Damage Repaired

Chapter 13

"I wasn't always this prim and proper," Ezra began. "I partied a lot, drank, did typical childish things you do when you're young. But then, nine years ago, my girlfriend and I found out she was pregnant. I was twenty-five, and she was twenty-two, but I guess she wasn't ready to settle down and be a mother because as soon as she gave birth, she left us. My entire life had changed in the blink of an eye. I went from planning to ask the mother of my soon-to-be child to marry and move in with me to suddenly becoming a single dad."

He cleared his throat and shifted forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Trying to take care of a newborn while heartbroken and trying to build a company at the same time was one of the hardest things I went through, but eventually it got easier the older Eli got."

Ezra pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly going quiet, but I patiently waited for him to continue. "Eli had just turned two a few months ago. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I took him to the park that day to play; going down the slide was his favorite thing to do," Ezra chuckled at the faint memory. "Eli wanted me to watch him slide down because he was a big boy now and could do it by himself, but I was on the phone with my business partner. We had just gotten our first contract, so we were hashing out the details when I told Eli to go and that I'd be watching. But I—"

Ezra curled his hand into a fist and slammed it against his other palm. "I turned around for one second," he held a finger up. "One fucking second, and when I turned back around, he was on the ground holding his head. I rushed over to him and asked what happened, and he told me he hit his head on the ground after sliding down. He wasn't even crying; he was smiling and told me it was okay because he was strong like daddy."

Ezra's voice broke on the last word, and my chest tightened.

"We went home immediately after that and watched Cars, his favorite movie; then I put him down for a nap. When it was time for dinner, I went into his room to wake him up, and that's when I saw he wasn't breathing. I immediately rushed him to the hospital, and the doctors told me he had suffered a massive brain bleed and that there was nothing they could do because it was too late; he was already gone."

My soul completely broke for him, and tears suddenly blurred my vision.

"The day you found me like that," Ezra continued sucking in a deep breath. "Was Eli's birthday."

My gut wrenched as guilt settled in my chest. "I am so sorry," I whispered, tears slowly trickling down my face.

He spent the last week mourning his son while I spent it trying to forget I even met him. Yet he trusted me enough to tell me his story and I felt honored knowing he saw me as a person he could be vulnerable around and lean on during hard times like now.

"If I didn't answer that goddamn phone, he would've—"

"Don't do that, Ezra," I whispered, getting off the couch to kneel between his legs. I cupped his giant face in my hands, forcing him to look at me. A trail of tears slipped down his face, and I brushed them away with the pads of my thumbs. "That was not your fault; you were a single father doing the best you could to provide for your child. Like you said, it was only a fucking second, so whether you were sitting down on the bench watching him or had your back turned, it only took a second for him to hit his head."

"I should've taken him to the hospital right away—"

"Ezra, you didn't know any better. You were still learning how to be a parent, and he said he felt fine. You couldn't have known it would've led to that." I climbed on his lap and looped my arm around his neck, and he immediately wrapped his arms around my waist, burying his face in my chest. "No parent should have to go through this. The pain of losing a child is fucking unbearable. There are days when you think the only way to escape the misery is death because you feel so fucking guilty that you're still living when your child wasn't granted the same opportunity. You feel this emptiness and loneliness that never goes away. But some days you get lucky, and you're able to smile and feel a little bit of happiness, then there are days where everything reminds you of them, of the loss, and it's devastating. You feel like you're fucking drowning, and no matter how loud you scream out for help, no one hears you, no one's there to help you, and you're back feeling like you want to escape. It's an endless fucking cycle of grief, and it makes me wonder if it truly gets better over time or if that's just some fucked up thing people say in an attempt to alleviate the pain as if they ever could."

I didn't realize how much I said until I looked down and found Ezra gazing up at me, realization settling in his eyes as he took in my personal words. There was no way I'd be able to pinpoint every emotion the way I did unless I went through the unbearable agony myself, and he knew that.

"Ana," he breathed, his voice filled with pain, pain for me. But I didn't want him to feel sorry for me. What I went through didn't even compare to what he went through. He built a life with his child, whereas I didn't even know the gender of mine.

"Do you have any pictures of him?" I changed the subject before he could piece everything together.

Ezra nodded and reached for the picture frame beside him that I didn't see until now. The same picture frame he was gripping when I showed up on his doorstep a week ago. In the photo, Ezra was at a park sitting on the grass, smiling. His hair was much shorter, and beside him was a cheesing toddler who was the spitting image of him: dark hair, emerald green eyes, and a bright smile.

My heart ached.

"He's beautiful," I whispered.

"This was our last picture together," Ezra revealed, his voice breaking as tears flowed down his face again.

There was nothing I could say that would take away his pain; I knew that first hand, so I stayed silent and held him tight, giving him a shoulder to cry on, letting him release all of the pent-up emotions. I don't know how long we stayed there, comforting each other. It's not everyday you find someone who shares your pains. Someone who knows how to feels to literally lose a part of yourself—of your soul.

"How long ago?" Ezra finally spoke again, breaking the silence.

"It doesn't matter," I whispered, not wanting to take the attention away from him and his son. "I only knew I was...for a few hours, and then by the end of the night, I wasn't, so it doesn't even begin to compare to what—"

"Stop," his voice came out harsh as he gripped my jaw, forcing me to look into his blazing green eyes. "There is nothing to fucking compare, Ana. Your loss is just as great as mine; your grief is just as valid as mine. Don't belittle yourself and what you went through. Whether you knew for five minutes or five months, you knew you were going to have a baby, and then you didn't; I had a beautiful, healthy son and now I fucking don't. We both lost a piece of ourselves, so don't think for a second that you don't deserve to grieve as much as I do or what you went through wasn't as traumatizing as what I went through because they're the same and I'm so fucking sorry you experienced this too."

Tears spilled down my face. "Thank you," I whispered once he released my jaw, letting me bury my head in the crook of his neck. "And thank you for letting me in."

Ezra's hand rubbed my back soothingly. "No, thank you for being such a strong extraordinary woman Ana, I'm glad I stalked you at that club."

I laughed softly, lifting my head to look at him, our lips brushing. "So am I."

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A/N: Birthday Post PT.2 🥳 also thank you guys for the birthday wishes I love you!! 💕