Page 49 of Glass Wings

My heart is empty.

And my mind is filled with panic and dread so sharp it steals my breath.

I blink hard, trying to force the blur from my eyes as I search for the one thing I should see first. A swaddled bundle, a tiny chest rising and falling, a cry waiting to shatter the quiet. Instead, all I find is Easton slumped in a chair beside my bed, his long frame folding in on itself. His hand is still half-stretched toward me like he doesn’t want to let go, even in sleep.

The ache in my body is nothing compared to the ache in my chest. I ignore the sting from my stitches, the heaviness of the IV taped to my arm, the machines hissing and beeping at my side.

Where is my baby?

The room is too clean, too still. I prepared myself for exhaustion, for noise, for the wild chaos of new life. But not for this. Not for silence so thick it presses on my lungs.

My breath quickens. I grip the sheets, my voice coming out hoarse, breaking. “Easton.”

He stirs, head jerking up, eyes wide and bloodshot. Relief washes over his face the second he sees me awake, but it isn’t enough. I need more than him. I need answers.

“Where—” my voice cracks “—where’s our baby?”

His eyes are red and swollen, his jaw tight like he’s been holding himself together for too long.

“The baby’s alive,” he whispers, the words cracking halfway through. “It’s a little girl. She’s breathing. She’s strong. But she’s in the NICU for now.”

Girl. Alive. Strong. NICU. The words swirl, collide, refuse to land in the same place. My stomach flips. “Why isn’t she here?”

Easton’s grip tightens. “Because she needs help. Just for a little while. A week or two, the doctors said.”

But all I hear is the silence that followed the delivery. The silence where there should be crying. And the longer I sit there with nothing in my arms, the more certain I become that I’ve already failed her … and Easton.

“What does she look like?” I whisper, my throat tight, desperate to pull together a picture in my mind. Have I even seen her? In the chaos, the pain, the blur of voices … I can’t remember. It’s like my body has been split open, and everything stolen from me before I had a chance to hold onto it.

Easton’s face crumbles. His eyes shine as he leans forward, both of his hands closing around mine. “She’s small, Harley. So, so small … but she’s strong. She’s got this thick dark hair already, and her little hands—” His voice breaks, and he swallows hard. “She keeps grabbing at the wires like she’s already fighting to get free.”

Tears blur my vision. My baby. Our baby. I try to hold onto his words, to build her in my head, but the thought of wires, of glass between us, makes me want to scream.

“Why can’t I hold her?” My voice shakes, the words barely more than a breath.

Easton pulls my hand against his chest, right over his heartbeat, steady and strong. “You will. You will, I promise. They just need to make sure she’s safe first. She’s fighting, Little Bird. Just like you.”

Easton helps me into a wheelchair, his hands steady on my shoulders even though I can feel the tension running through him. I hate how weak I feel, every movement tugging at the stitches in my body. Yet, the ache in my chest is so much worse.

The hallways blur together as we pass, bright lights and nurses in scrubs moving with purpose. The faint smell of disinfectant clings to everything. My heart beats faster with every turn.

When we reach the NICU doors, Easton pauses. He crouches in front of me, his big hands covering mine. His blue eyes search my face like he’s afraid of what this will do to me.

“She’s right inside,” he says softly. “She’s hooked up to a lot of things, but don’t let that scare you. She’s strong, Harley. Stronger than she looks.”

I nod, but my throat closes anyway. I can only grip his hand tighter.

The doors open with a hiss, and it’s the sound that hits me first—a steady chorus of beeping monitors, soft whooshing of machines, the muffled shuffle of nurses moving between incubators. Rows of tiny bassinets and isolettes fill the room, each holding lives that seem too fragile for this world.

And then he wheels me up to one.

My baby.

She’s smaller than I imagined, her skin-tinged pink under the glow of the warming lamp with a tangle of wires and tubes surrounding her. Her tiny chest rises and falls with a stuttering rhythm that makes my own breath falter.

My hands tremble in my lap. “Oh, God …” The words break out of me, strangled. “That’s her?”

Easton’s voice cracks. “Yeah. That’s our girl.”