What He Left Behind Part III
Read Parts I and II
WARNING THIS IS WHERE THE TRIGGER WARNING COMES IN.
“Will you marry me?” Are four words you were not expecting to come out of Michael’s mouth. Not while you were in sweatpants, heating up some ravioli in the kitchen on one random September night. You had spent hardly any time together in the past month. Michael had just gotten a promotion at his office and you understood. You really did. He worked hard. But you turned around to Michael looking at you, stars in his eyes. “Excuse me” is all you can conjure before you see Michael jog into your bedroom. “Michael! What the fuck you can’t just–” you call as you follow him. You stop when you see him rummaging in his end table and pull out a small velvet box. “Michael…” You warn before he has time to drop to his knee “I had this all planned” he starts “next week. We were going to go to that cute little place upstate you love. The one we went on our first trip. I was even going to get the same room. I was going to set up a scavenger hunt for you. Kinda. It sounds cheesy now. I just. Fuck. I love you. A lot. And. I couldn’t wait? I didnt want to? Or it slipped out. I can take it ba–” before he can finish his word you move down to him and kiss him hard on the mouth. Michaels pulls away “So is that a maybe?” “Shut up” you smirk before kissing your fiancé. Before you know it your yes turns to touches that turns to more yeses and moans and declarations of love. You wake up the next morning next to your fiancé, wearing nothing but his work shirt and a ring on your left hand, and everything feels right.
You are brought out of your recollection long enough to hear one of Mikeys, well now your, coworkers ask you your plans for the weekend. Once you got past the second trimester it was hard to work long nights at the bar, or even any shift at the bar, especially when you either got shafted on tips because you weren’t a size two or hit on by guys equally sleazy as the people who didn’t tip you. After calling all of Michael’s old friends to see if any of them could track him down you let it slip to his coworker that you were working for two he said he would “see what he could do” and that’s how you started working here, at Michael’s old office as a receptionist. You’ve always hated hand outs and being pitied, and you still weren’t a huge fan of the job, but it paid the bills and the medical coverage was amazing, so you weren’t in a place to turn it down.
It was the end of the day and you went to go get the incoming mail, sort it to its rightful owner and then you could go home and watch a few hours of HGTV before passing out from a long work week. After sorting you came across an envelope addressed to a name that made your blood run cold. You weren’t sure if it was pregnancy brain. Or. Friday delusions. But there it was, written in black and white. An envelope to Michael Clifford, with the return address reading “Hudson Cancer Center”