Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
TREVOR
Nine Years Ago
“Something’s wrong. Trevor?”
My wife’s fear-filled voice cuts through the silence of the truck, and I turn from the work I have spread out on the dashboard in front of me to take her in.
She’s sitting up in the back of the Suburban we’ve transformed into a bed.
Her hand massages her neck, and she squeezes her eyes shut.
A grimace of pain or discomfort crosses her features.
“What’s up, baby?” Instead of responding, all in one motion, Paige jerks open the door nearest her, leans over, and starts vomiting.
“Holy shit, baby! What’s going on?” I jump out the front door, my work falling to the ground behind me, and race around the front of the vehicle to where my six-month-pregnant eighteen-year-old wife crouches over, heaving into the bushes.
I grab her hair, hold it up and away from her face, and run my other hand across her flushed neck.
“Paige, is it more morning sickness? Did you take that puke medicine this morning?” An immediate and visceral energy courses through my body, making my hands shake.
I need to help. Should I get it for her?
What is wrong? She should be in a real bed.
“Trevor …” Her voice fades out before she starts heaving again.
What’s happening? “This—this is different, Trev. Call the doctor.” Paige leans back into my body and starts to shiver.
I snatch my phone from my back pocket and dial our doctor while I wrap my arm around her body.
I’m surprised to feel that she’s actually put on some weight as I pull her toward myself.
“Hello, Doctor Sean’s office. How can I help you?” a startlingly calm voice answers.
“I need to talk to the doctor right now, please. I believe that it’s an emergency.” My arm is holding a shaking Paige, adding an urgency I’m certain is clear in my voice.
“Is the patient in labor?”
“Are you in labor?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
“No, she doesn’t think so.”
“If you believe it’s an emergency, you may want to go to the nearest ER. Our offices close in just a few minutes.” The smooth cadence of her voice is meant to soothe, but it adds to my panic.
“No, please! We’ll be there in ten—” Paige sways a little, and my heart feels like it’s about to beat right out of my chest. “Please. God, Ma’am, please.”
“Sir, just a moment, please.”
“No!” The jarring melody of the hold music interrupts my words, and I start moving.
“Baby, I’m going to help you into the seat, and we are going to go right now.
” A small groan is the only confirmation I get, followed quickly by some mumbled nonsense about our home being a mess.
I ignore whatever protests she’s making as the all-too-familiar sharp pang of guilt slices through me at her sweet voice calling our car our home.
That’s all you could give her.
“Sir?”
“Yes!” Shit. “Sorry. Sorry, what?”
“Sir, Dr. Sean said to come on in, and she’ll take a look before leaving for the day.
” I’m clicking the seat belt for Paige while a sudden urge to cry hits.
“Thank you.” My voice is hoarse, so I clear my throat.
“Thank you. We will be there straight away.” I’m hitting the gas, somehow pulling out of Carter’s backyard with both speed and care.
The most important part of my life sits in the seat next to me, but she says something is wrong, and she needs help now.
“I love you, Paige.” She reaches out and holds my shaking hand, steadying me, as always. Only, this time, her usually warm touch is clammy and cold as ice.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but your insurance didn’t go through. Do you have a different card for your wife? Maybe a secondary insurance?”
“It didn’t go … through.” My mind races through why that could happen, but it all comes back blank.
The pen I’m holding creaks with the pressure of my clenched fist. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry, no.
That doesn’t mean we can’t pay.” I rush to assure the woman behind the desk.
“Please treat her with the best that you have. We have it covered, I-I promise.”
She nods and says some perfunctory, “Of course,” then types, adding something onto whatever it is on her screen.
I knock my knuckles twice on the counter before turning to our room, my mind immediately trying to work through how we’re going to get over this new monumental hurdle placed into our path.
I haven’t been kicked off my parents’ insurance yet, but my college insurance doesn’t kick in until after the semester starts.
The wait was fine because Paige was on her mom’s insurance.
At least, she was up until her most recent check-up, yet suddenly, it’s no longer registering as active.
Why would it no longer be active? Did her mother lose her job, or could she have dropped her daughter off of her plan?
I quietly open the door and take in the form of my extra fluffy, fitfully sleeping wife. Somehow, she’s gone from looking barely pregnant to looking like a beach ball in an extremely short amount of time—a very cute beach ball.
From the moment they took Paige’s blood pressure within a few minutes of arriving at the hospital, I’ve been stuck in slow motion while the world around me is moving in hyperspeed. I can’t keep up. I want to panic, but Paige needs me to remain strong, and I won’t let her down.
The pressure cuff wasn’t even off her arm before the nurse called in the doctor, and then our doctor was calling the hospital from a town over about an ambulance and another doctor.
She was saying things I’ve never heard of, her tone calm but rushed.
“We may need this baby to come out now, and we don’t have the facilities to hold a baby this young, or one this small.
” My underweight, pregnant wife was possibly going to have her baby—our baby—three months early.
Two days later, and I’m standing at the nurse station, finally getting some paperwork completed now that the panic surrounding Paige’s condition has calmed.
Severe preeclampsia. That’s what they diagnosed her with. That was her headache. Her stats were through the roof. Her blood pressure read 239/190 when they finally started a drip with magnesium. They were able to stabilize her.
The biggest blessing is that we got her here, and our baby is perfectly healthy despite what is happening to his momma.
So long as she remains stable with minimal intervention, she can remain pregnant.
Apparently, every day the baby is still growing in Paige is worth three days out of it, so we’re crossing our fingers and thinking low blood pressure thoughts.
We will be here at the hospital until the day she delivers the baby.
We’re hoping to make it at least two more months, but to be on the safe side, they’ve given her some steroid shots to help move along Jacob’s lung development.
It’s not where either of us wants to be, but we’re here, where she and our son can be monitored twenty-four-seven.
I recognize that we are in the best place for both of them for this very reason.
Since our arrival, Paige has gained a concerning amount of weight, so initially noticing that gain was not just in my imagination, but they assure me—multiple times a day—that it’s normal.
But she’s uncomfortable, and I’m worried.
On my way to the brick they call a bed, I accidentally bump into one of the many monitors that surround her.
She whimpers in her sleep at the loud sound.
Shit. Dammit, you klutz. My feet are planted firmly in place, and I do not move while she settles back into her fitful rest. When her breathing evens out, I watch her beautiful, fluffy face run through a multitude of expressions.
I can’t believe it’s been less than a year since I met her, but nothing about us feels new.
She’s … everything to me. I don’t know how I managed in this life before she sauntered into it.
My brick beckons, so I settle in and close my eyes, visions of my love filling my mind as I immediately fall asleep. I sleep and dream of my happiness.
Paige and I are tangled up in the back of our car, and she’s laughing because she bumped her head while climbing on top of me.
“You okay, baby?” Concern laces my voice as I attempt to pat her head, but Paige nestles her shaking body against mine.
We were in the middle of a heavy makeout session, moving things along, when a loud thud brought me immediately out of my one-track mind.
I take in her beautiful face, the edges of her lips tipped in humor as her body lies flush against mine. She opens her mouth—
A sharp scream throws me out of my dream and back into the current nightmare of our reality. Paige. I’m on my feet and at her side in a heartbeat.
“Paige! What—” Another scream cuts off my words, and I reach to her side and hit the nurse button.
I wrap my hands around her far more swollen body in an effort to calm her.
Her sharp intake of breath has me freezing in place.
“Paige?” Her name falls from my lips as a question, and dread fills me with her possible reaction.
She whimpers, and I lose my fucking mind.
“Does this Goddamn remote not fucking work?” I frantically press it as my wife mumbles and whimpers quietly.
A nurse walks in, and at first, I could kiss her feet for showing up, but once I get a good look, I deflate.
It is the nurse who has continued to dismiss her discomfort, completely ignoring and dismissing everything, not doing a thing about the rash forming on her arms and legs.
“Sir.” The condescension in her voice with that one word makes me want to throw things. From the moment she walked into our room and saw us, she had made up her mind about who we are.
“Irresponsible teen parents.” I heard her whisper it when I was getting Paige some ice.
“I’m going to need you to remain calm. Everything that is happening here is normal—”