Fake Dating The Alpha Hockey Bad Boy

To all my girlies who had lost so much and learned how to survive alone. The ones who stopped trusting, the ones who stopped needing, the ones who said, “I can do it myself.”

I know.

So for the next few hours, you don't have to be strong.

You don't have to save yourself.

Let Vanessa do the surviving and let Axel do the chasing.

And you?

You just sit back, turn the page, and fall in love again. ❤️

.................................

Vanessa’s pov

"I'm sorry, Mrs Winslow, she didn't make it."

For a moment, I didn't understand what he meant.

I stare at the doctor standing at the foot of my daughter's bed, waiting for him to take the words back, because doctors were supposed to have answers and there had to be another answer for this. 

There has to be another medication, another procedure, another specialist we hadn't found yet, because I had spent the last eleven months hearing them say they didn't understand what was happening to her body, but they had never said there was nothing left to do.

"What do you mean?"

My voice comes out strangely calm.

"Her heart stopped about six minutes ago. We tried to resuscitate her."

I look at my daughter, Ivy.

She’s lying beneath the white hospital sheet with her eyes closed, her little face so peaceful.

I had just stepped out to get a snack from the cafeteria.

What’s he talking about? 

"Six minutes?"

"We did everything we could."

I shook my head. "No." I drop the pudding cup in my hand and walk to the bed, taking her hand into mine. “No.”

"Mrs Winslow..."

"No!” I keep shaking my head. “She was getting better. You saw it. She was getting better.”

The lie tastes bitter even as I said it.

She had never really been getting better.

For eleven months, every doctor had used careful words around me because nobody knew what was wrong with my daughter. Her organs would weaken without warning. Her temperature would rise and fall. Her wounds took too long to heal, yet sometimes she recovered from infections that should have killed her. Her blood tests never made sense. Specialists had flown in from other hospitals, and every one of them had eventually left me with another bill and the same helpless expression.

Unknown condition.

I rub her fingers between mine, trying to warm them. "Baby, wake up. Mama is here."

She didn't.

My knees buckle, and I catch myself against the side of the bed. "I told you we were going home." The words broke apart in my throat. "I told you we'd go home today."

I had promised her pancakes.

She had been asking for them for three days.

I pressed her hand against my cheek. "I'll make you all the pancakes in the world. The ones you like. The ones with too much syrup." My breath shudders. "Please."

The doctor and nurses quietly left the room.

I stayed. I don't know how long. But when I finally sign all the necessary paperworks and walk out of the hospital, the world looks exactly the same.

How could everyone keep living when my daughter had just died?

And where is Harry? 

Where is he?

I have been dialing his number and he hasn’t been picking up.

I drive home, my fingers numb against the steering wheel, tears running down my face. I need Harry. I need him to hold me. I need somebody to tell me I’m not alone. I open our apartment door and the first thing I smell is perfume.

Not mine.

I stopped with one hand still on the door.

There are boxes blocking the entrance.

My boxes.

“Harry?” I shout, stepping inside and shutting the door behind me. 

There were two wine glasses on the kitchen counter and his shoes were beside the sofa. A woman's handbag rests on the dining chair. I hear laughter from the bedroom and walk towards it but Harry appears before I reach it.

He’s wearing only a pair of boxers, his hair messy.

"Nessa. You weren't supposed to come home yet."

I stare at him. Is he being serious? “Where have you been? I have been calling your number. Ivy….” My voice breaks as I reach for him. “She died, Harry. Our baby is gone.”

He moves back and my hands fall away.

“I know. The doctor called me. We both knew she wasn’t going to make it.”

My body freezes and the tears dry up. “What?” Behind him, I catch a glimpse of a woman's bare shoulder before she disappears from sight just as I remember the handbag on the table. “Who is in there with you?” I try to push into the room but he blocks me. “Harry, what’s going on?”

He runs his hand through his head. "I've been meaning to talk to you."

"Talk to me?" My hands began trembling. "About what?"

He looked at me for several seconds. "I'm no longer attracted to you, Nessa. Just look at you. You have let yourself go.”

For a moment, I can't believe what I’m hearing. I look down at myself. My clothes are loose around my body because grief had already taken weight from me. My hair is pulled into a careless knot and I know I look like I haven’t slept in months because I haven’t, but how is that relevant right now?

"I stopped taking care of myself because our daughter was dying. Our daughter just died, Harry.” I reach for him again but he avoids it. “What are you doing? We’re supposed to—“

“I never wanted a baby,” his voice rises. “You wanted her. The doctors told you she was too sickly but you wanted to keep her anyway. I allowed it because it made you happy. But I’m done. I have moved on and it’s better you do the same.” He gestures to the doorway. “I packed all your things. Find a new apartment.”

Every word he says is like a stab to my heart. The tears are flowing now as I try to recall when things fell apart to this extent. 

Has he ever loved me or our daughter?

I look past him just as the lady with him steps into view with my robe wrapped around her. 

Our twenty one year old neighbor.

I have been spending nights in the hospital while he has been sleeping with our neighbor. I had been by our daughter's side while he had been moving on with his life. And I was so full of grief to see it.

At that moment, I’m too weak to even ask or fight.

"Nessa, don't make this harder than it needs to be."

I almost laughed.

Harder?

I just watched my child die.

There is nothing left in me for him to make harder.

I look around the apartment one last time.

Our photographs were gone from the walls. My life had been packed into boxes while I was sitting beside our dying child. I don’t remember getting the boxes into my car. All I remember is sitting in the driver's seat, looking at the passing cars as I think of my baby. 

About all the pancakes I will never make.

I think of my husband standing in our apartment with another woman.

I never wanted a baby

That was all he could say.

That was all the bastard could say.

I wipe away the tears from my face and start the car.

That was the last time I ever cried.