35. Addy
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Addy
The first thing I notice is the smell. Antiseptic. Sharp, cold, and aggressively clean. My second thought is that my mouth tastes like I licked a battery. My third thought is…
Oh, no. Did I die at the rich people plane party?
I peel my eyes open, and the world arrives in pieces. White ceiling, fluorescent light, a beige curtain, a beeping softly nearby.
My hand feels heavy, and when I glance down, there’s an IV taped to it.
Fantastic. I'm in a hospital.
Which means either my body has finally resigned from service or I did something mortifying in public.
Possibly both.
I try to sit up.
Bad idea.
The room tilts, my stomach rolls, and a groan crawls out of me before I can stop it.
“Easy.”
I turn my head, and there’s Ethan beside the bed, still in his tux, bow tie gone, shirt collar open, jacket draped over the back of the chair.
His hair is messier than I’ve ever seen it.
His face is locked down in that terrifying calm way that means he's probably one emotional inconvenience away from commandeering the hospital.
“You’re here,” I whisper.
His eyes soften by exactly one degree, which, for Ethan, is practically a public breakdown. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
“You fainted.”
I close my eyes.
No.
Absolutely not.
“I fainted at the gala? In that dress?”
“Yes.”
I cover my face with my free hand. “Please tell me I did it elegantly.”
A pause. “No.”
I peek at him through my fingers. “You could’ve lied.”
“I could have.”
“You’re a cruel man.”
His mouth shifts, barely. “You scared me.”
The words slip under my ribs before I’m ready for them.
I lower my hand.
He isn’t joking now. Not even a little. His gaze moves over my face like he’s checking I’m still assembled correctly, as if he’s personally responsible for all my organs remaining in their assigned departments.
“I’m okay,” I say, though I have no idea if that’s true.
“You will be. The doctors are still running tests.”
I look around the room again, trying to make my brain work. There’s a monitor beside me, a blood pressure cuff, a folded blanket over my legs, and my beautiful green dress hidden beneath a hospital gown that makes me look like a Victorian patient with bad insurance.
“Oh, no,” I say, horror dawning. “Did they cut the dress?”
“No.”
I exhale. “Thank goodness.”
His eyebrow lifts faintly. “That’s your primary concern?”
“It was an expensive dress, Ethan.”
“You fainted.”
“And yet fashion remains relevant.”
Relief crosses his face, there and gone so quickly I might have imagined it.
Then the curtain shifts, and a doctor steps in with a tablet in hand.
She’s maybe in her forties, calm in the way people get when they’ve explained terrifying things to strangers for a living. Her badge says Dr. Patel.
“Adeline?” she asks warmly. “Good. You’re awake.”
“Unfortunately, yes, and apparently publicly dramatic.”
Dr. Patel smiles. “You gave everyone a scare, but you’re stable now.”
Stable.
There’s that word again. Bryce used it like an insult. The doctor uses it like a mercy.
I prefer hers.
“What happened to me?” I ask.
“You had a syncopal episode. A fainting spell. Your blood pressure was low when you arrived, and you were mildly dehydrated. We’ve given you fluids, and your vitals have improved.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “That sounds… not great, but not death.”
“We also ran some bloodwork,” she continues, glancing at the tablet. “And there’s another factor that likely contributed.”
Her tone changes. My stomach tightens. Ethan goes still beside me.
“What factor?” I ask.
Dr. Patel looks at me gently. “Adeline, your pregnancy test came back positive.”
I hear absolutely nothing. The room goes white at the edges. I blink hard, waiting for the room to reset itself into something reasonable.
It doesn’t.
The hospital room remains exactly where it was. So does the doctor. So do the words hanging in the air between us. Still floating like someone threw a grenade and called it medical information.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because apparently my manners have survived even if my sanity has not. “What?”
“You’re pregnant.”
My laugh comes out wrong. “No, I’m not.”
Dr. Patel doesn’t look offended. Probably because she tells women shocking uterus news all the time. “I understand this is unexpected.”
Unexpected.
That's a tiny little word for what's currently happening. Unexpected is finding out the coffee shop is closed. Unexpected is stepping in a puddle. Unexpected isn't waking up in a hospital after fainting at your boss’s aviation gala and being told your uterus has launched a side project.
“I can’t be pregnant,” I say.
The doctor’s expression remains kind. “The blood test is very reliable.”
My brain grabs for dates and comes up with screaming. The plane, the first-class seat, Ethan’s mouth, that stupid, reckless, grief-fueled, rage-fueled, one-mile-high bad decision.
And then after.
The penthouse, the hallway, the bed, the rules we kept breaking like they were made of tissue paper.
I press my hand to my stomach without meaning to.
No.
No, no, no.
This isn't happening.
I turn my head slowly toward Ethan.
He's staring at the doctor, and I can see it packed behind his eyes. Shock, fear, calculation. Something darker and old.
For one awful second, I think of Megan. His wife, his loss, his entire world already broken once. And now here I am, lying in a hospital bed, apparently pregnant, because my life is allergic to reasonable pacing.
“Ethan,” I whisper.
He looks at me then.
His mask cracks just enough for me to see the terror underneath.
Oh.
Oh, that hurts.
Dr. Patel must sense the temperature of the room dropping because she softens her voice. “We don’t have to discuss everything right now. You’re stable, but given the fainting, dehydration, and the fact that we don’t yet know how far along you are, we’d like to keep you overnight for observation.”
“Overnight?” I repeat.
“Yes. Mostly precautionary. We’ll continue fluids and repeat your vitals. We’ll arrange an ultrasound with OB in the morning to confirm dating and check that everything looks appropriate.”
“In the morning?”
“The emergency department can confirm pregnancy tonight through bloodwork,” she explains. “Because you’re stable and not reporting severe abdominal pain or bleeding, the formal ultrasound can be done with the OB team during morning rounds. If anything changes overnight, we’ll reassess immediately.”
I nod like that makes sense.
Dr. Patel explains a few more things. Hydration. Observation. A nurse will come check on me. Try to rest. Press the button if I feel dizzy, nauseous, or have pain.
I retain maybe twelve percent of it.
The rest of my brain is standing in the middle of a burning field holding a positive pregnancy test like a tiny white flag.
When the doctor leaves, the room feels too small, too quiet. Ethan remains standing beside my bed. Not touching me. That’s what I notice.
Before, he was all controlled closeness. Hand near mine, eyes on my pulse, body angled like a shield.
Now there’s space.
“So,” I say, because silence is worse. “That’s new.”
He looks at me. “Yes.”
One word.
Very Ethan.
Very useless.
My laugh cracks. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“I know.”
I swallow hard. “Are you…?”
I can’t finish. Are you angry? Are you horrified? Are you already regretting me? Are you thinking about your dead wife and your little boy and how I’ve just dropped a bomb into the life you barely let anyone enter?
Ethan steps closer, finally. “I’m not angry with you.”
My eyes sting.
Annoying.
“I didn’t ask that.”
“You were going to.”
A broken little sound escapes me.
He reaches for my hand, then pauses. “I need to go home.”
My fingers go slack in his. “Oh.”
His grip tightens immediately. “Not because of this.”
I stare at the blanket. The hospital blanket's rough and thin and tucked too neatly around my waist. “Okay.”
“I can’t leave Oliver with Diane too much longer. It’s too much for her, and there isn’t anyone else.”
I nod.
Of course.
Oliver.
Sweet, sleepy Oliver in airplane pajamas, expecting his dad to come home.
The guilt arrives fast and ugly, because for one terrible second, I want to say “don’t go”. I want to be selfish. I want him to sit in that chair all night and hold my hand and tell me every terrifying thing is manageable because he’s Ethan Strong and he makes things manageable.
But Oliver needs him.
Oliver is five.
Oliver has already lost one parent.
And Ethan looks like the hospital room is made of ghosts.
“You should go,” I say, even though it hurts.
His jaw tightens. “I’ll come back first thing in the morning.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll speak with the nurse before I leave. Make sure they know to call me if anything changes.” He pauses. “I can arrange a private room and additional consultation.”
“Ethan.” I force myself to look at him. There he is, trying to build a fortress around a situation he can’t control. “I’m okay.”
Then he leaves.
The door closes softly behind him, and the room becomes enormous.
For a minute, I hold it together, I really do. I stare at the ceiling. I listen to the beeping. I drink water. I tell myself I'm an adult woman who can spend one night in a hospital without dissolving like wet tissue paper.
Then my hand moves to my stomach again, and a sob slips out.
I turn onto my side carefully, curling around the place where everything has changed, and cry into the scratchy hospital pillow until my throat hurts.
I cry because I have no idea what’s next.