17. Odette
— ? —
Odette
I wake up wrong.
The first thing I feel is the cramping. Deep and low, a fist clenching in my abdomen, tightening and releasing in waves that make me gasp.
The second thing I feel is the wetness.
I throw back the covers and look down at the sheets. Even in the darkness, I can see the stain spreading across the white cotton. Dark and wet and unmistakable.
Blood.
“Elliott.” My voice comes out strangled, barely a whisper. “Elliott, wake up.”
He’s beside me in an instant, sleep falling away from him like a shed skin. He sees my face. Follows my gaze to the sheets. Goes pale.
“Hospital,” he says. “Now.”
The drive is a blur. I’m dimly aware of Elliott running red lights, of horns honking, of his hand gripping mine so tight it hurts. I’m dimly aware of the cramping getting worse, of the fear that’s clawing up my throat, of the words I can’t make myself say.
What if I’m losing her?
What if I’m losing the baby I never let myself want, the baby I only just started believing I could have, the baby that’s turned from a catastrophe into a gift in the span of a few short weeks?
I press both hands flat to the bottom of my belly like I can hold her in by will alone.
Stay, I beg her, silently, over and over, the way I used to beg for a positive test in bathrooms all over Manhattan and never got one.
Stay with me. I know I gave up on you before you were even real.
I know I spent years telling myself I was fine without you so it would stop hurting.
But I want you now. I want you so much it’s splitting me open.
Please don’t let this be the thing that teaches me it’s safe to want things.
Elliott’s hand is white-knuckled around mine, and I realize he’s praying too, his lips moving, his eyes fixed on the road, and it undoes something in me to see it. This is his fear as much as mine. This is our girl.
The emergency room is bright and cold and full of people who aren’t moving fast enough. Elliott is talking to someone at the desk, his voice sharp and urgent. Then there are hands on me, a wheelchair, a hallway that blurs past like a dream.
The exam room is small and clinical and terrifying. A doctor appears, asks questions I can barely hear, presses on my abdomen in ways that make me want to scream.
“How far along?”
“Almost six months.”
“Any previous pregnancies?”
“No.”
“Any recent stress?”
I laugh. It sounds like a sob.
The ultrasound machine hums to life. Cold gel on my belly. The doctor moving the wand, her face carefully neutral, giving nothing away.
I can’t look at the screen. I can’t bear to look and see nothing, to see the emptiness where my baby should be.
Elliott’s hand finds mine. “Look,” he whispers. “Odette, look.”
I look.
And there she is.
A shape on the screen, bigger now than she was at the last ultrasound. Arms and legs that move, a head that turns, a heartbeat that flickers steady and strong.
“The baby is fine,” the doctor says. I watch her mouth move but I don’t process the words until Elliott repeats them.
“She’s fine. Did you hear that? She’s fine.”
I start to cry.
“The bleeding appears to be stress-related spotting,” the doctor continues. “It’s more common than you might think, especially in high-risk pregnancies. But you need rest. Real rest. And significantly less of whatever the last month has been.”
I laugh through my tears. “I’ll try.”
“I’m serious, Mrs. Fairbanks. Your body is telling you that it can’t sustain this level of stress. If you don’t slow down, the consequences could be much more serious.”
She leaves to write up discharge instructions. Elliott helps me into a clean gown (mine is stained, ruined) and settles me back against the pillows.
The room is quiet now. Just the beep of the monitor tracking my heart rate. Just the hum of the machines. Just the two of us in the dim light of a hospital room at four in the morning.
“I was so scared,” I say. My voice sounds small. Broken. “I’ve never been that scared in my life.”
“Me neither.” He sits on the edge of the bed, his hand still holding mine. “When I saw the blood, I thought... I couldn’t think. I just knew I had to get you here. Get you safe.”
“You ran every red light.”
“I’d have run through the lights themselves if it meant getting you here faster.”
I reach up and touch his face. He hasn’t shaved. There are dark circles under his eyes. He looks exhausted and terrified and beautiful.
“I love you,” I say.
The words come out without planning, without thinking. They’re just there, suddenly, filling the space between us like they’ve always been waiting to be said.
Elliott goes rigid.
“I love you,” I say again, because now that I’ve started I can’t stop. “I love you and I’ve been too scared to say it because everything is so complicated and so messy and I don’t know what we’re doing or where we’re going but I know that I love you and I need you to know that.”
He leans down and kisses me. Soft and sweet and tasting like tears.
“I love you too,” he says against my lips. “I think I have for years and just didn’t have the word for it. I thought it was loyalty, or protectiveness, or just being a decent human being. But it was always love. From the first moment I saw you, it was love.”
We stay like that for a long time, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other’s air. The monitor beeps. The machines hum. The world outside the window starts to lighten toward dawn.
Then my stomach growls.
Loud. Demanding. Completely undignified.
Elliott laughs. “When did you last eat?”
“I don’t remember. Yesterday, maybe? There was a sandwich at some point.”
“That isn’t enough. You need real food.”
The craving hits me like a wave. Sudden and specific and completely irrational.
“Chocolate milkshake,” I say. “And fries. To dip in it.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“The baby wants what the baby wants.”
He shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “It’s four in the morning. Where am I supposed to find a chocolate milkshake and fries at four in the morning?”
“There’s a diner two blocks from here. I saw it from the ambulance.”
“You weren’t in an ambulance.”
“Fine, from the car. While you were running red lights.”
He stands up. Pulls on his jacket. Leans down to kiss my forehead.
“I’ll be right back,” he says. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’m in a hospital bed. Where would I go?”
“Knowing you? Anywhere you want.” He pauses at the door. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He leaves.
I settle back against the pillows and watch the door swing shut behind him. The monitor beeps. The machines hum. The baby kicks, a flutter low in my belly that makes me smile.
Five minutes pass.
Ten.
I tell myself he’s waiting in line. I tell myself the diner is busy, even at this hour. I tell myself there’s nothing to worry about.
Twenty minutes.
I reach for my phone to call him. It’s dead, the battery drained from the chaos of the night. I press the call button on the bed rail instead and no one comes, and the not-coming is its own kind of answer, and I hate that some animal part of me already knows.
Thirty minutes.
The chair where his jacket was hanging is empty. I stare at it, trying to remember. Did he take the jacket? I thought I saw him put it on, but now I can’t be sure.
Forty minutes.
Where is he?