39
Beckett
“But they’ll be okay, right? I mean, babies come early, and placental abruptions happen all the time, yeah? And you perform caesareans every day. So, they’ll be fine. Won’t they?” I ask Dr. Pauls, my tone verging on the edge of hysterical as I hold Penny’s trembling hand between mine and walk beside her hospital bed as it’s pushed down the deserted corridor of the emergency department.
He looks up from the clipboard containing Penny’s signed consent to surgery forms and gives me a tight smile from the other side of the bed. “Mr. Cooper, we will do everything in our power to ensure this surgery goes smoothly and that you are reunited with both your son and Ms. McIntyre as quickly and as safely as possible. I will update you when I know more.”
His answer irks me, because it sounds like the same damn thing he’d say to anyone standing in my position. Impersonal, and cold.
“But-”
“Beck.” Penny croaks, the sound of her voice pulling my attention down.
The sight of her glistening, terror-filled eyes has a sharp pain shooting through my chest. “Hey,” I whisper, leaning down, as the nurses pushing her bed slow down and turn a corner. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”
She needs me to be strong. I need to be strong.
“You have to stay with him, okay? You stay with our baby.” She tightens her grip on my hand. “You stay with him. No matter what. He needs you. I need you to be with him. I can’t do this unless I know you’re going to be there to protect him if I…” She chokes out a painful sob and the sound of it almost drops me to my knees.
“Pen, I’ve got you both. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Actually,” the grumpy nurse to my right interjects as we come to a halt in front of a set of large double doors. “You need to wait here. There’s seating around the corner to your left and we will be down to update you when we can.”
“Like fuck!” I snap, my frustration and helplessness getting the better of me. “I’m coming with her.”
“Mr. Cooper,” Melanie, the only nurse who has bothered to introduce herself to me since our arrival, says from across the bed. “You can’t. I know this sucks, it really sucks, but you need to let us do our jobs. I promise you; I will personally come back down and update you as soon as I can, okay?”
I open my mouth to argue, to beg. I don’t even know, but before I can get a word in, Penny’s voice breaks through the rest of the noise.
“Beckett,” she says. “Come here.” Immediately, I look away from Melanie, and place my hand protectively on Penny’s stomach, leaning down so she can cup my face with her shaky hands. She pulls me to her, so close that are noses are almost touching, and whispers, “I need you to hear me when I say this, okay?” I nod, clinging to the metal railing on the side of her bed as I run the tip of my nose against hers, the lump in my throat making it painful to swallow. “I love you.” I squeeze my eyes closed as the emotion from hearing her say those three words overwhelms me. “I love you, and I know I make it hard to love me back sometimes, but I need you to know-”
I cut her off by pressing my lips firmly against hers, and then I pull back, and I look into her glassy eyes. “Easiest thing I ever did was fall in love with you,” I whisper. “Love you like it’s my life’s purpose.” I look down at where my hand is splayed out across her stomach. “You and him .”
She smiles up at me, just as one of the nurses pushes the large red button beside the double doors, forcing them open. “His name is Grayson,” she whispers. “Okay?”
We’ve been trying to decide between three names, and Grayson was always on the top of my list, but I don’t want to make that decision that right now. This wasn’t the plan. We were going to see him and just know what his name was.
Together .
Not like this…
“Mr. Cooper…” one of the nurses says, warning me to let go so they can continue through the doors without me.
I shake my head and grab Penny’s hand, every cell in my body screaming at me to hold on.
Penny takes a deep breath, and I watch as her expression morphs into one of determination instead of fear. “I’ve got this,” she says as she pulls her hand free from mine and places it on her stomach. Over our son. “We’ll see you soon, yeah?”
She nods at me as I straighten, telling me to let go of the bed railing, and I do, even though doing so has my knees buckling as I step back.
“I love you,” she says, looking straight into my eyes.
What kills me is that this time, her words don’t sound like a confession or a revelation.
They sound like a goodbye .
I try to reply, but the words are stuck in my throat, and then, before I can speak, before I can tell her again how much I fucking love her, they take her from me.
I stand there as the double doors automatically close, and she disappears from my sight until a surge of adrenaline gives me the ability to scream, “I love you! Penny! I love you!”
God, I hope she can hear me.
“Fuck!” I scream, kicking the now closed doors.
“Mr. Cooper,” someone calls from beside me, and I jerk my head to the left to find Melanie standing there, sympathy and compassion radiating off her in waves.
She must have stayed behind.
“Come and sit down. You’ll be more comfortable.”
I shake my head at her, my throat constricting to the point of pain.
I can’t leave. I can’t go anywhere.
“I need to be here, ” I croak.
She nods in understanding. “You can see the doors from the waiting area, I promise.”
I bite my tongue, and scowl down at my mismatched shoes, only now realising that I pulled on one white sneaker, and one black, while rushing to get myself dressed, before giving in and allowing her to escort me fifteen steps away, to a tiny, empty waiting room littered with old magazines and a small television.
“Please,” she says, softly. “Sit.”
I do as I’m told and sink down into an uncomfortably small blue speckled chair, the closest one to the window in the wall that gives me a perfect view of the doors Penny disappeared behind only minutes ago.
I don’t look at Melanie as crouches down in front of me, her knees crunching as she does, but I listen as she whispers, “I may not know her, but I can tell that Penelope is a fighter. She won’t let anything happen to your baby, or to her. She’s going to come through this just fine, you’ll see.” She stops and waits for me to respond, but the painful lump in my throat prevents me from saying a word, so she sighs and adds, “I’m going to go in there and help, okay? I will be back as soon as I have an update.”
I huff at her comment and nod, my eyes glued to the window beside me.
And then she, too, is gone.
Gone behind those fucking doors.
I glare at them through the glass, as if they did this, as if this is their fault, and then I wait.
It feels like hours that I sit there, hoping that someone, anyone, will just come and tell me that they’re both okay. But no one does.
Not Melanie. Not Dr. Pauls. No one.
Eventually, I start pacing back and forth in front of the window, praying to God, to the Gods , to anyone that’ll listen, begging for the safety of my family. It isn’t until a familiar voice calls my name that I stop.
“Beckett. I’m here, mate.” I spin around so quickly toward the voice that I almost slip on the overly polished floors. Ryan stands there, panting, red-faced and dishevelled. “I got here as fast as I could,” he wheezes from across the room.
It’s Ryan.
Ryan’s here.
Not a doctor, or a nurse, or anyone that can tell me anything.
Ryan.
Did I call him? I must have called him…
Evie appears behind him seconds later, her eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks flushed, and soon after, Molly joins her, a limp, sleeping Emma, still in her pink and white spotted pyjamas, in her arms.
The sight of them is what finally brings me to my knees.
I collide with the epoxy floor with a crack, but I don’t feel a thing. As I rock back onto my ass, pull my knees up to my chest and struggle to draw oxygen into my lungs, Ryan drops down beside me, mimicking my position, and together we stare through the glass pane at the doors.
The doors that hold the answers I want.
The answers I need.
The doors that refuse to open.
“They’ll be okay, brother,” he says, his voice calm, steady and sure. His certainty does nothing to ease the ache in my chest, or the storm swirling in my head, but his words do get me thinking.
Surely if something happened to Penny, to our baby, I’d feel it, wouldn’t I?
If my soul mate fucking died , I’d know…
Wouldn’t I?