Yellow Tulips

I had assumed it was my period. Heavy cramping, numbed by painkillers, with bleeding so strong it stained my favourite pair of jeans. Just the everlasting part of being a woman. After a few days, though, my period would gradually get easier, and in a week disappear into nonexistence again. That time, it was the opposite.

After class, I ran to the university restroom. The cramps were getting unbearable and no pills would help anymore. Sitting down on the toilet seat, gripping the walls with both hands, trying not to crumble down to the floor, I began pushing, as if there was something inside my stomach demanding to get out.

When it did, the pain eased. An ache in my chest replaced it.

As my hands started shaking, I reached for the phone in my pocket.

“Anders... something's wrong,” I said, my voice trembling, too, as I looked down at the blood stained toilet.

Something really was there in my stomach.

No longer.

***

The rational part of my brain moved on quickly. I didn't even know I was pregnant. We weren't in a place where we could keep the baby. We were young, unprepared, figuring ourselves out. We were still kids ourselves, in a way.

When Anders returned home from a training camp later that week, I greeted him at the airport with a bouquet of yellow tulips. It was a small tradition we had started; last time, I had brought him white ones. They had brought him joy, something he needed in his life. The training season hadn't been kind to him, with multiple illnesses and a shoulder injury, and I felt guilty for adding another burden to his already full plate.

We went ice skating, we went bowling, I tried to have fun; but on the way back home, the rational walls I was trying to build fell down.

We were walking down the busy streets, passing moms with strollers, little kids playing with autumn leaves, their laugh echoing in my head. As if there came a sudden baby boom just to rub the loss in my face. I imagined myself among them. In half a year, I could have been one of them.

Tears blurred my view, but I quickly managed to wipe them off on my sleeve before Anders could notice anything.

My grandma would often tease me about marriage and children, I insisted such life wasn't for me, to which she'd reply that I'm going to change my mind one day.

“Never,” I used to think.

Then I met Anders, and something shifted.

I saw the little bloody sac in the restroom, and something shifted again.

I wanted a baby. I wanted his baby so badly. I had the chance to have it, and then had that chance taken away, completely out of my control.

That was the thing that angered me the most: the powerlessness. The fact that I didn't recognize the pregnancy symptoms that now seemed obvious. The fake scenarios in my head. The belief that, somehow, all of this could've turned out differently.

But here I was, all alone in this struggle, my hands resting on my empty stomach.

I tried to tell myself again that it didn’t matter. That I didn't even know. That I wasn't ready.

But none of it made the pain go away.

***

Our first class on Thursday morning was English. Mrs. Farrell was explaining conditional clauses; something I should have been paying attention to. But lectures, exams, everything related to university seemed distant. In half a year, I would have become a mother. I should have. I won't.

Everything was pointless.

“Lila, are you okay?”

I heard Mrs. Farrell's voice quietly, like through a fog. And just as I looked around the classroom, I noticed everyone else had left and the lecture had ended.

“Of course,” I replied, abruptly packing all my stuff. “I'm sorry, I'll be gone in a minute.”

“That's not what I meant. You don't seem like yourself lately.”

“I'm fine. Just tired.”

It was 9 a.m., the sun lazily began to crawl on the horizon, I was already on my second cup of coffee and Mrs. Farrell knew about my bitterness towards early mornings.

“It's something else, isn't it?”

Apart from Anders, she was my closest person at university; she saw through my lies way too easily. There was no point in lying more.

“I... I miscarried.”

“Oh, Lila. I'm so sorry to hear that.”

“I didn't even know I was pregnant until it happened. I wouldn't be ready. I would have to suspend my studies. And yet...”

“And yet it hurts.”

“I didn't even realise how much I wanted it until it was gone.”

“Your feelings matter, Lila. Even if it wasn't planned. Even if you didn't know. Your loss is real.” Her words echoed in my mind. “What about Anders, does he know?”

I nodded. “He knows it happened. But I don't want to burden him with more.”

“You might not, but he is definitely struggling, too.”

How can you tell? I wanted to ask, until I realised she teaches us both. Sometimes it feels like she knows us better than we do.

“But he's acting so... normal.”

“I think you should talk to him, Lila.”

Mrs. Farrell opened the door for me and pushed me to the hallway, like a little bird out of a nest. And I needed the push. I walked out of the university building, letting the tears flow down my face after hiding them for so long. In the sunny morning, my eyes rained for the little angel I had lost.

***

When I came to our apartment later that day, Anders had already finished training. He was sitting on the sofa, focused on the laptop in his lap, the music in his headphones blocking any noise from the outside world. He didn't notice me until I sat right next to him.

“Lila,” he greeted me with a worried look. He closed his laptop and took the headphones off. “Were you crying?”

And just as those words left his mouth, the tears came back in.

Anders pulled me close and stroked my hair. I didn't know how much I needed it, not until I got lost in his warmth.

“I just... miss it,” I whispered to his chest. “I miss what could've been.”

“Love...”

“I know what you're thinking; that I should get over it, focus on school, we wouldn't get to keep it anyway, you'd tell me to have an abortion...”

“Do you really think I'd do that?”

His embrace loosened and I bowed my head. Of course he wouldn't. But it would have been the obvious solution. I wouldn't get to become a mother anyway, maybe I should be grateful that it ended on its own.

Anders let out a shaky breath. “I actually keep thinking about what could've been... every day.”

“You do?”

“I think about how we'd have to rearrange the apartment, get a crib and everything, and how you'd bring a new life to this world. A tiny human, with tiny hands, who would call us mom and dad... It's silly, isn't it?”

“No, it's not. I keep imagining things, too. Things like... myself with a big bump... at graduation... and then I touch my belly and there's nothing.”

“Lila... why haven't you said anything?” Anders said, reaching for both of my hands.

“You haven't, either.”

“I wanted to be strong, for you.”

“But you don't have to, you know? I don't want to live with an emotionless robot.”

“I'm not one. Lila, You don't have to carry this alone. We will grieve and we will get through it, together,” he promised, and I believed him.

***

For weeks, the yellow tulips I had given Anders at the airport sat at the windowsill, bending under the weight of time. Their vibrant colour had faded into a pale shadow, yet I couldn't bring myself to throw them away. They were more than just flowers; every time I walked past them, they felt like a spark of hope in all that darkness.

One night, we went to the river. The moon and the stars shimmered on the water's surface, and the gentle murmur of the waves filled the cold night air. Anders sat beside me on the riverbank, his hand resting on my shoulders, as I held the bouquet in my trembling hands. It was time to let them go.

We knelt by the river and let the tulips drift into the current, watching them until they disappeared downstream.

Anders didn't say anything, and neither did I. There was nothing left to say.

For the first time in weeks, my chest felt lighter. Not healed; I wasn’t sure it could ever be fully healed. But it felt lighter, like I could breathe again.

As we walked away, hand in hand, I glanced back one last time. On the far side of the river, I saw a tiny figure, surrounded by a soft, radiant light, holding a bouquet of yellow tulips in their small hands. The pain didn't go away, perhaps it never will. But maybe we didn't lose everything. Somewhere, we had gained a guardian angel.