“Now?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” I tug my shirt off and shrug on my green Henley. Aulie’s mouth drops into an “o.” My lips quirk at the flash of desire that cuts across her face. She’s tortured me enough for years with her existence. It’s about time I return the favor. “Simone’s having the baby—or had. I don’t know. I didn’t check the timestamps on the texts.”
“Oh! That’s fantastic! Are you going to the hospital? Do you want me to come?”
Aulie’s request seems ordinary enough, but with my anxiety surrounding hospitals, I know there’s something grander behind her offer.
If I weren’t already falling head-over-feet, stuff like this would push me off the edge of whatever cliff of delusion I’ve desperately clung to.
Leaning down, I press a kiss on her cheek. “I appreciate you, Dessy. But I need you to rest. I’ll see you soon, okay?”
Her eyelashes flutter as her fingers lightly graze where my lips brushed against her skin.
There’s a decided lightness in my step while I rush to the car. Starting the engine, I speed away and head to the hospital, an intoxicating swell of hope and butterflies mixing with anxiety and dread for my current destination.
Gripping the steering wheel, I call Tom and tell him on my way. Simone delivered an hour ago so I don’t feel as bad asking him to meet me outside so I don’t have to spend a second in the waiting room since I loathe that place entirely. While it’s not the samehospital, I elected to stay in the waiting room when my dad passed, and I haven’t been in one since.
The news was still so new to me then, and I was filled with a fit of overwhelming anger that everyone had kept it from me. So I wasn’t at his bedside when he passed. I didn’t hold his hand or say goodbye like my sisters. I didn’t give myself or him any sense of closure. Instead, I sat in the waiting room and watched a shitty Hallmark movie about finding love at Christmas, where a city-slicker businessman came home and fell in love with his childhood best friend, all grown up.
Okay, maybe the premise wasn’t that bad.
Throwing the car in park, I rush to the entrance Tom told me was closest to the maternity/delivery wing and find him standing outside.
Rushing through the sliding doors, my heart speeds up a fraction passing the rows of chair and white sterile walls in the lobby. Thankfully, Tom’s glow is infectious and helps settle my nerves. Simone is resting in one room while Little Jack is being monitored in another.
Tom leads me down a long, winding hallway, finally pausing at Suite Forty-Seven, and I bite down a laugh at their room matching my sweater number.
Tom motions for the door but doesn’t enter. “I’m going to get a coffee and something to eat, but you go in. Want anything?”
I shake my head. The last thing I need is something in my stomach when I’m anxious; I’ll hurl any moment. “I’m good, but thank you.”
With a collecting breath, I step into Simone’s room. A strong antiseptic smell greets me suggesting the room was recently scrubbed with a gallon of bleach.
“Hey, half-pint,” Simone says, still sedated. She reaches for me, and I swallow down the ball of anxiety lodged in my throat. I can’t show my family how uncomfortable this makes me.
Simone looks…okay, though. And I guess, given that she just pushed an entire human out, okay is better than expected.
But her skin is paler than usual. Her hair is in a high, frizzy bun. Her eyes are sunken, and her lips are pallid.
Couple that with the clamoring of machines around her, and it’s hard to tell myself that sheisfine. That all of this is normal. That I’m not about to lose my big sister to something no one is telling me about.
What if she’s had a complication this entire time, and no one wanted to worry me?
What if they think I’m still the little kid who needs protecting after I’ve spent the last ten years showing them I’m no longer that soft teenager I once was?
I clear my throat. “Hey.”
Chill. If you have a panic attack and pass out in the hospital, no one will ever tell you anything again.
Simone squints at my chest. “Your shirt is on inside out.”
I glance down and find my buttons facing inward. “So it is.”
“Half-pint,” Simone says with a sympathetic sigh. “It’s okay, I’m okay. Come here.” She beckons for me to move closer, and I slowly oblige her, kissing her forehead.
“You look like shit.”
“Well, I just pushed a child and a bunch of that out, too, so that tracks.” She smiles and my chest lightens a smidge.
