Chapter 31
SLOANE
Tucker left for the road trip this morning.
Six days. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Columbus. Six days of games and hotels and team dinners while I'm here, alone in his apartment, trying to pretend everything is fine.
It's not fine.
I've been having back pain since yesterday. Not contractions—I know what those are supposed to feel like from all the books Tucker keeps leaving around the apartment. Just pressure. Tightness. A low ache in my spine that won't go away.
It's probably nothing. Braxton Hicks, maybe. Or just my body adjusting to carrying two babies who seem determined to take up every available inch of space.
I tell myself this as I sit at the kitchen table, laptop open, trying to focus on my epidemiology reading. Professor Newman wants a draft of my project proposal by next week, and I haven't written a single word.
The cramping gets worse. I shift in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position.
There isn't one.
My phone buzzes. I know without looking that it’s a message from Tucker.
Made it to Boston. Hotel is nice. Miss you.
I stare at the message. Miss you. Like this is normal. Like we're a typical couple, and he's away on a normal business trip.
Like I'm not sitting here balanced on a hockey stick.
On one hand, I moved in here so I’d have help and support from my co-parent.
On the other hand, he’s in another state and not even around to learn the sex of our babies. I have it in an envelope on the table, waiting for when he gets back.
When will that be? I’ve lost track.
We aren’t together, not really, and all the sex and cohabitating is just blurring lines I need to sharpen instead. I have to get out before I disappear completely.
The problem is, I have nowhere to go.
No apartment lined up. No plan beyond "I can't do this anymore."
And even more persistent than the pain in my lower back is the dread of winding up just like my mother—a woman who can’t make it on her own, who needs to be rescued.
It’s a mindset at odds with what I hope to learn in school.
If my grandmother hadn’t raised me, I could easily have been a woman with no options.
I want to help create policies and design the social safety nets.
And now I see just how impossible it feels to access them. And I have financial resources!
The cramping intensifies. I put my hand on my belly, feeling the tightness. I’m only five months and some change. Everyone needs to calm down and grow some more lungs.
"It's okay," I whisper to the babies. "We're okay."
But I don't feel okay.
I feel trapped. Suffocated. Like the walls of this beautiful apartment are closing in, and I can't breathe.
I need to get out. Need to find myself again before I'm lost completely.
But where would I go?
The question circles in my head, over and over, no answer appearing.
I try to go back to my reading. Maternal health disparities. Access to prenatal care. All the things I wanted to study, wanted to fix, wanted to dedicate my life to.
Before I became someone's baby mama. Before I moved into someone's apartment and started living off someone's resources.
Before I lost track of who Sloane Campbell was supposed to be.
Another cramp, stronger this time. I gasp, gripping the edge of the table.
Okay. That one hurt.
I stand up slowly, one hand on my belly. Maybe I should lie down. Rest. Drink some water.
The cramping eases slightly. See? Nothing.
I make it to the bedroom—my bedroom, Tucker's bedroom, I don't even know whose bedroom it is anymore—and lie down on top of the covers.
The babies kick. Strong, insistent movements that make my whole belly shift.
"I know," I say to them. "I know you're there."
I close my eyes and try to sleep.
I wake up to pain.
Real pain, not just cramping. Sharp and low and insistent, radiating through my belly and down my legs.
I sit up carefully, breathing through it. It passes after a moment, leaving me shaky and scared.
Okay. That was different.
I check the time. It's been two hours. I slept through the afternoon.
Another cramp hits, harder than before. I curl onto my side, waiting for it to pass.
It doesn't pass.
I need to use the bathroom. Maybe that will help.
I make it there slowly, one hand on the wall for support. Everything aches. Everything feels wrong.
I pull down my underwear and freeze.
Blood.
Not a lot. But enough. Red against white cotton, unmistakable and terrifying.
"No," I whisper. "No, no, no."
The babies. Something's wrong with the babies.
I should call Tucker. He should know. He should be here.
But he’s not here. He’s hours away.
My hands shake as I pull out my phone and scroll to a different name.
Mel answers on the second ring. "Hey, what's up?"
"I need help." My voice cracks. "I'm bleeding. I’m scared, Mel."
"Bleeding? Sloane, where are you?"
"Home—Tucker's apartment. He's in Boston and I'm bleeding and—"
"I'm calling an ambulance."
"No, I don't need—"
"Sloane." Mel's voice is firm. "I can't drive. I can't get you to a car. You need an ambulance. I'm calling now, and then I'm coming over. Which hospital?"
“Magee Women’s, I guess. Where Dr. Patel is."
"Stay on the phone with me. Don't move. I'm calling 911."
I sink to the bathroom floor, phone pressed to my ear, and start to cry.
The paramedics arrive with the doorman and, despite their professionalism, I feel embarrassed.
They find me still on the bathroom floor, phone in hand, trying to explain that I'm fine, that it's probably nothing, and that I'm so sorry to bother them.
"Ma'am, you're pregnant with twins and you're bleeding," the taller one says. He looks biracial like me. Like how my babies might look when they’re grown. I feel so dizzy. "This isn't nothing."
They help me up, check my vitals, ask me a hundred questions. How far along? Any pain? When did the bleeding start?
I answer automatically, my brain floating somewhere outside my body.
The ambulance ride is a blur of beeping monitors and reassuring voices and pain that comes and goes in waves. I keep my hand on my belly, feeling the babies move.
They're okay. They have to be okay.
Mel is waiting when we arrive at the ER. She wheels alongside the gurney, her hand finding mine.
"I'm here," she says. "You're okay. All three of you."
Everything is beeps and shouts until I’m hooked up to monitors and wires, and finally, mercifully, I hear the melody of heartbeats.
Two steady rhythms that make me cry with relief.
They're alive.
Mel sits in the chair beside my bed, her hand holding mine, and I sob. I didn’t realize how afraid I was until I saw that all is well.
Although I do hear Dr. Patel muttering something about tests.
"Have you called Tucker?" Mel asks carefully.
Her question confuses me. “No."
"Sloane—"
“He’s on the ice,” I tell her, gripping the bed rail, staring at the jagged lines tracking each baby’s vitals.
Mel recoils. “Sloane. Come on.”
I shake my head. “He’s in the middle of a professional hockey game, Mel. He can’t get here even if he wanted to. I need to get used to this, being the dependable parent. Being present.”
Mel opens her mouth, then closes it. Then says, “Sloane, he’s not playing anyway. He’s benched.”
I whip my head toward her. “What do you mean benched?” The worry fades away for a moment, replaced by icy dread.
“He didn’t tell you?” Her eyes dance in the bright lights, and I try to focus on her face, on what she’s saying. “He spaced out or something, and a teammate got hit on Tucker’s watch. I’m working on his case with the player’s association…to get more emergency family leave.”
I swallow down bile as I realize Tucker has been lying to me. Keeping me in the dark while he somehow thinks he’s protecting me.
A doctor comes in and snaps me back to the crisis at hand—not Dr. Patel, someone younger. She introduces herself as Dr. Kim, checks the monitors, examines me with careful hands.
"Your blood pressure is elevated," she says. "Combined with the bleeding and cramping, we're concerned about preeclampsia. We need to keep you here for observation."
"For how long?"
"At least overnight. Possibly longer, depending on how things progress." She makes notes on her tablet. "Is there someone we should call? The father?"
"No." The word comes out too fast, too sharp. "There's no one."
Dr. Kim and Mel exchange a look.
"Sloane," Mel says quietly. "Maybe we should—"
"No," I repeat. "I'm making my own damn decisions for once."
Mel falls silent. Dr. Kim finishes her notes and leaves, explaining that the staff will move me to a room upstairs.
I'm alone with Mel and the steady beep of monitors and the sound of my babies' heartbeats.
“I thought you guys were being open with each other.” My friend crosses her arms and bites her lip.
“Yeah, well, I thought he was different than my ex.”
"Tucker isn't Josh."
"Really? Lying. Secrets. What else isn’t he telling me?" I put my hand on my belly. "I'm losing myself. And I can't—I can't do that to these babies. Can't be one of those women who disappears."
"Honey, you’re not going anywhere."
"See? Even you can see that I’m stuck."
Mel doesn't have an answer for that. She sighs. "You should tell him."
"Why? So, he can rush back here and then I feel guilty for interrupting his comeback plans?"
"Or so he can be here for you when you're scared and in the hospital."
"I'm not scared." But my voice shakes when I say it.
Mel just looks at me.
"Anymore," I insist. "We're fine. The babies are fine. I want him on a list of people who cannot come in here."
"Sloane—" Mel starts.
"He's been lying to me. Just like Josh did. Making decisions about what I can handle, what I should know." A wave of pressure steals my breath. When I can speak again, my voice is steady. "I won't do this again. I won't build a life with someone who thinks I'm too fragile for the truth."
Not to mention, I have to get used to him being gone. Because this is exactly what I have to look forward to. Long stretches of time where it’s just me… and dozens of his relatives with suggestions and casseroles.
Dr. Patel returns during evening rounds.
She's calm and professional as always, checking my chart, asking questions, examining the monitor readings. But when she sees Mel sitting beside my bed, her eyebrows rise.
"Where's Tucker?" she asks.
"Out of town. On a road trip."
"Does he know you're here?"
The question hangs in the air between us.
"He’s not reachable," I say. The words come out flat, final. "And I’d like my chart to reflect that he’s not welcome."
Dr. Patel and Mel exchange another one of those looks. The kind that says they think I'm making a colossal mistake but are too polite to say it out loud.
"I'm making my own damn decisions for once," I snap. "Isn't that what everyone wants? For me to be independent? To take control of my life?"
"That's not—" Mel tries.
Dr. Patel pauses, pinches her lips together, then finishes her notes. “Blood pressure is still high, Sloane. We'll keep monitoring you overnight. Try to rest. We'll talk more in the morning."
She leaves, and my best friend rolls after her. Judging me, probably. Thinking I'm making a mistake.
Maybe I am. But it's my mistake to make.
Alone in the hospital room, surrounded by beeping monitors and the steady rhythm of my babies' heartbeats, I finally let myself cry.
Not the scared crying from earlier. This is something deeper. Grief, maybe. For what I thought this would be. For what I wanted and can't have.
I wanted to be independent. Strong. Someone who doesn't need rescuing.
But lying here, hooked up to machines, my babies in danger because my body is failing them—I've never felt less independent in my life.
I put my hand on my belly, feeling the twins move. Strong, healthy movements that make me cry all over again.
"It's going to be okay," I whisper to them. "I'm going to figure this out. We're going to be okay."
But I don't believe it.
Because this—lying alone in a hospital bed, pushing away the person I love because I'm too scared to need him—this doesn't feel like okay.
This feels like I'm dying.
And I have no idea how to stop it.
Outside my door, I hear nurses talking, monitors beeping in other rooms, the sound of life continuing while mine falls apart.
The babies kick. I close my eyes and try to remember who Sloane Campbell is supposed to be.
But all I can think about is Tucker. His smile. His hands on my belly. The way he says my name, cooks me food, and bursts into my room to tell me something he learned.
Then I remember that happy guy? He’s gone more than he’s around, and I cannot let myself rely on his support.
This is what independence looks like, I think. This is what I wanted.
So why does it feel like I'm losing everything that matters?