The doctors and nurses had given them phone numbers and details of grief counsellors and groups. Little pieces of paper pressed into his hands. Paper instead of...
His mind shielded itself.
They made it to the lift, up to the apartment and through the door into a place that screamed at them of a future that they no longer had. They’d made plans here, they’d made a future here, they’d made and lost a baby here, and it was all too much.
‘Let’s go. We can stay at a hotel for a while,’ he decided.
As if he hadn’t even spoken, Mason left his side and walked slowly over to the chessboard. Sinking down to the sofa, she reached out to the present she’d given him and clutched it in her hands. The little Knight piece, completely different from the rest of the set.
The piece with the name of the child they would have had.
His heart too full of unnameable emotions, Danyl’s quick mind went to practicalities. Perhaps they should go away for a while. Somewhere new, somewhere to regather themselves. They could be on a jet within the hour, taking them far away from here. But, looking at Mason, he just didn’t know if that was what she wanted.
He felt helpless. So helpless. And it scared him, cut him deep.
Since leaving the hospital he had tried to provide comfort, tried to talk, but she had retreated into a shell, unable or unwilling to communicate. And he understood, he felt the pull to do the same. He wanted to curl in on himself, but he couldn’t. He needed to be strong. For her. For himself.
Danyl hadn’t realised that he was pacing. It was only when Mason looked up at him, and he saw the change in her face, the determination in her eyes, that he felt the stirrings of something he’d wanted to reject, avoid, deny ever since they’d left the hospital.
‘Let’s go away,’ he said, forestalling the words Mason was struggling with. He knew what they would be. He knew they would hurt, they would damage and wreak a havoc he just wasn’t willing to face. ‘We can go to...’ he said, searching for a place she might have always wanted to go to and realised he wouldn’t have been able to name it. They hadn’t spoken about such things. It had all happened so fast. But he’d been okay with that. He knew. He knew because he loved her, and he knew she was about to...
‘No.’
* * *
Mason could almost hear his mind whirring. She became aware of an ache in the palm of her hand and when she opened it she was half surprised to find the small stone figure of the Knight indented on her skin.
She wanted to be alone, but she also wanted him wrapped around her and to never leave. She wanted to pretend that the last few hours had never happened. That they were still within a bubble where all thought, all sanity had somehow been excluded. She’d lost her child, her job...what on earth did she have to offer Danyl now apart from grief?
All those childish fantasies of going to Ter’harn and marrying the Prince...the silly fears of whether she would fit in, whether she would be able to be his Queen... They all now just seemed foolish and impossible. Her cheeks flamed with grief and pain as she remembered the words his senior advisor had uttered in this room.
‘You have become infatuated with a silly little girl who wanted to play jockey and couldn’t, so she drugged a horse, and that horse is now...’
Her mind shied away from the word, stumbling over and falling to the hard ground. There was a rational part of her that knew she wasn’t ready to make decisions, that knew she wasn’t ready for anything other than sleep that would numb her mind and take her far away from the waking nightmare of the day. But if she didn’t do this now, she might never have the strength to do it.
Her mother had walked away from her and her father when she was a child. But could Mason honestly say that she’d be happy to tie Danyl to her in the absence of one? Soldering their lives together with a silver seam of grief was surely an even worse reason to stay together.
‘We could go anywhere in the world. Let’s just—’
‘No. Danyl, it’s time we saw this for—’
‘Don’t finish that sentence. I don’t want to argue with you.’
‘I’m not arguing with you. I’m telling you. There’s no need for you to be bound to me any longer. I’m not...’ She struggled to force the words out, knowing the pain they would cause, knowing that they would cast their future in stone. ‘I’m not carrying your child any longer.’
‘Mason, please—’
‘Let’s face it,’ Mason said, desperately searching for all the reasons they shouldn’t be together, ‘this was only ever a fling that got out of hand. I could never be your wife! Look at me. Even your advisors think so.’
Mason couldn’t even look him in the eye. Each excuse, each word, though somehow right, was like ash on her tongue. How could something be both truth and lie at the same time? His body was shadowed by the light of the sun creeping over Central Park. A new day arriving to erase the last four months...
Danyl had yet to say anything, but he was practically vibrating with emotions, emotions coming right at her, clashing with the ones already swirling inside her.
When he did speak, it nearly broke her.
‘Please don’t do this. Please. Give us some time. We shouldn’t be making any decisions right now.’
‘There’s no point, Danyl. I’m... I’m going to go back home to Australia for a bit,’ Mason said, realising the truth of her needs. She hadn’t thought it once, but the moment she said it she knew it was where she needed to be.