I woke this morning feeling like death, and it took a few hours, plenty of aspirin and coffee to be functional enough to get in my car.
I headed here…then realized I didn’t know what I wanted to say.
Or maybe it was actually that I knew what I wanted to say, but also that it wasn’t good enough.
I hurt her, kept things from her, and?—
“You need to turn the fuck around?—”
“What? No,” I say, snapping to attention. “I need to talk to her.”
“Then you need to get your ass to County General.”
It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about the fucking hospital.
Then all the air leaves my lungs and I process what she’s saying.
“Why is she at the hospital, Luns?”
Her voice goes gentle…and I’m going to puke.
“Take a breath, Leo. She’s okay.”
“Why the fuck is she at the hospital?!” I roar.
There’s the sound of static, of fumbling, and then Aiden’s voice comes on the line. “I’m warning you to not talk to my wife like that,” he says quietly, albeit with deadly intent in each syllable. “Now take a fucking breath and listen to what I’m saying. Harper fell today. Luna was there and called an ambulance, but she hit her head pretty good and needed to go to County.”
“The baby?” I rasp.
His pause is so long that I nearly crawl out of my skin.
Then he murmurs, “We don’t know yet. I followed the ambulance here. Luna rode with her and says she seemed mostly okay.”
Mostly okay.
I grind my teeth together, force myself to keep listening.
Even though I want to rip off the steering wheel and chuck it out the window.
Even though the panic I’m feeling right now is so great I can barely draw in a full breath.
“They just took her back. Luns and I are in the waiting room, but they said they’ll update us as soon as they know anything.”
“Right.” I drag in a breath. Release it slowly. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I’ll call back if anything changes in the meantime.”
I nod—though he can’t see me—grind out a goodbye, and hang up.
“Fuck,” I whisper, dropping my head to the steering wheel, back to wanting to rip it off, back to wanting to scream and shout and punch something.
I wasn’t here.
I walked away.
You’re what’s the matter with me.
If anything has happened to the baby…
