by Vi Keeland
A brisk wind blew into my window, and as I got up to close it, chills ran down my body when I recognized the melody that was coming from a Jeep parked at the traffic light outside. It was Crimson and Clover—my father’s favorite song. I looked up at the dark night sky and there was also a full moon.
I decided to keep the window open…let Dad in a little. Closing my eyes, I relished the breeze with the confidence that he had my back tomorrow.
I had fallen asleep and woke up covered in sweat about midnight. My heart was beating fast, and a strange feeling came over me. It wasn’t physically painful, but it hurt in a different way. It was just a bad feeling that something was wrong.
I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t shake it. About an hour later, my phone rang. It was Ryan.
Why wasn’t he here sleeping and why was he calling me at this hour?
I answered. “What do you want Ryan?”
“Jake?”
“Yeah…who else…what’s up?”
“I’m at New York Methodist Hospital. You need to get here as soon as you can. It’s Nina.”
CHAPTER 29
Ryan wouldn’t tell me much about Nina’s condition. He said he had just gotten there himself after her roommate called him and that he didn’t know details yet but that she was alive and stable. I let out the longest sigh of relief of my entire life.
Thank God.
He just told me to hurry and then hung up.
My entire body was shaking and I scrambled to find a shirt. As I flew out the door, I didn’t even know if I shut it behind me. I just started running and dialed a cab company on my phone in case I couldn’t hail one.
Thankfully, a red cab came around the corner a few minutes later and took me to the hospital. Nina’s eyes were all I could see as I rested my head back on the seat and prayed for her to be okay. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anything ever happened to her, especially since there was so much left unsaid.
When we arrived, I threw a fifty-dollar bill at the cabbie and told him to keep the change as I ran across the street and nearly got hit by a departing ambulance. I blew through the front doors of the emergency entrance. The room was spinning with the sounds of intercoms, kids whining and stretchers being wheeled in. Dammit, I just needed to get to her.
Out of breath, I told the woman at the front desk, “I’m looking for Nina Kennedy. She was brought here about an hour ago.”
“And you are?”
I couldn’t even think straight and hesitated, not sure how to answer. “I’m her…friend…Jake Green.”
She lifted her phone and dialed it. “Where did they take Nina Kennedy?” she asked someone on the other end.
My chest pounded in nervous anticipation as panic set in.
She hung up the phone. “She’s in a room now on the ninth floor. Go down that hallway and take a right. You’ll see the elevators. The nurses will be able to direct you.”
I started running before she even finished her sentence and nearly knocked over an old man behind me.
When I got to the floor Nina was on, my heart sank when I noticed Mister Rogers getting out of another elevator.
What the fuck was he doing here?
I was too scared to be pissed. We walked side by side over to where Tarah, Ryan and Daria were standing.
“Where’s Nina?”
“A doctor is examining her right now. We were asked to wait out here,” Tarah said.
“What happened?”
Ryan looked at Tarah. Tarah looked at Daria. Daria looked at Mister Rogers. Mister Rogers looked at me.
What the hell was he looking at? And why weren’t they telling me what was going on?
The look on Ryan’s face was especially suspicious.
Daria’s voice was shaky as she put her hand on my shoulder. “She was losing blood. We don’t know what’s happening, but she’s been conscious the whole time. She’s going to be okay. I am sure of it. The doctor is just examining her.”
“I guess we’ll know something soon,” Ryan said looking over at me.
Something wasn’t right. I didn’t buy that they knew nothing.
I glared at Mister Rogers. “Who are you?”
“I’m her friend, Roger. Daria called me.”
Roger. You have got to be kidding me…
“Friend, huh? That’s bullshit. I saw you two last week holding hands and kissing outside of her apartment. You didn’t look like friends to me.”
He shook his head. “We’re just friends, Jake.”
“How do you know my name?” I seethed.
“She talks about you all the time. How could I not know who you were?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s how we bonded actually, over our break ups. I am a friend of Daria’s. I am at their house a lot. Nina and I have become close over the past month.”
“Let me get this straight. She’s been talking about me while she’s kissing you?”
Daria and Roger looked at each other smiling, when he said, “I don’t know what you think you saw…but that was no kiss, maybe a peck on the cheek. Jake…I’d rather kiss you…okay? I’m gay.”
“I know what I—” I stopped talking realizing what he just confessed. “Did you just say you’re gay?”
“Yes.”
“Gay…”
“Last time I checked.”
My body relaxed. I felt stupid but relieved. Euphoric. She hadn’t moved on from me. I was so happy I could have kissed him…and he would have loved it.
Roger was gay. It was a beautiful fucking day in the neighborhood.
Now, I just needed Nina to be okay. God, please make everything be okay. The doctor was taking forever. I paced the hallway, stopping at one point to look over at Roger. “I’m sorry for overreacting, man.”
“No problem. We’re all just here because we care about Nina, and believe me when I say she still cares about you…a lot.” My chest tightened when he said it.
She still cared about me.
Ten agonizing minutes later, the door finally opened. My heart was beating out of my chest because I could now see her through the crack of the door. She was sitting up in bed wearing a hospital gown, her hair tied into a messy side ponytail. She looked scared. It was overwhelming, and I almost rushed the room when the doctor said, “Who’s Jake?”
Practically leaping forward, I raised my hand and said, “I am.”
“Nina would like to see you.”
I pushed past him in a split second, my eyes glued to her as I entered the room closing the door behind me.
My angel. She asked for me.
She started crying immediately upon seeing me and then opened her arms, an invitation to hold her. I knocked over the plastic water jug at her bedside in my rush to get to her. She held my head to her chest, and I wrapped my arms around her, grateful that she was okay. But she was upset, so the news couldn’t be all good. I was terrified.
“What’s going on? Tell me what happened to you,” I whispered into her.
She gasped for breath through her tears.
I held her tighter. “Shh…take it easy, baby. It’s okay. I’m here now.”
“It’s not okay, Jake,” she said, pulling away from me.
I lifted my head to look at her and sat down at her bedside. “What do you mean?”
She closed her eyes and struggled for the words. “I failed you.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
She gave me her hand to hold for support, and a tear fell down her cheek. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“Forgive what? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I stopped believing in you. I believed that horrible bitch over your word, and I threw you away.”
“No. You didn’t throw anything away, baby.” I touched her heart. “Don’t you know that you have my heart? It’s always right there with you. You never really lost me, not for a second, and you never will.”
“I love you so much.”
“Nina, look me in the eyes. “I love you too. I will always love you. There isn’t anything you could ever do or say to change that.”
“Do you remember when you asked me to make you a blind promise? That I wouldn’t leave you…before you told me about Ivy?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Well, I’m asking you to do the same for me right now. Because there is something I need to tell you.”
“Okay. Yes. I promise you. I won’t ever leave you…not for anything.”
She cried harder. “I can’t.”
I wiped her tears with my thumb, holding her beautiful face in my hands. “Baby, please tell me what’s going on. You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “Ryan was there…the night that you were drunk and that whore was at the apartment. He saw everything. He knew that nothing really happened between you two, but he never told me.”
My jaw tightened. “What?”
“He was in his room. When he heard her come to the door, he watched you from the hallway without you knowing. He saw that she came onto you while you were sleeping and that you were telling her to leave.”
I looked up at the ceiling in disbelief and then back at Nina. “I told you.”
“I know. I am so ashamed. He’s lied to me all this time, even seeing how devastated I was. He only told me the truth last night.”
I would deal with him later.
“What changed?”
“Here is the part I am afraid to tell you.”
I clutched both of her hands together and kissed them softly. “Baby, come on. After all the shit I’ve put you through? I’m not going anywhere.”
“I confided in Ryan about something, and he had no choice but to come clean.”
“I’m not following you.”
“When I came home from spring break, I got sick. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“And then I disappeared for a while…”
“Yes…how could I forget? You explained that in your voicemail, that you were just weighing the decision of being with me long term because of my responsibilities with Ivy, and I understand.”
“No…you don’t. It wasn’t just about Ivy. That factored into it, but—”
I was sweating. “Just tell me.”
“I started feeling sick the last few days of spring break. I was vomiting at my parents’ house. I had no appetite.”
“Alright...”
“So, I took a pregnancy test.” She breathed in and out deeply. “It was positive, Jake.”
My body jolted backward in a sharp intake of breath as she said those words. My hands began to shake as it started to dawn on me why she was here.
Why there was blood.
Why everyone was looking at each other suspiciously in the waiting room.
Everyone but me knew that my baby may have died tonight.
“Is the baby…” I couldn’t even say it, couldn’t even fathom it.
She began to cry harder, squeezed her eyes shut and was barely audible. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“He just did a pelvic exam, and now they’re running a blood test and coming in to do an ultrasound. We’ll know something soon.”
I covered my mouth, talking into my hand. “No.”
Once the initial shock faded, I closed my eyes and immediately started praying.
Dear God, please let our baby be okay.
My hand moved gently over her stomach as if it were covered in shards of broken glass. “You’ve been going through this all alone. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When I first found out, I was so scared. You were going through so much. How could I possibly tell you that you were about to be a father on top of that? So, I put it off. I lied to you that first night back from my parents’. I told you I had my period and that I just wasn’t feeling well, but it was really morning sickness. Then, I started to freak out, wondering how I was going to continue school and take care of a baby when you were leaving every weekend to visit Ivy. That’s why I woke up in a sweat that night. After that, I knew I had to stay away from you, because I couldn’t look into your eyes and keep it from you, but I wasn’t ready to tell you, because that would have made it real.”
My tone bordered on angry. “Jesus…were you ever going to tell me?”
“Yes…of course. The more days that passed, the more I realized how much I missed you, that I couldn’t ever live without you or with the thought of not going through with having our baby. I’m too young, and the timing is wrong, but each day, I became more certain that this was just meant to be. I had a part of you growing inside of me. I knew I loved my baby…our baby. So, I knew it was time to tell you. That’s when I left you that voicemail and headed straight for the apartment.”
“The night you saw Lexie there,” I said under my breath, shaking my head in understanding.
“I was still going to tell you if this hadn’t happened. I just didn’t know how to approach it since we weren’t together anymore. I had been waiting for the three-month mark next week to be sure the pregnancy was definitely going to be viable, before turning your world upside down.”
“Tell me what happened last night.”
“I came clean to Ryan about the pregnancy. I needed to tell someone. Even though I knew how he felt about you, he really is like a brother to me. I wasn’t ready to tell my parents. Of course, he knew the baby was yours. He broke down in guilt and told me the truth about the night I walked in on you. He wasn’t going to ever tell me because he wanted you out of my life. He’s never thought you were good for me.”
I wanted to kill him.
She continued. “I got so upset at him for keeping it from me that I hit him. I truly hated him for what he did. But I was more upset at myself for not believing in you. I cried the entire night. I was so overcome with sadness and felt like I was going to die from it. Then, that song that Jimmy and your Dad loved, Crimson and Clover, came on the radio, and I totally lost it. I tried to get some sleep, but all I could think about was how I had kept something so important from you for so long.” She was starting to break down again.
“Please don’t cry. I love you so much. Come here.” I held her in my arms for minutes until the tears stopped, and then she continued the story.
“After Ryan left, I was in bed and started feeling some wetness. When I looked down, there was blood all over my sheets. I was so scared because it felt like I was losing the baby. It was my fault for getting so upset. I—”
“No way. No. Nina…you will not blame yourself for this.”
“It is my fault.”
“If you want to blame someone, blame me. I was the one who never used a condom that day I practically attacked you when I found you in my bed. None of this would have happened if I had been responsible and protected you. To be honest, though, I wouldn’t go back and change anything, if this baby turns out to be okay. The only thing I would regret is causing you pain, but a child with you would be a blessing.” I buried my face in her neck and breathed in her delicate scent.
There may not be a baby anymore.
I suddenly remembered the strange feeling I got in the middle of the night…about an hour after hearing the same song come on the radio. I knew now that I had somehow sensed on a cellular level that my baby was in trouble.
My baby.
Our child.
A part of me and a part of Nina.
I had only known of its existence for a matter of minutes. Suddenly, there was nothing more important. I had given up my dream of ever becoming a father a long time ago, but secretly, I pined for it. I wanted nothing more than to be able to give a child the same kind of love my father gave me in the short time we had together and to be able do the things we never had a chance to.
I was a father.
Even if God forbid, this baby didn’t make it, from this day forward, I will always have been someone’s father…an angel in
heaven. No one could ever take that away.
Fear and pain built up inside me as the reality set in. This situation did not look good. I tried not to get my hopes up. How it was possible to be elated and devastated at the same time, was beyond me, but that was the only way to describe this fucked up confusion.
The sound of a passing baby crying in the hallway startled me. Nina and I looked at each other. It was obvious that we were thinking the same thing. I could see in her eyes how much she wanted our baby too. It pained me that she had been going through all of this alone. Not anymore. No matter what happens, I was more certain than ever that this was the path laid out for me: a future with Nina and our child…our future children, hopefully lots of them.
Her eyes were closed, and I leaned in to kiss her face. “We’re gonna get through this. No matter what happens, we are going to get through this together.”
The sound of the door squeaking open caused both of us to sit up suddenly. I grabbed her hand and held onto it like our lives depended on it.
The doctor walked in with a technician who brought in an ultrasound machine. The rolling sound of the wheels seemed unusually loud and alarming, like thunder. I wondered if Nina could tell how scared I was, because I was trying to put on strong face.
“Okay, Nina…we’re just going to open up your gown. You’re going to feel a cool gel on your stomach. This is going to allow us to take a look and see what’s going on.” The tube of whatever crap they were putting on her made a loud squirting sound.
As I moved out of the way, Nina reached for the return of my hand, and I squeezed hers tightly as they were setting up the machine and rubbing that stuff on her belly, which was still almost perfectly flat. It was hard to imagine a human growing inside of there. She became fixated on the dragon tattoo on my left arm, something she always seemed to focus in on when she was really nervous. I was grateful for anything that could be of comfort to her right now, because I was nothing but a useless ball of nerves.