by Julie Bailes
“Listen, she just wants to be with her daughter. There has to be something you can do to get her in there,” I plead.
“I wish we could, honestly. But, we can’t. There’s a patient in there who’s having emergency surgery. Letting her in could be harmful to the patient, infections and such. We just can’t. I’m sorry.” The duo ushers us out the doors, making sure they’re securely shut before turning back and disappearing behind another set of doors that lead into the OR.
“Are you sure that’s Allie in there? You said she was having surgery? For what?” Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if she’s positive that it’s Allie on that operating table, I’ll find a way to get to her.
“They didn’t tell me all the details. They called me because I’m her emergency contact. They said she’d been in a car wreck, and they were delivering the babies, but they didn’t tell me why.”
There’s only one person I know who can help me get to her, and I hate to ask him for a damn thing, but I know he’ll help me if it has anything to do with Allie. The last time he called Allie; I took down his number and saved it in my contacts. I scroll down until I see ‘Douche Dick’ and hit send. My call goes directly to voicemail. I try several times, but it happens with each call.
“Well, we obviously aren’t getting through those doors. Let’s go back down to the ER and see if I can’t find out some more information,” Lucille advises. I help her off the floor; she leads and I follow. When we emerge from the elevator, Lucille gets attacked by a weeping woman. The waiting room’s empty except for this woman, who’s squeezing the life out of Lucille, the middle-aged man standing behind her, and a guy I had to do a double-take on—he freakishly resembles Blake. The women hold each other and sob uncontrollably. “Where’s Blake?” Lucille heaves. The woman covers her mouth and shakes her head.
The man behind her pipes up. “He’s having some sort of scan on his brain.” His voice is strangled. As I examine them, I see the resemblance; they’re his family, which explains his twin on steroids. “When they brought him in, he was unconscious. Where’s Allie? Please, tell me they’re okay?”
Lucille sucks in a breath and attempts to dry her tears. “She’s alive. They’re doing the Caesarean, right now. She’s by herself, Aken,” she sobs. The woman I assume to be Blake’s mother almost crashes to the floor, but her husband catches her before she collides with the concrete tiles.
We all take a seat and just wait, something I became accustomed to several months ago when Allie was here the first time. As Lucille reads, I pace the floor and begin to feel myself on the verge of losing control. I listen to her retell the story of how the accident happened. The officers assumed Blake was driving the speed limit, somewhere around sixty miles per hour, and slammed into a drunk driver who ran a red light. Allie’s car T-boned the other car. The impact was so hard, Allie’s car flipped over the other one, rolling several times before it was stopped by a guardrail. By this point, my blood is boiling. I listen as she reads how Blake was found unconscious with traumatic head injuries. And Allie, my butterfly, lost a lot of blood due to a piece of her window breaking and piercing her side. I can’t hold it in any longer; I explode. I begin flipping chairs and punching walls. I jab the cement blocks over and over again, trying to take my mind off Allie; off the pain she must have experienced, and the fact that she’s giving birth alone. Sharp pain radiates up my arm into my collarbone area, but it’s not enough to stop me. Why Allie? Why! Why were they out so late anyway? Nothing in this area’s open except bars, and I know Al wasn’t getting in the middle of drunken crowds in her condition. And why weren’t they driving in his truck? If they’d been in the truck, they wouldn’t be here. I have to get to her. She can’t do this on her own. She’s done it alone before, but not this time; I won’t allow it.
Blake’s brother, Brody, tries to pin me down to keep me from getting banned from the hospital, but his strength isn’t enough to hold me down. He’s strong, but not strong enough. All he does is fuel my anger by struggling with me. I don’t want to hurt him, but he won’t back the fuck off. “Get off!” I hiss.
“Calm down,” he insists. Just before I slam my elbow into his nose, Lucille appears before my face with tears streaming down her water-chafed cheeks. “Wyatt, please … I need you here. Calm down, please,” she beseeches. Knowing that she’s right, I swallow my pride and force my body to relax so this jackass will release my wrists.
When I see that everyone’s taken their seats and is lost in conversation, I sneak off into the stairwell. I’ll get to my butterfly, or I’ll die trying. And death’s what it’ll take to keep me out of that damn room, because no one in this vicinity is strong enough to keep me away.
When I get upstairs, I cross my fingers and pray my plan works. I tell the staff at the desk a lie I severely wish was true, that I’m the father of the twins Allie’s delivering. They eye me suspiciously, but thankfully, they don’t investigate much further. They take down my name as one of the techs demonstrates how I scrub in and what to expect. They tell me Allie isn’t conscious, and why they administered general anesthesia instead of regional. They save the most important information for last, explaining that a large piece of the windshield pierced her stomach and punctured baby B’s amniotic sac, and the babies have to be delivered due to risk of infection.
Entering the OR, I see Allie on the table with her arms spread out to the side, oxygen cannula in her nose, and a tube inserted into her throat. There’s a teal curtain separating Allie from the doctors, and at least seven medical personal surrounding the room—which seems a little extreme. As the nurse guides me to a stool beside Allie’s head, I catch a glimpse of all the blood she’s losing. Her stomach’s sliced open with a tube transferring blood. There’s one doctor separating her stomach and another one elbow-deep inside her abdomen. When I get to the stool, I lean down to kiss her cool forehead and whisper in her ear. I tell her I’m here and she’s not alone, reminding her how deep my love is for her. I’ll walk through the deepest and darkest pits of hell to get to this beautiful woman.
“Okay, Daddy, take a peek over the curtain.” I do as the doctor instructs and see him flipping a baby. “Baby A, a brown-haired baby boy,” he announces. He’s covered in white and is extremely small. The staff takes a bulb-like contraption and sucks his nose and mouth; then he finally lets out a weak whimper. After his first cry, the doctor quickly hands him to a nurse, maybe a doctor? Hell, there’s so many people in here, I don’t know who’s who.
Although these babies aren’t mine, I watch them handle this baby boy as if it’s my blood that flows through his veins. They clean him, weigh him, put him in an incubator, and make their way out of the OR. “He’s small and needs more attention. They’re transporting him to the NICU. They’ll run some tests and take great care of him.” She must have seen the confusion in my face, because she answers all my questions without me speaking a single word.
“Baby B, a girl,” he announces once again. I look over the curtain and sneak a peek at a tiny and beautiful bald beauty. Suddenly, shoes scuff the floor as everyone but the doctor and two assistants scurry. They listen to the baby’s chest, insert tubes into her nose, wrap her up, and place her in the incubator. Unlike her brother, they bolt out the doors. There’s something wrong, and I’m torn on what to do. Do I stay here for Allie? She’s my world, but these babies are hers. And since they’re her world, they’re now mine.
I make a choice to run after the nurses taking her baby girl away, and I silently vow to protect them any way I can. I follow the team down to the NICU, but they don’t allow me back. They tell me I have to wait until the babies are stable and the paperwork’s filled out. Stable? “Wait! What do you mean, stable? They’re small, but they’ll be okay, right?” They continue behind closed doors, ignoring me as if I haven’t spoken.
I go back to check on Al, and they tell me she’s being worked on and will be transferred down to recovery soon. After they tell me she’s going to be okay, I f
all to my knees and thank God. I thank him for protecting her and the twins. I thank him for the opportunity to be with Al as she delivered, despite my lie. And even though I despise him, I pray for Blake to make a full recovery.
Twenty-Two
~Allie~
“I truly am sorry, B.” All I’m able to do is apologize. He says that he’s forgiven me, and he just needs a night to calm down, but that’s hard to believe. I mean, no one’s that forgiving. You step on someone’s toes and they hate you for a week. You break a picture frame, and the person holds it against you for the rest of your life. Cheating? Well, isn’t it unforgivable? Some say that you can forgive but you don’t have to forget, but that’s not true. His forgiveness is just one of many reasons why I don’t deserve him.
He squeezes my knee. “I know, babe. I know you regret it, but I just need to clear my mind, okay? I’m upset with you, but him … he infuriates the fuck out of me. Even though I know you love me, I know you’re still affected by him. It kills me to know the power he has over you.” He continues driving through town, moving his free hand back and forth from my leg to my stomach. Aimlessly, I glance at the gorgeous and overly-expensive diamond as it glistens from the flashing streetlights. He shouldn’t have given this to me, not just yet. But I have to admit, it makes me feel secure in our relationship. He knew this; it’s why he insisted on placing it on my finger. It’s his promise to forget and to continue loving me.
My phone blares through the silence of the car. Picking it up from the cup holder, I answer it without looking at the screen to see who’s calling. “Hello,” I answer.
Allie! SSista from anotha missssta. Marga-to-my-rita … Milk to my ice cream ... I got you ice cream,” she sings, slurring her words terribly. I listen closely as I hear horns blowing and Sophie cussing.
“Soph, where are you?” Why do I even care? Because I’d be inhuman if I didn’t. Just because I’m angry with her doesn’t mean I don’t care. I know we’ll never be as close as we once were, but I can be civil.
You don’t stop loving a person over a night, months, or even years. In fact, I’m not sure it’s possible to stop loving anyone that you’ve loved at some point in your life. “It’s fucking hot!” she yells. I hear some shuffling, and I just know she’s removing some layers, which tells me her favorite man’s spanking her ass; the one and only, Jose Cuervo.
“Wait, are you driving?”
Blake snatches the phone from my hand. “Sophie, where the fuck are you? If you’re driving drunk … so help me God, you better not be,” he scolds. I take the phone back.
“Can you pull over, and we’ll come get you?” More honking, and then the sound of sniffling. Oh, hell, she’s crying.
“I misss you, Allie Cat. I’m really fucking sorry. I’m a horrible person, I know, but I am sorry … promise,” she sniffles.
“Yeah, look, let us come get you,” I implore.
“I’m fine. I’m coming over, and I’m bringing you this ice cream. It’s cookie dough,” she sings. “But, you can only have some if you promise to forgive me.”
Great persuasion tactic, but it’s not gonna work. “I can’t promise you that.”
She sighs dramatically. Then, her mood changes from sorrowful and apologetic, to pissed off and head-biting. “When are you going to stop being such a puss about it, huh? I fucked him, so what? Get the fuck over it. You’re not with him! These lips were made for suckin’ dick, not kissin’ ass. Shit! It’s exhausting,” she huffs.
“It’s not that you fucked him, Sophie! It’s the part where you became a pathetic and wicked whore, slipping drugs into people’s drinks and ruining their lives!” Just when I thought she was attempting to be sincere, she tries to make excuses for her inexcusable behavior.
“Don’t be such a cunt, Allie.”
I’m a cunt? Gah, I hate that word. “Erase my number from your contacts. I don’t want to see you, ever. Letting you into my life was the biggest mistake I ever made. Just … just … ugh! I. Hate. You.” I hear her gasp just before I end the call.
Blake’s hand travels gently along my spine. “You shouldn’t have been so cruel, babe.
She’s drunk.”
Why’s he defending her? “You know she raped Wyatt, don’t you? She put ecstasy in his beers. Don’t defend her,” I snap.
“I’m not defending her. And no, I didn’t know she did that. However, you can’t put all the blame on her, baby. Wyatt had some say in getting his dick up.” Okay, he’s studied medicine, and he knows that ecstasy increases libido. And why is it so hard for people to believe that a woman can rape a man?
We’ve had enough tension between us for one night, so I swallow my words to refrain from sparking up another argument. Besides, the last thing I need is for him thinking I’m defending Wyatt, which I’m not. I just want him to understand that a woman can take advantage of a man; just as a man can a woman. We stop at a red light, and I lean over and kiss him, passionately. I trace the insides of his mouth with my tongue and drag my teeth across his bottom lip, and then I relax back into my seat. “You’re right,” I agree to disagree.
“Blake?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“Please, stay with me tonight.”
We don’t see each other enough as it is, and I really want to cuddle into his arms and forget everything that’s happened after the mind-blowing orgasm he provided me with earlier. He stares straight into the stop light with a stoic expression across his face. I hold my breath, waiting for his answer, but he’s hesitating. “Blake,” I whisper.
“Just answer me one question.” I’ll tell him anything he wants to know. The light’s turned from red, to green, to yellow, and back to red again. He adjusts himself so he’s facing me. He reaches over and places his hand over my heart.
“You say you love me, and I believe you, but I need to know if your love runs as deep as mine.”
What’s he talking about? Of course I love him, deeply. “It’s pretty deep,” I whisper, gazing deep into his eyes.
“You love me with your brain, but do I own your heart? Have you truly given your heart to me, Allie? Because I don’t know about you, but my heart skips a beat every time you touch me, every time I hear you laugh. Hell, it even stammers at the mention of your name. And, I need to know that yours does the same.”
I place my hand on top of his and press in deep into my swollen breast, enough to where he can feel my heartbeat. “You can feel for yourself. Kiss me,” I whisper. He does as I instruct and kisses me with the most heated and passionate kiss I’ve ever experienced. My lips tingle, and my insides explode with warmth. “Does that answer your question, Dr. Andrews? My heart beats only for you.”
He smiles against my lips as he feels my heart hammer against the palm of his hand. He rests his forehead against mine and gives me Eskimo kisses. I tangle my fingers into the back of his hair and pull his mouth to mine, feeling warm wetness travel down the sides of my face, but this time, it’s not coming from me; they’re his tears.
He lowers his head to kiss the top of my bump and gets a kick from one of the babies.
We burst out in laughter, and I wipe his damp face dry. “Let’s go home, baby,” he smiles. Thankfully, the town is a ghost town this late at night. Otherwise, I’m sure we would’ve gotten a few honks and fingers for blocking the road. He puts the car in drive and we drive home, together.
Blake keeps his hand on the gear shift and I place mine over his, softly tracing the back of his hand with my nails. The hairs on his arms stands, and he’s chewing on his lip. And even though he’s struggling to hide it, I can tell he’s turned on. I move my hand away from his to massage the inside of his thigh. As I reach over to kiss his cheek, he releases the steering wheel and forces me back into the seat with his arms. My body jerks forward at the sound of colliding cars and shattering glass, and I hold tight to Blake’s arms as he blocks the airbag from smashing into my stomach.
“BLAKE!” I scream as my car begins to flip onto its side, then ont
o its roof. His head’s bobbing in every direction as we turn over. Oh, God, this isn’t happening. My head collides with the roof of my car with each flip, and the seatbelt squeezes my waist as I’m jerked to and fro. Sparks fly as my car grinds across the asphalt. One. More. Flip. “AGHHHH!” What the fuck is that? Why is my stomach burning? Am I on fire? Oh, God … I. Can’t. Breathe. Why does my side feel like it’s being cut open? My vision’s blurred. Please, let it be from tears. My head’s spinning, hopefully from the motion. Please, no more movement. My eyes are heavy, closing unwillingly.
BLACK
I open my eyes and I’m upside down. Why? I have to get out. I can’t breathe. “Blake,” I call hoarsely.
He doesn’t answer.
My hands are pressed into the ceiling of my car, trying to relieve the pressure that’s in my chest. “BLAKE!” I scream. Still nothing. Oh, shit. No. Oh, God, please no. “Blake, please, help me,” I cry. Nothing. What the fuck is that? I pull down one of my hands and place it under my stomach, retrieving my biggest fear—blood. Where’s it coming from?
I feel between my legs and breathe a little when I feel that I’m dry. I feel the sides of my stomach and slice my hand on something sharp. Holy shit! There’s glass sticking out of my side! “BLAKE!” I scream his name with all that’s within me. Still nothing. His body’s limp, and his head’s hanging to the side in an unnatural position. Blood covers his face, and I can’t see where it’s coming from. Obviously, it’s coming from his head, but where? I reach over to shake him. “Blake, please, I need you. We need you,” I sob desperately.
The babies aren’t moving. I feel the blood rushing to my brain. I’m dizzy and I feel like I’m suffocating. Please, God, let him be okay. We need him, please. He’s bleeding profusely, and so am I. We’re going to die; I just know it. No one knows we’re out this late, and I don’t hear any evidence of traffic. I can’t even tell if we’re still on the road or not. My hands are going numb from all the weight they’re supporting, and I can’t reach around to unbuckle my belt.
