by Stacy Borel
“She’s still asleep. Other than being a little pale, she looks normal.” I hadn’t asked but I think she was just trying to reassure me before I went in the room.
“Come on babe. I’ll take you home.” Ky said to Harper. She let go of me and turned and tucked herself into Kyler’s side. They both walked out the door leaving me to go in alone.
I stood outside her door. My hands shook as I pushed it open and made my way inside. Em was lying on the bed with an IV running out of her arm. I’d expected to see tubes coming out of her, but there weren’t any. She lay there peacefully; her eyes closed. I walked over to her bed and sat down in the chair by her head. Leaning in, I kissed her cool skin. There in the quiet room, with only the subtle sound of a beep recording her pulse, I finally cried. I picked up her hand, holding it to my mouth and I openly wept. I knew she was going to be devastated when she woke. I was so scared to tell her that her son was gone.
I whispered softly over and over again, “I love you Em. You’re my Tiny Girl. Everything will be okay. As long as we are together, everything will be fine.”
My head was in a fog and my whole body felt achy. I wanted to move and yawn and stretch, but for some reason I couldn’t. Was I still sleeping? I lay there trying to get the rest of my body awake and moving. I heard a small sniffling sound right next to me. Then my hand moved. Who was that? I desperately tried to open my eyes but my lids felt so heavy.
“I love you Tiny Girl.”
It was Finn’s voice, so soft. What on earth was going on? I begged my eyes to open. Finn sounded so sad and I just wanted to comfort him. My fingers finally began to comply. I wiggled them, and he must have felt it.
“Em? Em honey, can you hear me?”
I made a slight groaning sound in the back of my throat. Forcing my lids open just a bit and blinking hard, they gradually allowed me to start opening them. Through half-closed eyes I was able to glance around the room. I saw stark white walls in front of me, and a TV hanging near the ceiling. Moving my head in the direction of the hand Finn was holding, I saw him. He looked at me expectantly. His eyes were red and puffy, as if he’d been crying.
“Oh thank god! You’re awake. Jesus Em, I’m so glad you are okay.”
He was speaking so fast. Or was I just that tired?
“Where am I?” My voice was hoarse.
“Are you thirsty? I can get you some water.” He stood up and moved to a rolling tray that had a pitcher and a glass next to it.
I nodded my head. My throat was very dry.
He came back to the bed and gave me the glass. I brought it to my lips and drank. The water was cold and stung the back of my throat, but after the initial shock subsided it felt good. I drank the whole glass down. He took it from me when I was done and sat down next to me. He took my hand again. I felt something on my finger. Looking at it, it was one of those pulse things they put on you in the hospital. What in the hell?
“Finn, where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital Em. Do you remember anything?”
“Hospital?” I tried to wrack my brain. “How did I get in the hospital?”
“Something’s happened Tiny Girl.” He shifted in his seat. “Damn it, I don’t even know how to tell you this.”
My heart kicked into high gear. “What the hell is going on Finley?” When I started to move a sharp pain hit me in my lower stomach and I winced.
“Please don’t move to much Em, you’ll hurt yourself.”
That’s when all of the memories began flooding through me. Furniture shopping, feeling content and happy, the sandwich shop, Val showing up… oh no! I flung the covers off the lower half of my body.
Flat. My stomach was flat.
My eyes were huge and I looked at Finn. “Why is my stomach flat? Where’s my baby?”
He didn’t say anything. He just sat there unable to tell me what I knew in my heart had happened.
Tears flowed down my face. “What happened to my baby Finley?”
He cleared his throat.
I felt my anger rising because he hadn’t responded, so I took a deep breath and calmed myself. Looking him straight in his deep blue eyes I used a tone that he couldn’t ignore.
“What the hell are you not telling me? I want to know where my baby is, and I swear to god, if you don’t tell me right now I’m going to call someone in here that can.”
“Stay calm honey, concentrate on your breathing… in and out… you’re okay… it’s all going to be okay.” He scooted his chair closer. “When you left the sandwich shop you went down the road. By the time I caught up with you, you were already bleeding and had fallen to the ground. I caught you just before your head hit the sidewalk.” He took a deep shaky breath. “And… oh god Em, I tried to get you here as fast as I possibly could. I really did. I didn’t know what was happening. You were passed out and there was so much blood everywhere! I thought I was going to lose you.”
“Something has happened to my baby, hasn’t it?”
He nodded. A strangled noise came from my mouth.
“Dr. Monroe was here with you. He came and told us that you lost it. I’m so sorry Em. The baby’s gone. He said that he was able to fix everything and you’ll still be able to have children. I know that doesn’t make this better, but he wanted you to know.”
There was no conceivable way to wrap my mind around it. This couldn’t be happening. I wasn’t pregnant?
“How?”
“It was something called a placental abruption. The placenta tore away from where it was attached. They tried to save the baby, but you were still too early and the baby was underdeveloped.”
It was as if a light went off in me.
“Did they tell you what it was? The sex?”
He nodded again. “Dr. Monroe said it was a boy.”
“No… no… no!” I started to say louder and louder.
How had this happened? I was fine, healthy even. A little boy? I’d never considered it could have been a boy. I was so certain it was a girl. My intuition was wrong. Just like my intuition about Finn telling me the truth had been wrong. What had I been thinking, letting him back in my life again?
He reached to touch my face, but I turned away.
“Don’t.” I said coldly.
He was confused. “Em, what’s the matter?”
When Finn left me that night, I had been broken. The feeling of losing my first love was devastating. Walking in on my husband fucking the interior decorator was bad. It hurt, but in a way that sealed the idea that I was clearly unable to hold on to something. Finding out that Finn lied to me and hidden things from me after we said we’d be honest with each other was crushing. But this… losing the last thing that I’d felt was mine? A high school break-up, divorce, starting over… none of it was as devastating as this. This shattered my heart in a way that I knew I was never going to be the same again.
This baby was something good that had come from something bad. It represented a new start for me. And now it was gone. My son was gone, and so was whatever had been left of my heart. I didn’t know what broken was until I felt this kind of pain.
“Get out.” I suddenly stopped crying and wiped away the stray tears left on my face.
Finn looked like I’d slapped him across the face.
“Emilyn please!”
I turned my face toward the door no longer able to look at him.
“I don’t want you here, get out please.”
“Not gonna happen Tiny Girl, we’re talking about this.”
“You either get out, or I’ll have you removed.”
Out of my peripheral vision I could see him stare at me, shocked. He didn’t know what to do.
“Em…” He tried pleading again.
“Now Finley! Get out!” I nearly screamed at him, grabbing the plastic cup I’d just drank from and throwing it at him.
He dodged it, then slowly stood up from his chair and moved towards the door. With his hand on the handle he turned to face me again. Trying to
keep the emotion off of his face his eyes met mine. In a bold and certain voice he spoke to me before he left.
“This right here,” he pointed between himself and me, “This isn’t done. I’m leaving because you want me too. But I’ll be back tomorrow Emilyn. I’m sorry that this is happening and I’m here for you. I’m only a phone call away and I’ll be here in the blink of an eye. You’re not going to get rid of me. Remember that you’re mine, and we will get through this. I love you with every fiber in my soul, and if I have to love you enough for the both of us, for however long it takes, I will.”
He walked out the door and shut it behind him. I lay there, unmoving, in a state of total and utter shock. My life was over. I wanted my son back. I wanted to know why this was happening to me. I had no idea what I was going to do now, but at that very moment, a nurse walked in to check on me. She gave me a shot of something that made me sleepy, so I guess the ‘what I was going to do now’ question was answered, because minutes later I fell into a deep empty slumber.
I hadn’t lived my life with regrets. I picked myself up, moved forward and took each twist and turn as a learning experience. That hasn’t been the case with Em. With her I’d had moments of wanting to relive my time, just to feel her again. But reliving your past just to experience it again and regretting your past because of a shitty mistake you’d made were two very different things. If I could take back the last forty-eight hours of my life, I would. I didn’t know how I was going to fix this mess. I kept replaying what had happened at the hospital, and the look on her face as I told her the baby was gone wouldn’t leave my mind. It would forever be burned into my brain. The many emotions that flickered through those blue eyes said a hundred things before she was gone. And I don’t mean like picking up and just leaving me. I mean the life that was in those eyes—that spark—it was gone. I saw confusion, denial, sadness, anger, and then… nothing—all within a matter of seconds. It was like she wasn’t in there anymore. I would gladly hand over my own life if it meant she’d give me any one of those emotions. Shit, give me pissed off at the world, want to go blow something up, castrate me anger. Anything!
I didn’t go far that night. I walked out of her hospital room and set up camp in the waiting room down the hall. I’d told her I would be there for her, and I would be. Whatever it took. Sitting in the most obnoxiously lumpy chairs, I cursed the administrative staff that thought these were acceptable accommodations. Granted, they probably didn’t expect someone to try to sleep in them for two days straight. Either way, I was still sending some hate mail to somebody.
I was sat, leaning forwards with my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands when Kyler and Harper came in together. Harper stopped when I looked up at her and she cursed under her breath. Ky leaned down and whispered in her ear. She nodded and then turned to head down the hall to Em’s room. Ky came over to sit next to me.
“Has she let you in to see her?”
“No.” My voice sounded odd to my own ears.
“Has the doctor told you when she can come home?”
“He told her parents that she could go home this evening. Her Dad relayed the message to me when he was here earlier. Apparently Em told Dr. Monroe that I wasn’t to be given any more information.”
He sucked in a breath. “Ouch man. I’m sorry.”
I just nodded in response and dipped my head back down.
“Did she tell Richard if she was coming back home to your place?”
I shook my head. “No.”
We sat in silence for five minutes before Ky slapped my back and stood up. “When was the last time you had something to eat, or got any sleep?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Two days ago I guess, but I’ve dozed off now and then.”
“Well there’s not a whole lot going on right now, so why don’t you take a walk with me down to the cafeteria and we’ll get a coffee and a bite to eat.”
I was going to say I was fine, but Ky gave me a look that said he would toss my raggedy ass over his shoulder and march me down there if he had to. I didn’t have it in me to argue with him. Getting up from my chair, I stretched. My muscles ached worse than if I’d just done a hardcore workout.
“Good boy.” He patted me on the head like a puppy.
I shook him off. “Ass.” He chuckled.
Walking past the nurses’ station I overheard a man asking for Emilyn and I stopped dead in my tracks. Turning around, I took him in. He was a tall, brown haired man, dressed in a suit and expensive shoes. The nurse asked who he was and he told them that his name was Weston and he was her husband. The nurse said that Ms. Tucker hadn’t listed a husband on her medical chart, but she’d gladly call down to her room to see if she was available for any visitors. When she hung up the phone she told him the room number and pointed in the direction of Em’s room. He walked past Kyler and me, tipping his head in a nod as he walked by.
I saw red.
What the fuck was that little pencil-dick doing here? He wasn’t her husband anymore. Better yet, if the nurse called down to Em, why had she said that it was okay for him to see her, when she wouldn’t even let me in the room? I followed him down the hall. Ky wasn’t too far behind me. Weston reached Em’s room, stopped and knocked. I heard her voice through the door telling him to come in. Swallowing hard and wondering what was going to happen I crept closer to the door that he’d left slightly ajar, but stayed off to the side and out of view.
“Hello Emilyn.” His voice was cool—probably his lawyer voice that he used with his clients.
“What are you doing here West?” She didn’t even sound like herself.
“That’s a good fucking question. What are you doing here asshat?” Harper’s voice was venomous.
“Asshat?” Ky whispered behind me. “What the fuck? That’s my name.”
“Shut up Ky.” I said quietly.
“I got a phone call while I was in the office yesterday. A woman named Aubrey contacted my secretary to let me know you were in the hospital and had lost the baby.”
“That mother fucking hairy cunt ass Cheeto! I’m going to kill her!” Harper spat, her voice carrying down the hall. A few nurses wandering the halls stopped to look down at us.
Kyler chuckled by my side. Of course the love-struck idiot would think that was cute. I tensed at the news. How in the world had Aubrey of all people heard? I’d forgotten how fast news spreads in a small town. Someone had probably seen us waiting for the ambulance and Em bleeding. I’d known Aubrey didn’t care for Em, but the fact that she felt the need to lash out and call West in Chicago? That was crossing a line. If Harper didn’t get a hold of her before me, there would be hell to pay for this one.
“Harper, enough.” Em was too calm, and it made me uneasy.
“It would appear that the information relayed was correct.” The asshole was so formal.
“Yes. I lost our son.”
There was a short period of silence.
“You know that it was a boy?”
“That’s what I was told.” She was so cold in the way she spoke about it. Detached and distant.
“Hmmm, I see. Were you planning on telling me about this?”
“It just fucking happened. And pardon me that you aren’t the first phone call on her list of people that needed to know. I’m pretty sure you lost that right when you stuck your dick in that whore of an interior decorator!” Harper yelled.
“I don’t believe I was talking to you, Harpy. If you would take your crude mouth and leave, I’d like to have a talk with Emilyn.”
“I’m going to give you two seconds to run before I…”
Harper couldn’t finish that sentence because Kyler plowed past me and went into the room. I followed behind him and saw that he already across the room moving Harper out of the way and getting up in West’s face. I’ll give the guy credit, because he didn’t flinch or back down. Shocking since I always thought West would be some pansy lawyer that sat in his high-rise behind his desk, never getting his hands dir
ty. Well that, and Kyler was a big mother fucker. Not as big as me, but certainly intimidating.
“You might want to watch the way you’re talking to my girl here.”
Harper gasped. “Your girl?” She asked in shock at hearing this news.
Ky made a quick glance over his shoulder. “Quiet woman, we’ll talk later.”
West cleared his throat. “If you two are done with your little domestic dispute, I’m trying to have a civilized conversation here.”
“I’m about to shove my civilized foot up your ass!” Ky’s tone was clipped.
“Enough.” Em said from the bed. “Back off Kyler. Down Harper.” Then her attention turned to me. “What are you doing in here Finn? You’re not welcome.”
Okay that one stung and I winced. I watched as the realization of who I was spread across West’s face.
“Finn? As in ‘high school Finn’? The one that left you high and dry after graduation?”
“Yes, the one and only.” She clipped.
West chuckled. It grated my nerves like they were being pulled across a micro-grater.
“Why is he here?”
She looked at me. “I don’t know.”
“I’m with her, dick.” I gritted through my teeth.
“No you’re not.” She said with cold empty eyes.
“You just couldn’t stand being alone, could you Emilyn?” West asked.
“About as much as you felt the need to have two women at your beck and call, Weston.” She enunciated his name.
I couldn’t help the smirk on my face.
“Fair enough.” His tone was dismissive, like what she said didn’t matter to him. “Let’s talk business. I came here because I want you to sign these papers stating that I am no longer required to pay you any form of child support. In addition, any support that I have paid you thus far shall be returned to me in full.”
My jaw hit the floor. He actually came all the way out here to tell her that he wanted his money back? She’d just lost their baby and he was acting like none of that mattered. I felt Ky move up behind me. My blood was boiling and my fists balled at my sides.
