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TIDE
Three Days Later
My stomach was in knots as I watched her be rolled into my usual OR.
I was working today, per her request, so I didn’t sit around and think about what was about to happen.
I.e., her breasts being removed, the possibility of her dying. Our child dying. Of the cancer reacting poorly with her system.
Of any and everything that could possibly go wrong over the next few hours as she was receiving surgery.
She waved at me from the bed, then called out, “Don’t be a little bitch, Dr. Roll Tide.”
I swallowed hard as I watched the doors close behind her.
“Are you sure you want to go into surgery?”
I looked at my fellow surgeon and shrugged.
I couldn’t recognize his face, and it wasn’t even because of the mask that was partially hiding his nose and mouth.
It was because I couldn’t recognize him, period, and my brain was too focused on the woman that owned my heart. “Yes. Being short staffed, it’ll give me something to focus on.”
My wife was right.
My wife.
Holy fucking shit, did it seem weird to use those particular words in reference to Coreline.
Goddamn, it was something that I’d wanted for the entirety of my life—to make her mine.
And now she was.
She knew me so fucking well, too.
So that was exactly what I did for the next few hours. Performed surgeries.
While working alongside the same OR that my wife was having her double mastectomy.
It was… horrible.
The idea of her being in there, without me, made me want to fucking cry.
Yet, I held the line.
I performed a tonsillectomy. An appendectomy. A perforated bowel. And the removal of a cyst from an ovary.
It was six hours later when I got done with my last surgery for the day, that I walked into the room to find my wife propped up in bed reading from her Kindle.
She looked up at the sound of my footsteps and grinned.
Huge.
“Just in time.” She smiled. “I ordered us lunch.”
I swallowed hard. “You’re okay?”
She shrugged. “If you’re asking if my boobs are gone? Then yes. They’re all gone. I asked for them to be put into a jar, but the doctor said no. Is that usual?”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. “I don’t know.”
I’d actually had quite a few people ask for their body parts but requesting boobs in a jar was definitely a first.
“I ordered Mexican,” she said. “I hope that’s okay.”
It was more than okay.
What it was, was fantastic.
“I love you,” I told her, my voice breaking.
She held out her hand and said, “For my breasts getting removed, I’m not in nearly as much pain as I thought I would be.”
I looked at her for a few seconds and then took her hand.
I sat down on the bed next to her, then leaned forward carefully before pressing my lips to hers.
When I pulled back, it was to see her eyes glittering. “What happened to the man that always has something smart to say?”
“He’s fucking scared,” I told her. “Really fuckin’ scared.”
She reached forward and caught my hair in her hand.
Then yanked it.
“Ow!” I called, pulling back.
She rolled her eyes. “Can you go out there and find me a pudding cup? I’m dying for something sweet.”
I growled at her, then pressed a kiss to her forehead.
She didn’t let go of my hair, though.
Instead, she held on to it and said, “I’m alive. I’m okay. The baby is okay. We’re going to kick cancer’s ass.”
We fucking would.
• • •
Twelve Weeks Later
Her hair was growing back at a fast rate. Almost as if her body knew how very much she hated the hair loss the most.
Her belly was growing just as fast, and with each passing day, she got more and more frustrated with how very little she could do.
With the diagnosis of stage two breast cancer, and not being able to do chemotherapy until after her first trimester, things had definitely gotten a little worse for wear there for a while.
Thankfully, though, after her mastectomy, it pushed her into the second trimester, making it somewhat safe to go ahead with the chemotherapy that her physician had suggested.
Now, we were just in that in-between stage where she no longer had hair, was missing her breasts, and she hated how she looked because her belly was getting bigger and she couldn’t move around as well.
When I got home from work—something I now dreaded because it kept me away from her for hours on end when she might need me—it was to find her on the front steps waiting for me. But not alone.
Coreline had her helmet in one hand and a hopeful expression on her face.
Instantly, I knew exactly what she wanted, and I felt my stomach tighten in reaction to the hope that was shining from her eyes.
“Just for a small ride,” she pleaded as if she knew my gut reaction to say no was on the tip of my tongue. “Just to the restaurant and back.”
