AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t know about all that, but it does suck,” I said.
“Do you need anything?” Daniel asked.
I practically watched Katie melt into a puddle at that question.
“No. I’m okay for right now. I’ve got some money built up from working in college and taking odd jobs over the years. I can stay afloat with my bills for a few weeks until I can figure out where to go from here,” I said.
“You know I’m only a phone call away. I’ll come to wherever you need me to be. Day or night,” Daniel said.
“You know the same is true for me, Olivia,” Katie said.
“Yeah. I do. For both of you,” I said.
But their “words of wisdom” only served to confuse me more. Both of them thought I was better off without Brett, but that wasn’t what my heart said. As much as things had already been muddied, I wanted to make things work for our child, if we could. If there was any way for us to be any sort of family, I wanted us to be. I didn’t want my child growing up without his or her father. I knew what that was like. I knew what that did to a child. I knew that pain, that suffering, the questions I’d struggled through during my teenage years.
The thought of putting my own child through that made me sick.
“Olive, are you okay? You look a little pale,” Daniel said.
“I just need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back,” I said.
I barely made it into the stall before I fell to my knees and hugged the one thing that had come to know me more intimately over the past few days than anyone else in my entire life.
The fucking toilet.
34
Brett
“Olivia, push. I need you to push, baby. Come on. You’re strong. I know you can do this.”
“I can’t, Brett. Please, don’t make me. I can’t do this. I can’t be a mom.”
“Yes, you can. You are the strongest woman I have ever known. You’ve carried our child for nine months. You’ve put up with my bullshit. All I need you to do is be strong a little longer for me, baby.”
“Please don’t make me do this,” she whispered.
“If she doesn’t push, I’ll have to intervene,” the doctor warned.
I looked down at her thick legs, splayed open with her knees wide apart. The nurse had one of her feet propped up, and I had the other. I gazed down into her eyes full of terror as sweat dripped from her brow. Her head fell back to the pillow as her chest heaved with exhaustion.
“Look at me, Olive,” I said.
She whimpered. “I need help.”
“No, you don’t. Because I love you, and we’re going to get through this.”
Her fixed her eyes to mine as confusion wafted across her face.
“Come on, guys. I need a push right now!” the doctor exclaimed.
“You love me?” Olivia asked.
“More than anything on this planet. Now, push our child out like I know you can so I can make an honest woman out of you,” I said, grinning.
I jerked away from my dream as tears filled my eyes. I shot upright in bed, feeling them lining the folds of my eyelids. I reached up and touched them. I didn’t feel upset or sad or in pain. My chest was swollen with delight, and it felt like sunlight was bursting and dancing around inside my stomach.
I was happy.
So very happy.
I threw the covers off me and pulled my clothes on. Sweatpants. A T-shirt. Flip-flops. I looked like a wreck. I knew my hair was shooting off in all sorts of directions. But I couldn’t concern myself with it. I’d wasted enough time. If my dreams had told me anything over the past couple of days, they had told me what I really wanted. What I really craved. I grabbed my keys and rushed out of my house, running to my car before I slammed into it.
I needed to get to Olivia so we could talk.
For the past three days, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. About our baby. About how I should have gone after her. My dreams of making love to her, whispering sweet nothings in her ear, plagued me at night. I dreamed of waking up with her in my arms. But none of them had been as vivid as that one. None of them had been as powerful or as telling as that one. Waking up with tears of happiness in my eyes told me that there was only one course of action. One thing that I knew would get me everything I wanted with Olivia.
I needed to tell her how I felt.
I raced through Seattle. I sped through yellow lights and took back roads so I wouldn’t get caught up at the red ones. I skidded to a stop in the parking lot of her apartment complex and ran through the lobby. I didn’t stop to greet anyone. I didn’t stop to check myself in. I leapt into the elevator doors as they opened, then jammed the button for her floor. I saw security running at me, the plump man running as fast as he could with a damn doughnut in his hand. The doors closed and the elevator started its upward journey before he could get to me.
