Chapter 27
Britain
“Alex, go home. You don’t need to stay.”
“I’m not leaving until you get your MRI, and even then, fat fucking chance you’re getting rid of me.” He’s posted up at the foot of my bed in the E.R. like my own personal security detail. I appreciate him, but more than anything I just want to curl up in a fetal position and cry myself to sleep.
The attending physician enters my curtained room.
“Hi, Mrs. Scott. And is this your husband?” She motions towards Alex.
“No, that’s my brother.”
She nods. “I’m Dr. Rashid. I just want to go over some of your preliminary blood work with you, maybe it’s best if your brother steps out.” No use hiding anything now, if it even sticks. Alex doesn’t make a move to leave. Let’s just embrace the suck, Britain.
“No, it’s okay. He can stay.” The doctor gives me a questioning look.
“Are you sure? There is some sensitive information I need to share with you.”
“I already know, it’s fine if he hears it, too.” Alex perks up, confused.
“Okay then, your blood work came back. You are severely dehydrated, slightly anemic, and you are pregnant.” I just nod. I know, but I notice Alex visibly stiffen. “So in addition to the MRI, I’ve ordered an ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy hasn’t been terminated. We’re going to admit you for observation. We’re a bit backed up right now, and it might be hours before we can get you through both screenings. Might as well get you comfortable with some privacy, okay?”
I nod. “Yes, okay.”
“A nurse will be in in a minute to get you moved over. Just hit the button on your rail if you need assistance before then.” I thank her as she closes the curtain behind her.
“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Alex says as soon as he knows Dr. Rashid is no longer in earshot. “Is this why he dumped you?” I almost laugh, because this whole situation is fucking laughable.
“No, he doesn’t know.”
“When were you planning to tell him?!” He’s basically shouting at me.
“First, calm the fuck down. If anybody gets to yell or be irate right now, it’s me. Second, I would have told him once I took an actual pregnancy test, which I haven’t even had a chance to do. I’m maybe like three weeks pregnant, at most. I didn’t see any urgency in the matter since I wasn’t expecting my fiancé to break up with me at our surprise engagement party in front of everyone I know here. I only figured it out two days ago, one day ago — I don’t know. It doesn’t fucking matter is the bottom line.
Chances are high he’s not even checking his phone, it’s probably off by now. I’ve called and texted him all afternoon to no response. So even if I tried to let him know right now, he wouldn’t see it. And also, I don’t want someone to come back to me because I’m pregnant with their child. I don’t want a pity fiancé or husband. I don’t want him in my life at all.” Lie.
“He still deserves to know that his child exists.”
“I don’t disagree. If you can find him, feel free to let him know. I’m a little busy at the moment.” I wave my hand around the hospital bed. “Since he won’t answer my calls, I’ll send him a text. Just to appease you. You’ll see, he won’t respond.” Luckily Alex thought to grab my belongings before getting in the ambulance. He hands me my phone and I type out a text.
My hands are shaking so hard, I have to keep deleting portions to retype it.
Britain
I’m at the hospital. Getting an MRI and ultrasound, but thought you should know that I’m pregnant. Will let you know if I miscarry from the concussion.
“Sent. Feel better now?” I can’t hold the sobs in any more. I never thought I’d be telling the love of my life that I’m having his baby, over text, after he just dumped me. Oh, and there’s a chance a head injury could cause a miscarriage.
“I don’t feel better, Britain, but I am glad you did it.” He moves to sit next to me on the bed, sliding an arm around me, and holding me as the tears flow out of me faster than my I.V. can replace them.
I wake up to the sound of a nurse opening the blinds in my room. I look around, Alex isn’t here anymore. I can’t believe I actually fell asleep, though. As I go to sit up, I let out a hiss. Damn, guess I did hit my head. The back of my skull stings and is throbbing. I didn’t believe them last night when they kept saying it. Dr. Rashid said this would happen, though, that I didn’t feel anything because I had gone into shock.
“Morning, sunshine. My name is Jen, I’m the A.M. shift. How we feeling this morning?”
“Like I had sixteen margaritas last night.” She just laughs. I wince, sound hurts.
“Well, visiting hours start in ten minutes and you have a whole gaggle of people waiting to see you.” There’s a pit in my stomach.
“Is one of them named Liam?” I ask, terrified of the answer.
“No, don’t think so. My son’s name is Liam, I’d remember if there was one waiting out there.” I just nod my head, searching for my phone in all the blankets. I find it finally, skimming through notifications. Plenty of missed calls and texts, but not one from Liam. I open my messages and open our conversation. The last message was the one I sent last night, time stamped at 9:36 P.M. It feels like a little piece of my soul dies with that realization. “Okay, you can send whoever you want to in then. Doesn’t matter who.” Nothing fucking matters.
“No way. You gotta pee and then eat some real food before I open the flood gates.”
“Right, okay then. Let’s get this show on the road.” I need to get the fuck out of this hospital and on a flight back to Virginia ASAP. “Did Dr. Rashid say when I’ll be able to be discharged?”
“She wants another ultrasound this afternoon, and more blood work. If everything comes back good, she’ll discharge you. Lucky for you, it wasn’t a concussion, otherwise you’d get to hang out with me a good bit longer!”
“Yeah, lucky me.”
After a large bowl of cold oatmeal, my first visitor was admitted. Alex. He doesn’t even ask how I’m doing, just gets straight to the point.
“Did he call or text you back?”
“Nope.” I hold out my phone for proof. He takes it from me, hitting the call button on Liam’s contact. I wish he wouldn’t have done that. The result is the same as last time, though. It just rings and rings until I can faintly hear his voicemail greeting, “You’ve reached William…”
“I wasn’t lying.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he ask you to marry him, then just dump you and leave?”
“I couldn’t tell you that either. Yesterday was one of the happiest days of my life. Then he overheard me talking to Damian about how hard the breakup with Matthias was on me. And when I got off the call, he asked if I’d gotten over Matt. I was honest and said I hadn’t, but I have now. But he took off before I could even finish. He said he should’ve just handed me over to Matt when I showed up at his doorstep.
He said he would meet me at Colton’s, and when he did, he didn’t say anything to me. He just took the ring off my finger and said ‘Goodbye, Britain.’”
“Does he think you cheated on him?”
“He’d be an idiot to think that. Matthias has called and texted me and I’ve ignored him every single time. I’m not interested in reliving that part of my life.”
“He’s out there, you know?”
“Liam?” My heart starts racing.
“No, Matt.” Only for my insides to drop.
“Oh, why?”
“He was the first one to you last night.” I’d forgotten. He was the last thing I saw before I passed out.
“Great, I see him for the first time in 17 years, and he found me passed out on the floor of a bar. This day just keeps getting better and better.”
“I can tell him to go away, if you want.”
“I don’t care. None of this matters. People can come see me being sad in a hospital gown, or I can sit here crying the day away until I’m discharged. Might as well let them distract me. I have the rest of my life to be alone.” Alex doesn’t try to pull me out of my pity party. He knows pain, he knows hurt. Sometimes you just have to let the person feel it.
“Want me to take these down before people come in?” He’s pointing to the sonograms hung on the magnetic whiteboard where Jen has written her name and a smiley face. It doesn’t look like much, just a lot of gray and a small circle, but it’s mine and Liam’s baby. Still in there, still hanging on.
“Yeah, please, take them down.” I don’t need Sandy coming in here making me feel even shittier right now. Not that she would intentionally make me feel like crap, but her getting excited over a grandchild right now feels like it’d be activating another level of hell, another level of pain.
He removes them, folding them neatly and tucking it in my bag. He moves to the door, but turns around before heading out.
“I’m not leaving. I’ll just be in the waiting room. When you get discharged, I’ll take you home.”
I laugh, a cruel laugh. “I don’t have a home here, Alex.” Liam was my home, and what a fucking joke that turned out to be. He doesn’t respond, just drops his head and leaves me.
Sandy and Jim walk into the room, carrying an oversized bouquet and a box of croissants. The look Sandy gives me when she walks in lets me know everything I need to. She knows.
“He told you first, didn't he?” Fucking momma’s boy. Sandy nods her head.
“Did he tell you why?” She shakes her head no.
“Yeah, me neither.” I wonder if she’ll actually say anything to me. I wait, hoping someone will fill the void, when finally Jim speaks up.
“Fresh batch of croissants, dear. Different recipe this time. I’ll be needing your feedback before I take them live.” He approaches me, setting the box in my lap in the bed. I just nod, trying hard not to cry.
“Thank you, Jim. I’ll let you know how they are, okay?” My voice cracks. “Do you think you could give Sandy and me a minute alone?” He nods, but bends down putting a kiss on the top of my head before exiting the room. I lost the love of my life, and the people I thought would be my surrogate parents, people I loved. I wasn’t planning to do this, but might as well get it all over with.
“You might want to take a seat for this, Sandy.” Her face is pale, and she’s rubbing her hands together nervously. She sits down on the edge of a chair by the window.
“You’re, um, well, you’re going to be a grandma. A real one.” She gasps as both hands fly to her face, her eyes wide. “I should say, there’s a chance I’ll miscarry. Head injuries in the first trimester can cause that to happen, and it’s still very early. But I thought you’d want to know. I don’t know that I’m going to be coming back to Spearhead anytime soon, so…I know that might be problematic if you want to be involved in their life. I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. I still have many months to figure this out and see what happens. I just thought you should know.”
“Does Liam know?” It comes out as a whisper.
“I don’t know. I’ve tried calling and texting, but he doesn’t respond. I did text him to tell him I was in the hospital having MRIs and ultrasounds, and that I was pregnant, but he never responded. I tried. I’m not going to track him down beyond that. I don’t need him for anything, and I won’t have my child begging for attention either. It’s his loss.”
“Yes it is, his loss,” Sandy says, just nodding her head vehemently. She looks down at my ring finger. I notice, holding up my hand.
“He took it from me last night. He took his ring back, and said goodbye. So that’s it, huh?” I look at Sandy who has tears streaming down her face, the same as me.
“I’m so sorry,” is all she says.
“Me, too. I tried, Sandy. I tried to take care of your baby, but he didn’t want it. He didn’t want me.”
“That’s not true, Britain.”
“It is. If he wanted me, he would be here. Well, he wouldn't be here because I wouldn’t be in this hospital bed. I’d be home with him, but I’m not. Umm, which reminds me, do you think you could get my things from his house? I don’t care about any of the clothes, I just want my jewelry case and the box of Georgia’s stuff. Would you do that for me?”
“Yes, of course. I can pack up your clothes. It’s not too much, I promise.”
“No, really, I don’t want any of it. You can donate all of it, burn it. I don’t want any of it.”
“Okay, baby.”
“Also, if you could not tell anyone about the pregnancy, that would be great. Obviously Jim doesn’t count. It’s just early and this could all end up as nothing.”
“Do you not want me to tell Liam?”
“I assume he will check his phone eventually and figure it out, but I leave that up to you. Whether you do or not won’t affect my relationship with you. I’ll never forget the kindness you paid to Georgia, and to me, even to Alex.” I just give her a half smile. She doesn’t say anything at all, just giving me a brief embrace before walking out of the room, tears streaming down her face.
Jen walks back into the room. “You know you’re going to live, right? Everyone who comes out of this room looks like they just found out their best dog died.” I can’t help but laugh.
“Misery follows me wherever I go, Jen. Tread carefully.”
“Well then, Queen of Darkness, ultrasound is ready for you.”
The ultrasound was uneventful. It showed nothing had changed, so as soon as the bloodwork comes back, I can leave, thank god. I had two more visitors, Rick and Carly. Both were brief and polite, and I made sure to bid them a final farewell. Kind of crazy to think of having such a humiliating experience, and then have all the people who were present come visit the following day. Like, “Yasss, thanks so much for coming to visit so that we may both bask in my embarrassment and shame!” Ugh.
There should only be one person left out there. Well, two if you count Alex. I don’t even bother trying to look in the mirror or fix my appearance before Matthias comes in. I’m too sad and exhausted to care, but I can’t help that my heart skips a beat when the door opens, but it’s just Jen.
“Good news, sunshine. Bloodwork was good. Your hormone levels increased from yesterday. I’m going to get the paperwork ready for discharge. Need some help putting on your clothes?” Well, at least I get to leave, but I can’t stand the thought of having to put that dress back on. I shudder.
“Any chance I could get a pair of scrubs or something else to wear? Umm, just some bad memories.”
“Yeah, let me go grab some for you. Be right back, okay?”
“Great, thank you.”
Alex pops in as Jen leaves. “If you could eat anything in the world right now, what would it be?”
“In-N-Out,” I say.
“Done. I’ll be right out here if you need me, okay? I’m going to send ‘you know who’ in.”
“Okay.” Shit.