Their Beautiful Broken Queen

Tulip Warning! This chapter talks about pregnancy loss. My name is Tulip Ivy Sterling, and I am 23 years old. My life has been one big trial of ups and downs. And I have to say, there have been more downs than ups. Especially over the last few years. And it has been so hard. Harder than what I had thought that my life would be after I turned eighteen. Before I turned eighteen, I was used to having a hard life. When I was first born, I had a loving family. I had a mom and two dads, and three brothers. And we were all one big happy family, or so I thought. When I was ten, something happened to cause my parents to split up. I never did find out what happened to cause it. All I knew was that the boys and I had to go and have DNA tests done to find out which of us belonged to my dad, Sean. Unfortunately for me, I was the only one that the test showed belonged to him. So, I had to spend every weekend at his house with him. And most of my breaks from school were spent at his house. I hated it. He was always very abusive to me, and it was mentally and emotionally most of the time. When he only had me on the weekends, he would stick to mentally and emotionally abusing me. But when I had to spend a longer amount of time with him, it would get physical. He would beat me and lock me in a closet for hours at a time, sometimes for days. Once I turned eighteen, I stopped having anything to do with him. I wouldn't call him or go and see him. Hell, I moved to South Carolina for college just to get far away from him. And it was also to get me away from my family. They knew that something was going on, but I would never tell them what was what because of the threats that he made to me. I couldn't have him hurting my family. So I stayed quiet to protect them. But at the same time, I made sure that I got proof of the abuse that he put me through. I have videos and pictures that show what he was doing to me. I had it all on my phone in one folder that only I could get into. But I also had a backup jump drive that had it all on it as well. And it was tucked away in a safe place. When I moved to SC, I settled into the dorm life at first and worked on getting my degree. At first, all I did was go to class and study. But then I took a weekend off to go explore the town that I was living in. The college that I was in was close to the military base. So while I was out exploring, I happened to run into someone I knew. Shadow was a member of the Reapers Warriors MC. The same club that my family was members of. He also happened to be the guy that I had crushed on for years. He joined the military when he was eighteen, and I had barely seen him since then. So, running into him was a blessing for me. I was using public transportation since freshmen were not allowed to have cars. And I was going around to see the different sights and take pictures. For one of my art classes, the professor wanted us to get out and explore and find something that had meaning to us, and take a picture of it. So as I was walking around, I spotted Shadow and went to say hi. He had the day off and was out riding his bike. When he heard what I was doing and that I was riding the bus to do it, he offered to take me around and show me some places. I was excited because he had never let a woman on the back of his bike before. I remember one time when I was younger, when he took me for a ride. But as far as I knew, no one else had ever been on his bike. That day was the start of our relationship. Whenever he was home from a tour, we would spend time together. When I was allowed to have a car my sophomore year, my brother brought mine out to me. So I had it to drive back and forth with. I would spend most nights with Shadow at his house. Everything had been going great with us. I loved him and loved spending time with him. I knew everything that there was to know about him. Including the fact that he was bi. And it didn't bother me; if anything, it turned me on. Shadow had a short tour that he had to do, which only lasted two months before he came home to get ready for a longer one. The next one was going to last for a year, maybe more. And he wouldn't be able to have any contact with me for that time. I was used to that, so I knew what to expect. While he was gone on the short tour, I thought that I had caught a stomach bug because I kept getting sick. And with school, I didn't think anything else about it. When Shadow came home, we spent what time we could together before he had to leave again. I knew that I was going to miss him like crazy. About a month after he left for his tour, I was on my way to school when I was in a car accident. Some drunk driver hit me head-on, and thankfully, it didn't kill me. But there were other losses in that accident. When I finally came to at the hospital, it was to find out that not only was I pregnant, but they had to deliver the baby, and they weren't sure if he would make it. He was in the NICU in an incubator, and they were doing everything that they could to save him. In the end, because I was only five months pregnant, he wasn't developed enough to make it out of the womb. And I held that tiny one-pound baby as he took his last breath. I named him Gabriel Waylon Gibson Sterling. I wanted to name him after Shadow. And since we weren't married, and he wasn't here, I couldn't give him Shadow's last name. So, I added it as a second middle name. It was the best that I could do at the time. The other loss that I had at that time, when I woke up, I was missing both of my legs. The crash had pushed the front of the car up, and it crushed my legs. By the time the fire department was able to get me out, it was too late to save my legs. Pieces of the car had cut into both legs, and they had to put tourniquets on them to save what they could. So now, I'm missing most of my legs. After losing my son and my legs, I wasn't the same person anymore. I had to go through physical therapy, and I had to go see a psychiatrist. It took a toll on my mental state, and at one point, I was ready to kill myself. I knew that I wouldn't be able to stay at Shadow's place because of the stairs. And I needed to be close to the hospital. So, I got a first-floor apartment and moved out of the dorms with help from my friends. They even helped me go to Shadow's place to pack up the stuff that I had there. And that was another blow to the gut. With my mental state already as bad as it was, it was made even worse by going there. While we were packing my stuff up, there was a knock on the door. Since I stayed here when Shadow was gone, and he knew it, I went and answered the door. Of course, I was in a wheelchair, so when I answered, the person on the other side had to look down. I wasn't expecting some girl who was about nine months pregnant to answer the door. But that was who was on the other side. She was looking for Shadow and tried to claim that her kid belonged to him. I knew better because he wasn't even in town when she claimed that she got pregnant. But she still tried to tell me it was his. I kicked her off the property and told her not to come back. Because I knew that he didn't cheat on me and that he wasn't even in town when she said she got pregnant. I also let her know that if she continued to make false claims that he would get a DNA test done and then file charges against her. She left not long after that. After that little visit, I knew that I was going to need time to work on myself. Seeing her pregnant with her baby safe in her stomach was so damn hard. I know that I didn't know about my baby until it was too late. I'm happy that I got to see him and hold him, but it's still hard as hell now that he is gone. And all I have left of him is a necklace and a little urn of ashes. After we got my stuff that day, I left a note for Shadow telling him about the girl claiming her kid was his. I also told him that something had happened, and I just needed some time. I knew that he would be pissed at me for leaving him. But at the time, I thought that it was the right thing to do. And I knew him, when he found out what happened, he'd want to leave the military to take care of me, and I wasn't going to let that happen. So I left, and I continued on with the physical therapy and with seeing my psychiatrist. And after talking to the dean at my college, I was able to transfer my classes for the first few months online. After that, I went back to class and managed to graduate on time. I didn't have to worry about working because my insurance and lawyer sued the drunk driver, and I won. Of course, he made it through the accident, and he had barely a scratch on him. Turns out that the guy was some trust fund rich kid. And he had been out partying and decided to drive drunk. After what happened, I walked away with a lot of money. More than what the insurance and my lawyer were trying to get me. The guy's parents were devastated when they heard what had happened to me, and the fact that I lost my baby and my legs. He got a lot of jail time for it, and his parents cut him off as well. Turns out, that it wasn't the first accident that he caused. Mine just happened to be the worst. No one in my family knew about what happened. I made excuses every time they wanted to come see me, or they wanted me to come home. I didn't want them to see how broken that I was. And I was broken. For the first few months, none of my friends would leave me alone. Someone was always with me. Eventually, I started to get better, but it took time. And a lot of therapy. But I was able to slowly start to feel like myself again. Of course, getting my prosthetics and being able to walk again was a big part of that. A year after the accident, I was walking pretty good on the prosthetics. And by the time that I graduated from college, I was walking like normal again. So when my mom, Daddy Boulder, and my brothers came to my graduation, they weren't able to tell that my legs were fake. And I planned to keep it that way for as long as possible. After graduation, I decided to move to New York with one of my closest friends. She got a good job up there, and I wasn't ready to go back home yet. Going back home meant dealing with my family, and my dad Sean and I wasn't ready for that. I've already had to deal with a few voicemails from him because he's pissed that I didn't invite him to graduation. I didn't want to see him. And honestly, I wonder if he's even really my dad. I think that he somehow got the tests switched. Because I look more like my Daddy Boulder, just like the boys do. I spent the next year in New York with my friend, working and making a name for myself. I had always loved to design clothes, and that's what I started doing. I was even thinking of opening my own business. But I didn't want to do that anywhere except for back home. So I worked under another designer, getting experience and learning from them. But eventually, the real world came calling, and I had to go back home. I was needed back there, and as much as I didn't want to, it was time to go back. I wasn't ready to face what was waiting for me, but I knew that I had to. Wish me luck.