your father's guards in the estate. I'm just going to talk to them."
Angela exhaled a sigh of relief. "Okay."
He put his phone back on the nightstand, his eyes catching a box next to the dresser. It wasn't there before he went to the shower. She must've brought it in when she came back. "What's that box doing here? Shouldn't that be in the library? Do you want me to move it somewhere?"
She followed his stare, though she already knew where it led. "No… That's mine…for here. They're personal stuff."
He nodded and didn't say anything as he turned his stare away and pulled the covers up her shoulder. She bit her bottom lip, contemplating what she was about to do. And then she blurted, "Can you…" She paused as she remembered that his back was worse than hers. "Never mind. Give me a minute."
Angela slowly got out of bed and retrieved something from the box. When she came back to the bed, a hardcover copy of her first book was in her hand. Then she resumed her position at Gael's side, his arm readily circling around her.
He had seen that particular copy in her office-slash-library in her apartment. It was the one copy that was isolated from the others. He'd touched it once out of curiosity but didn't open it. Now, he watched as she flipped the pages open without saying anything. She stopped when she reached the middle of the book, and his brows arched as she took out what seemed like a bookmark tucked between the pages of a particular scene he knew from the heart—the moment Kayla found out she was pregnant.
Only… It wasn't a bookmark.
Angela handed him a sonogram. He had never seen one in person before until now, and he didn't know what he was looking at. It was a black and white image of her womb with what seemed like a space or a hole in the middle and some numbers and her name on the side.
"Five weeks and five days," she muttered in almost a whisper. "That's when I went to the doctor." Then she explained to him what he should be looking at while pointing at the image on the sonogram.
There was a flutter in his heart as she told him their baby was like the size of a pop rocks crystal at that point.
She wrote something at the bottom of the sonogram. It read: Tiny Bloop.
Gael had read and heard that from her before. "What is this?" he asked, pointing at the two words.
A small smile lifted on her lips. "That shouldn't be what I named it. After all, I don't think the baby was a mistake…which is what Bloop means. But there's this…word that one of the Real Housewives of Atlanta says as an expression. Nina and I used to watch it a lot back then. This person, her name is NeNe Leakes… She'd casually say "Bloop bloop bloop," and it was for different reasons every time.
"Nina and I sort of picked up that same expression at random times in the past…you know…just for giggles. I guess that's what that word meant for me then when I wasn't sure what to call the baby in my tummy. What I felt was something indescribable… A mixture of emotions swirling, and there wasn't a word to call it." She shrugged. "Bloop."
Gael studied her somber expression, a sad smile hinting at her lips as she recalled the past. It all made sense now, he thought. He remembered seeing the word when he snooped around Angela's drawer and found a random sticky tag that read: Tiny Bloop ♥ —which didn't seem so random now—inside one of the books she had read, pointing at a quote he didn't think he'd remember, but he did.
[ Grief doesn't change you, Hazel. It reveals you. ]
Back then, he didn't know what that was about and just ignored it.
The second time she used the word was when she was stoned after eating space cookies back in New York.
"I see Bloop~ Come say hi~" she had said in a sleepy state.
Of course, Gael didn't think much of it and thought she was too high to say things properly.
All this time, the clues were there right in front of his face. Now, realizing this, he felt a pang in his chest.
If only he had known sooner, he would have been there for her.
If only he had known sooner, he would have hugged her tighter that night when she said she could see Bloop—and he would have said "hi" to their child even though he couldn't see it.
Gael sighed, pressing a kiss on her temple. Angela wouldn't be alone anymore. He would make sure of it.
"You would've been an amazing mother, Angel," he whispered in a raspy voice in her ear.
"How would you know that? I was carelessly partying and drinking when I was already pregnant…" She bit her bottom lip, only releasing it when he swiped his thumb across it.
"You didn't know then." Tipping her chin up, he smoothed his voice and reassured her, "I believe in you. I know what kind of mother you would've been. And someday…you will be. When that time comes, I'll be right next to you."