Page 3 of Angel
How to increase implantation success.
Article after article. Forum after forum.
Women who tried longer, who tried harder, and cut out caffeine, sugar, dairy, and gluten. Those who swore by pineapple cores, warm socks, and not standing up too fast.
Control.That’s what this is about. If I can control my body, maybe it won’t betray me again. I downloaded an app. Then another. Cycle tracking. Basal body temperature monitoring. Ovulation prediction.
I order vitamins I’ve never heard of but swear by anyway.
Magnesium
CoQ10.
Folate.
Iron.
Vitamin D.
If there’s something I can do, I’ll do it. I prop myself up carefully and take my temperature, recording it in the app. Same time every night. Same position. Same method.
Routine.
Data.
Proof.
Angel shifts beside me.
“You okay, baby?” he mumbles, half asleep.
“Yeah,” I whisper quickly. “Just tired.”
He hums softly and pulls me closer, his hand settling possessively at my hip. I lie there stiff in his arms, staring at the glow of my phone screen. Already planning meals. Cutting outcaffeine. Sugar. Alcohol.Anything that might make this my fault again.
I don’t tell him about the apps. About the supplements. About the circled dates already forming in my head. Because if I say it out loud, it becomes real. And if it becomes real, then failing again will hurt even worse. So, I keep it to myself. Andsomewhere between the steam and the silence and the glowing screen in the dark…
Something inside me shifts. I stop grieving and start trying. Obsessively. Desperately. Like if I just want it badly enough, control every variable, and become disciplined enough, then my body will finally listen.
And this time… It won’t let go.
Chapter Two
Angel
You learn early in this life how to spot damage. Bent metal. Leakin’ oil. Blood on asphalt. The kind of hurt that shows itself loud and fast, demandin’ attention before it kills you.
You see it in the way a bike wobbles when the frame’s off, a man walks after he’s taken one too many hits, and a prospect flinches before a fight, he swears he ain’t scared of. Damage is usually obvious.
Stevie’s ain’t. It’s quiet, and that scares the fuck outta me. She doesn’t cry anymore, doesn’t throw shit across the room or slam doors or break down in the shower where she thinks I can’t hear her. That first miscarriage? She shattered. Second? She sobbed into my chest like the world had ended. This time…. she went still, not numb but focused, and that’s worse. Focused meansenergy and direction, and she’s pointed that grief somewhere. And I’m not sure I like where.
She wakes up early now, before me, and slips outta bed like she doesn’t wanna disturb me, even though she used to crawl on top of me and steal my warmth like it was her birthright. Used to wake me up with kisses down my chest and a grin that made me forget I’d ever bled for anything.
Now, when I wake up, her side of the bed is cold, sheets smooth, and pillow undented. I find her in the kitchen most mornings. Already dressed, hair tied back tight with a tablet open, her phone in hand. That little black notebook she keeps tucked in the junk drawer spread out like a war map. Steam curls from a mug that ain’t coffee with the smoothie blender humming. Vitamins lined up in her cupboard like ammo.
I stand in the doorway and watch her sometimes before she realizes I’m there.Temp, cycle, ovulation, and supplements.I catch the words upside down when she flips the notebook closed too slowly. She eats differently now. No caffeine, no sugar, no bacon at the diner with the guys and me on Saturdays, and the late-night burgers when we don’t feel like cooking have stopped. Just green shit that smells like dirt and discipline.
I try not to say anything, don’t wanna be the man who tells his woman how to grieve. But I don’t know how to help when grief turns into somethin’ sharp. We make love like it’s a job now.Scheduled. Timed. There’s a window. A fertile one.She knows the days down to the hour.
