Chapter Twenty-Two
If you cut Deadpool exactly in half, would you get two Deadpools? Since he regenerates immediately from the largest piece of his remains, if the halves are equal, how would one half know to let the other half generate? I mean, if he was cut off at the waist, then you could assume the top half—the half with the brains—would be the natural part of him that would regenerate. But what if you cut him in half vertically? In two exactly equal halves?
Two Deadpools.
“No way, man. Adam, what do you think?” One of the devs turned to me and my brain came zooming back from thinking about a certain Marvel anti-hero to the present. Oh yeah, the meeting. We were now on our third argument of the morning and the meeting had only started ten minutes ago.
“If we do that, then we’d have to go back into the source code,” Sara, replied.
Around here, we called her Sarah Connor after the heroine of the Terminator movies. She was every bit a badass as her namesake. And, given the way the male devs reacted to her suggestion to do more slog work, made it clear that she wasn’t afraid of a few naysayers.
Someone entered the room while I leaned in to interrupt the discussion. I read off my important item notes to Jeremy, who was acting as secretary to record them on the digital scrum file while the dev next to him wrote the same tasks onto sticky notes for our giant departmental Kanban board.
“Adam?” Maggie said beside me, having quietly entered in the middle of the argument.
“Can it wait? I’ve got—” I turned to her and knew immediately what her reply was going to be just from the look on her face.
She shook her head quickly. “No, it’s urgent.”
I set my notes down. “Okay well, tell them to hold for just a few minutes. I’ll be there as soon as—”
“It’s the hospital. They were calling about Mia.”
I bolted out of my chair, tossing my list at Jeremy. “Handle that.”
Then I spun and followed Maggie out of the room while the devs stared after me, shock and concern easily readable on their faces.
Just outside, I shut the door and turned to her. “Tell me.”
She was wringing her hands. The normally unflappable Maggie was, well, flapped, it seemed. “She’s alright. But she passed out during morning rounds, and they took her to the ER to get checked out.”
I blinked, icy cold clamping around my throat. “She passed out?”
“She’s conscious now. Didn’t hurt herself in the fall. I asked about that. But they want you to come get her. She’s probably going to need to go home and rest.”
I ran my hand through my hair, the other gripping the doorknob overly tightly. My heart hammered. “Fuck.”
She handed me my laptop case, keys and wallet. I, of course, already had my phone.
“I’ve rebooked your afternoon appointments and that one meeting with testing.”
I breathed out a heavy sigh. “Thank you.”
“Go take care of her. I hope she’s okay.”
No one knew about her condition. But once news of her fainting got out, they’d all think the worst and worry about a cancer relapse. Well, they could fucking join the club on that one.
Later, I’d have little to no memory of that drive—but I likely drove like a massive asshole up the clogged freeway. Fortunately, I didn’t get stopped. I handed the keys off to the hospital valet parking as I wasn’t about to fuck around with trying to find my own parking space. And I walked straight into the ER and the front triage desk.
When I got there, my voice was breathless, panicked. I had no idea what I’d find. Maggie had said they assured her Emilia was okay but that could mean so many things. “I’m Dr. Strong’s husband. She’s been taken into the back?”
The person nodded quickly, checked something on the computer. “Room A-3.” She gestured past the door to intake.
The labyrinth of examination rooms in the ER was such that it wasn’t easy to find the one I needed. After stopping and asking someone walking by, I finally found the one I wanted. I pulled aside the curtain that had been drawn across the doorway and slipped inside.
I wasn’t prepared.
Emilia lay on a gurney with an IV in her arm and monitors that attached her to a computer.
Fuck.
The sight slammed me with a shockwave that was like a fist to the gut, taking me straight back to that night. The night she’d been so sick from her chemo that she’d passed out in the bathroom. Then, when I’d found her, she frantically demanded that I write down a bucket list for her. Then she passed out again. I’d fucking carried her, unconscious, across Bay Island to the waiting ambulance. That night, I was almost positive that I’d lose her. The worst fucking night of my life so far.
My pulse hammered in my throat and cruel fear dug its icy claws into my heart. I relived it all in an instant, as if it’d happened fucking yesterday.
Emilia’s eyes landed on me, widened and she blinked, pushing to sit up. “Adam!”
“Lie down,” I snapped too harshly. Without hesitation, she complied, frowning as I approached her.
She looked up at me, wide-eyed. “Are you okay?”
I blew out a breath, eyes darting to the IV bag hanging up on the pole above her head. “I should be asking you that.”
She stared at me for a long moment, then she seemed to snap out of wherever her mind went as she said. “I’m fine. It was just low blood sugar.”
“How is that possible? Those breakfast smoothies have plenty of—”
She sighed, eyes down like a scolded child. “I haven’t been drinking them. I haven’t been eating much.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed at the spot in between my brows, trying to will the irritation to pass. It was illogical to be angry with her and yet, I inexplicably was. “Why?”
“Morning sickness. It kicked in hardcore a few weeks ago. I didn’t have the heart to tell you that I started puking up the smoothies.”
I swallowed. “Weeks ago?”
She bit her lip. “More or less.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “And you’re only telling me this now because...?”
She shrugged. “Because I didn’t want to worry you.”
I gestured to the IV bag. “Yeah, this is so much better. Thanks for that.”
Her brows came down. “Adam, I didn’t do it on purpose.”
I ran a hand through my hair, rubbed the back of my neck and walked in a circle waiting for the anger to abate. It wasn’t working. “You were hiding from me the fact that you were sick. Why?”
“Because I know how worried you are about all this. I didn’t want to burden you any more than—”
I spun and faced her. “Burden me? Emilia, we are a team, this is bullshit. You can’t fucking hide this from me.”
She blew out a breath, eyes widening. “Adam, chill, please. Enough with the swearing and yelling. We’re in a hospital—and not just any hospital, but the hospital that employs me so would you—”
I clenched my teeth and lifted a finger to point at her. When I spoke, my voice was as low as I could manage. “We’ll talk about this later, then. And you’ll tell me everything.”
A few minutes later, her doctor came in. He addressed Emilia by her first name, leading me to assume that she’d worked with him before. “Your bloodwork is fine, but you’re dehydrated. The IV had an anti-emetic along with helping you hydrate. I’m prescribing some in pill form for you—which, you know, you could have prescribed for yourself.” He turned to me as if sharing some funny aside. “That took some getting used to, knowing that I could prescribe myself medication if I needed to.”
I might have smiled and played along but I was in no mood, lurking in the corner of that exam room like a storm cloud, stiffly propped against the wall, arms folded over my chest.
“Mia, I’ve told scheduling to give you a couple days off, and no long call for a week—”
She sat up. “But—”
I stiffened and it drew her attention immediately. She was going to argue with her doctor? No way, no fucking way.
The guy spoke up before I could say a word, thankfully. “Doctor’s orders, Mia. Don’t perpetuate that old stereotype about doctors being the worst patients, okay? Once you’ve got the nausea under control and can keep fluids and nutrients down, you’ll be back in fighting shape and ready to heal other people.”
“My patients—”
“You heard your doctor,” I said and flashed her a look of warning. Her mouth thinned but she didn’t make any more protests.
Soon her IV was removed, and she was asked to stand if she could without feeling lightheaded. She immediately wanted to use the bathroom, and I helped her with that. Her prescriptions were sent to our pharmacy, where I’d pick them up later. She was discharged from the ER shortly thereafter but not before she was visited by at least four other doctors in the same shorter white coats of residents, and one in a long, full-length coat whom I surmised, based on their discussion, was her current attending physician.
A few hours later, I was asked to wheel her to the car and a hospital orderly accompanied us so she could return the wheelchair. Emilia mostly fiddled with her phone, and we didn’t talk until she was loaded into the car.
Oh right, her car.
“Where did you park? I’ll have someone come get your car.”
She glanced up from her phone. “I can Uber back to work tomor—I mean whenever I come back.”
I took a deep breath and let it go, fighting the rise of that heat again. “Or...you can tell me where you parked so it won’t have to sit there for a week.”
“A week?”
“Or whenever your obstetrician tells you it’s safe to go back to work.”
“My obstetrician doesn’t know—”
“Yet. But you’re calling her immediately to tell her what happened, right? And if she wants to see you, you’re going in to see her.”
Before backing out of my parking space, I sent a text to my driving service, asking them to stop by the house in an hour for her keys so they could fetch the car and bring it back. Emilia quietly stared out the window as I exited into a side street, heading for the freeway entrance.
Tension simmered in that car between us, but I was in no mood for an argument. I cued up a stupid podcast and we listened to it in silence. I had no idea what they were even discussing and was paying more attention to the traffic while thunderclouds coalesced into a storm inside my head.
Nothing was said until she reached up and turned down the volume. “Can we...talk about this?”
My eyes stayed glued to the road. “Not feeling too chatty at the moment.”
“Why are you pissed at me?”
I let out a long sigh while I signaled to change lanes. Though it was late afternoon, the traffic going in this direction, from City of Orange toward Newport Beach, wasn’t terrible this time of day. The other direction, however, was a bumper-to-bumper parking lot in the making.
“I’m not pissed at you, but I am frustrated with you. I need you to take better care of yourself, and I need you to not hide things from me when they aren’t going well. You could have been seriously injured today.”
She took a deep breath and gestured with her open hands. “It came from a place of love and concern for you, Adam. I know you, ah, have some trauma around my being ill last time. Naturally, there are going to be times during this pregnancy when I’m not doing well. I just didn’t want you to—”
I shook my head, tightly gripping the wheel. “Don’t you do that. Don’t you put this on me. What you did was irresponsible. You repeated that mistake—from last time.”
When she’d gotten sick, she’d hid it from everyone except for Heath and gone through a huge part of her treatment alone while pushing everyone else away, including her own mother. How had it not occurred to her that this would be a massive issue for me?
She paused for a long time, staring straight out the windshield. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap. “Agreed. I screwed up. I’m sorry.”
I took a deep breath and let it go. That eased a little bit of the tension, but it didn’t fix this. Was this how my life was going to be for the next eight months? Starting at shadows like a tasty prey animal in a jungle packed full of apex predators?
I readjusted my hold on the steering wheel the moment I realized my knuckles were aching from gripping it so hard. “I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s wrong. And I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”
“But—”
“No, Emilia. No arguments. For fuck’s sake, I—” Then I cut myself off, not wanting to go off on her again. I shook my head vigorously. “Goddamn it. I can’t do this.”
Her head swiveled to me abruptly. “Well, it’s a little late for that, because it’s happening whether you want it to or not.”
I sent her a heated look out of the side of my eye. “That’s not what I meant. I mean I can’t do this...” I gestured between the two of us. “You may not like how I’m being right now. I sure as hell don’t like it either, but you did some stupid fucking shit because you thought it would be easier for me, and quite frankly, you made it worse. I need you to promise to be open and honest. And that you’re going to call your OB and tell her what happened. And that you aren’t going to argue with your orders to stay home and rest for the next few days. And that you are going to take your medication and eat and drink and take good care of yourself. I need to be assured of these things—and to be able to trust you—or it’s going to be a long fucking nine months for both of us. Way too long.”
She was silent for a long time. I signaled to exit the toll road on our off ramp, my gut tied in knots from this entire situation—and subsequent conversation about it.
She might think I was exaggerating or blowing things out of proportion. But the truth of the matter was that the gut-freezing fear inside my chest since seeing her on that gurney hooked up to an IV and monitors hadn’t thawed even now, hours later.
I made a quick stop at the pharmacy to pick up her meds and then drove to the house. Not another word was said between us until we parked. She stayed seated in the car until I came around to open it for her. She slid out of her seat and stood in front of me, then grabbed my arm when I turned to go.
Emilia pulled me into a hug, her arms slipping around my waist. “I fucked up. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll tell you what’s going on, even when I’m feeling shitty. I promise I’ll talk to my doctor and take my meds and eat. But I need you to promise that you aren’t going to hover, and you aren’t going to worry or freak out.”
“I’m not sure that’s something I can promise.”
She let out a long sigh. “Okay, well I guess we’ll work on it, then.”
She made no protest when I hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her close as we walked back across the island toward the house. I watched her closely. Though pale, she seemed to be walking and acting normally.
I still insisted she spend the rest of the day in bed and thankfully, she didn’t argue. I brought up her dinner and we ate on trays together in bed and watched some TV. I tried to be subtle about it, but I low-key monitored every fucking bite that went into her mouth.
Was there enough protein, enough carbs, enough fiber, enough nutrients? She definitely wasn’t eating like she used to, measuring every single tiny bite and waiting minutes between each one. But clearly, the anti-nausea drugs were helping because she seemed less hesitant about her food. I cursed myself for not having noticed before. We hadn’t eaten many meals together in the past few weeks due to our clashing schedules, but when we had, she’d taken extremely small portions and then returned most of the plate untouched.
I hadn’t even paid attention.
And if ever we had to be on the same side, it was now. I wasn’t bullshitting—we were a team. So, if she’d promised to be honest to me, I had to trust that she would.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to watch her every second that I possibly could.
She said nothing when I informed her that I’d cleared my schedule and would be working from home for the rest of the week. She said nothing when I handed her phone to her the next morning and hovered while she called her obstetrician and told her what had happened the day before.
She was easy and pliant and went along with all my demands. She even ate snacks when I brought them to her, stayed in bed for the first day when I asked her to. Everything.
Not one argument.
It was like she’d transformed into a Stepford wife. To be honest, if she’d become an android, I wouldn’t have to worry about all this health bullshit.
But it ate away at me regardless.