“Not a drunk-off-his-face Kallum?” supplied Gretchen.
I turned to face her. “I mean, I’m not mad that he drank or even that he got on the stage,” I said, in a low enough voice that only she could hear. “It was a party! And no one could have predicted I’d have a bleeding emergency. But—but—”
I didn’t know what I was trying to say, or what I even felt. Kallum had every right to enjoy his night; if I wouldn’t have found blood on my underwear, we would have gone back to the inn with smiles on our faces and snored the night away in peace.
Gretchen squeezed my hand. “You know it’s okay to feel two things at once, right? You can think it was okay for him to have a good time and still wish he was ready to help when shit hit the fan.”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“And I didn’t know Michael very well, but I’m guessing that he put himself first a lot of the time. It’s understandable that after everything you went through before this that you want to be with someone dependable.”
“Kallum’s dependable,” I said defensively. And then I had to add, because he was sitting in the back of the trolley with a frozen mojito packet and a broken tooth, “Sometimes.”
“Winnie,” Gretchen said with a smile. “We all grew up together, and I can tell you that Kallum might still be a giant nineteen-year-old inside. And that’s great for him—he’s living the dream nineteen-year-old life with his pizza parlor chain and his sex tape cred. He’s funny and loyal and sweet as hell, and an amazing friend. I think he’ll make a fun dad. But as a life partner? A boyfriend or husband?” She shrugged, still holding on to my hand. “Maybe it’s just not his personality, you know? To settle down and take life seriously.”
The hospital came into view, a blearily bright haven in the dark, and Gretchen squeezed my hand again in reassurance. But her words were rolling around my mind, crashing into the memory of his words to Teddy in the inn’s hallway, intothe memory of him ripping off his clothes and then careening drunkenly off the stage tonight.
I hated admitting it to myself, but tonight, I’d wanted Kallum to be... different. To have made different choices.
And that wasn’t fair to him. He had every right to drink and dance and strip in public and do whatever he wanted. But the stakes were higher than just my own comfort now, and what was fair to me mattered too.
I just didn’t know what that was right now.
Or what it meant after tonight.
It was chaos as we got to the hospital, all of us issuing from the trolley in a single clump, everyone jostling and talking over each other to try to explain to the bewildered triage nurse what was going on. Eventually Kallum and I ended up in the small triage room, and the nurse snapped on her gloves.
“Okay,” she said in a brisk, I’ve-been-a-trauma-nurse-for-as-long-as-you’ve-been-alive tone. “Lower the frozen mojito and let me see what I’m working with.”
Kallum just blinked at her, a picture of handsome, bearded bafflement, and I realized what was going on. Turns out that a horde of mostly drunk porn stars and former boy band members wasn’t the greatest at communication.
“No, no, it’s me who needs to be seen,” I interjected. “I’m four months pregnant and I’m bleeding. He’s the father.”
The nurse paused, recalibrated. Then nodded.
“Okay, love,” she said. “Let’s get some vitals, some history, and then let’s get you lying down. As for you, keep that frozen mojito right where it is.”
Within just a few minutes, I’d been weighed, checked, and given a hospital bracelet, and then Kallum and I were taken to a room in the ER proper, leaving the horde behind to argue and pillage the vending machines for snacks.
“Your nurse and doctor will be in shortly,” the person leading us back said, and then pulled a folded gown from a cabinet. It was blue, with a funky Memphis pattern that made me think of paper cups from the 1980s. “Once you have this on, please lay down. We want to keep you horizontal as much as possible.”
I nodded. At this point, they could ask me to stand on my head while reciting the lyrics to Weird Al’s “Albuquerque” and I would have done it. I would do anything, no matter how small or potentially pointless, anything to keep my little baby right where they belonged.
The nursing assistant left, and then I changed into my gown and laid on the bed, shivering on the chilly sheets. They’d put a chux pad down, to catch any bleeding—and cold, clawing fear threatened to break through my numbness. They were expecting me to bleed more. They need to keep track of how much I bled.
There was no universe where this wasn’t scary.
Kallum saw me shivering and got up from his chair. He went to rub my arm to warm it, but his hand was approximately the temperature of a half-thawed frozen mojito and it just made me shiver more.
“I’m sure it’s no big deal,” he said. “It’s going to be fine, Winnie. Promise.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted in a whisper. “I can’t lose our baby. I already love them so much and I just—”
“Don’t be scared,” cut in Kallum, like not being scared was that easy. “You’ll see. The doctor will be in and out, and it’ll be like this never happened.”
I thought he was trying to be comforting, to remind me that there was a strong possibility that everything could be okay, but right now with his slightly-too-loose voice and his North Pole T-shirt, it didn’t feel comforting. It felt like he didn’t want to be bothered with worrying; it felt like I was bothering him by worrying.
Ihatedfeeling like a bother.
