Breathe With Me (Playing For Keeps #5)

by Becka Mack

There’s something special, something rewarding, about

being someone’s safe place—when the strongest person you know trusts you enough to hand over their struggle for a minute or two. Lets you hold it. Take care of it.

The only thing that’s come easy in my life is loving you. I’d spend the rest of my life fighting, as long as it’s you I’m fighting for.”

“There is nothing in this world I love the way I love you,”

There’s nothing I love doing more than loving you.”

“You’re my landslide, Emmett. Everything I thought I knew fell to my feet when our worlds collided. Then we rebuilt a world together, and I finally understood why good things needed to end so something so much more beautiful could be built in their place.”

“I hope we can build something beautiful from this, too.”

“You can’t forget who you are in the midst of this. And you’re not alone. You and Emmett are in this together. Lean on him. He wants to help. He wants to understand, best he can, because the truth is, we’ll never understand exactly what a woman who desperately wants to be a mother is going through, no matter how much we want that too.”

The unending love, the support, the strength that seems to flow from him right to me. “Firefly,” he murmurs against my lips, and I capture his mouth with mine, searing him with a promise, a heart that will always belong to him. “I love you,” I whisper, and my heart takes flight, a happy, fierce thrum in my chest, because it knows. There’s no one else for us but Emmett.

Warm blue eyes move over me, and I’m not sure if it’s his heartache or mine reflected in them.

But it’s me who’s afraid. Afraid of a life without him. One that’s never, ever felt like a possibility. Until now. I’ve failed him. Again, in so many ways. Taking the tests, looking at the blood results without him. Not being able to make a baby. Having a worthless fucking uterus that can’t do the one thing it’s supposed to do. I’ve failed him.

wraps me in a love so tender, so secure, and for the first time in my life … I’m not sure I’m worthy. When he shakes beneath me, when his tears mix with mine, soaking my neck, I shatter. And I cry out the only words I can seem to find. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I’m acutely aware that my only thoughts are about protecting her. Because this is breaking her. Crushing her. Fucking destroying her.

And I can’t sit back and watch it happen anymore. The truth of it is, none of it matters if I don’t have Cara. There’s no one else I’d do this with. It’s her or nothing, and it has been since the first night I saw her. And I … I’m not sure I even want a baby if it means potentially losing her.

“I hope your journey takes you wherever you want to go,

and I hope you find peace along the way.”

“I don’t want to be alone anymore, Emmett.”

And I … I just really need you, and you’re not here, and I feel so alone, and it’s not your fault, and I…I

“I don’t know how to do this without you.”

Feel what you need to feel. Just remember who you are through all of this. Don’t let anyone or anything steal that from you.”

I’m … scared. Scared of the procedure. Scared of the future. Scared of the state of my brain, and whether Emmett can love me enough for the both of us. Scared of whether my love will be enough for him.

“There will be a rainbow after our storm, too, Cara. I know it.”

This is our song. Me and him, together. Chest to chest, sunshine wrapped around my body, holding me close. The slow patter of his heart and mine as we sway to their rhythmic beat. His forehead pressed to mine, one hand gliding along my jaw, tilting my face to his. His breath, warm as it brushes my lips. The way it catches in his throat, right before he dips his mouth that last inch and steals a kiss that’s always belonged to him. Two people woven together, a tapestry of smiles and laughter, late-night whispered dreaming, coffee at the kitchen counter, me in nothing but his T-shirt and the marks his mouth left as the sun came up over the mountains. A leisurely dance we know by heart, tangling us together as one, the way we were always meant to be.

close my eyes and pray that our love is enough to will this baby into existence. That I’m not about to break my husband’s heart.

And I have never, ever loved anything the way I love my husband.

I’m the fucking problem. “What? Care, no. No, baby, you are not the problem.”

So I do it again, backing away from him as tears barrel down my cheeks and I end the call. “I’m the fucking problem. Me, Emmett.” He reaches for me, clenching his jaw when I swat him away. Tears build in those crushing blue eyes, and for the first time in my life, I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to fix his hurt, because I’m drowning in my own. I don’t know how to love him through this, because I don’t … I don’t know how to love myself through this.

I’ve never not known how to love myself.

Emmett would be better off without me.

How much longer do I get to live here? How long until it truly sets in that I can’t give him this? That someone else could? That he doesn’t … need me.

I’ve learned what surviving when you have no other choice looks like. I don’t want her to survive; I want her to live. But I don’t know how to bring her back from this. And that? That makes me a failure.

Smile. A real one. One that lights up your eyes, shows me you’re still alive. That I haven’t lost you.

wonder if she’ll ever really come home again.

“I’m done. My wife is the reason you had this job as long as you did. Convinced me to let you stay even after you started trying to take her place, tearing her down every chance you could get. Why? Because she has a huge heart. Fucking massive. And not that it’s any of your goddamn business, but that same selfless heart is the reason Cara would have no trouble loving a child that wasn’t biologically ours. She loves without limits, without fucking conditions. She loves people for who they are, exactly where they’re at, and that? That’s exactly why I love her. Baby or no baby, that woman is my goddamn wife. My family. And I won’t stand here and let you disrespect her.”

“No one else could give me even an ounce of what you do. You give me everything I could possibly need and more.”

The hardest part of this journey for me, by far, is watching her fall out of love with herself, with her brave heart, her incredible mind. And if that’s unbearable for me, what the hell is it like for her?

“We’ll get through anything. We always do.”

“I hate myself.”

hate myself,” she sobs, gripping her hair, eyes wild as they bounce around the room. “I hate this fucking body, for not working properly. I hate my fucking brain, every thought in my head that reminds me I’m a failure. I hate the jealousy, the way it makes me burn with rage to see everyone else get what we want so badly without having to go through even an ounce of the pain we do. I hate that I want people to feel the same pain.” Her fists tighten in her hair as she spins away. “God, what’s wrong with me? I don’t want anyone to go through this, but I’m so fucking tired of feeling alone in it.”

hate her because she’s right. I can’t give you what you want, Emmett. I can’t. And I don’t know how to live with that. I can’t live with that.”

have everything I could ever want. I have you. That’s all I need.” “It’s not enough. I’m not enough. Not for you, and”—she chokes out a sob, scrubbing at her raw eyes—“not for me.”

“You are always enough, Cara. Always.”

“Maybe I don’t want a baby anymore. Not if it means losing you along the way. Because, fuck, Cara, that’s what this feels like. Watching this wreak havoc on you, watching it fucking … kill you. Jesus, it feels like I’m watching every part of you slowly die, and I have to stand by and do nothing, because I don’t know how to fucking fix this.” I clutch my chest, my heart. If it would fix things, I’d tear it out myself. Offer it to Cara on a silver platter. “I don’t know how to do this anymore,” I admit on a desperate, broken plea. “I don’t, Cara. It’s killing you, and it’s fucking destroying me.”

That’s when I realize she’s leaving me.

give up the woman I’ve always been, and I accept that I don’t know who I am anymore. That I’ve lost myself. A future I’ve spent my life dreaming of.

There is never an end where love exists.”

“You are the only thing he’s ever wanted,”

“There is never an end where love exists.

We live with them because that love, the love that drove our lives to change, it never ceases to exist.”

“You deserve a future filled with love. You’ve got so much of it to give, and you give it so freely. There are