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Each passing second feels like a lifetime, and it’s ten long minutes before a doctor drenched in blood comes striding out of the room, looking completely defeated.
My stomach sinks as Sean flies to his feet, a heaviness weighing down on my chest. Sean’s eyes are wide as the doctor steps up to him, and I watch in horror as he raises a hand and places it on Sean’s shoulder, regret heavy in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, undeniable pain resting in his haunted stare. “Your wife didn’t make it.”
No.
No, this isn’t happening. He’s wrong. He has to be wrong.
Beautiful Sara. She was happy and healthy. I saw her just a few minutes ago, she can’t just be gone.
Sean shakes his head in disbelief as my heart crumbles. Tears well in Sean’s eyes, and I’ve never seen such a broken man. The doctor welcomes Sean back into the room to say goodbye, and he pushes past the doctor, blocking out whatever it is he’s saying while the rest of us crowd around the open door, not able to believe it for one fucking second.
The sight before me tears me to shreds.
Sara lays on the operating table with pools of blood on the floor around her and we watch as one of the many midwives drapes a white sheet over her motionless body. Cass whimpers beside me, but all that matters right now is the way Sara lays so still, her eyes closed, and for a moment, I can imagine she’s just sleeping, but I know that’s not right.
There’s no movement in her chest, no sign of breathing. No fingers twitching. No heartbeat on the monitor . . . just a flat line.
Sean stumbles toward her, standing at her side as he brushes his fingers over her face, and then he fucking breaks. Sean falls onto her, throwing his arms around her lifeless body and clutching onto her with everything he has, screaming in agony—the sound one that will haunt me until my dying days. “No,” he sobs, so fucking broken. “No. Come back to me, baby. I can’t fucking do this without you.”
Unable to handle the devastation, I stumble back into the hallway and fall against the wall, barely able to catch my breath as I drop my head into my hands. I hear Cassie’s sob, now deep within the room and soon enough both Elle and Logan are by my side, wanting to give Sean the privacy he needs.
Cassie and Jax follow suit not a second later and all we hear from is the sound of Sean’s overwhelming grief drowning out the flat line of the heart rate monitor.
A voice sounds at my side and my head whips around, not having noticed anyone approaching. “Excuse me,” a woman says. We turn around to find a young nurse pushing a bassinet with the most beautiful baby inside. “I’m incredibly sorry for your loss. I know there are no words that could possibly take away your pain, and I am so sorry for having to pull one of you away from this. However, hospital policy requires a family member to remain with the baby as we weigh and measure her. She will also need to be fed so if you have any input there on the dad’s wishes, that would be great.”
I step up to the bassinet and look down at the tiny baby—a beautiful innocent creature who’s going to grow up without her mommy. I reach into the bassinet and run my finger over the soft skin of the baby’s hand, tears brimming in my eyes.
Cassie moves in beside me and gives the nurse a forced smile, always doing what she can to be polite, even in the devastating face of grief. “I’ll stay with her,” Cass tells the nurse while giving my hand a squeeze.
The nurse nods and leads Cassie down the hall, pushing the bassinet along with her. Jax trails after them, his head hung low and his hands buried deep in his pockets, but I’m sure when Cassie needs him, he’ll be able to pull himself together and be her rock, just as he’s always done.
The rest of us remain out in the hallway, allowing Sean these last few moments with his wife, and the second the heart rate monitor is turned off and the room within falls into silence, it becomes too fucking much. I fall to my knees, my head buried in my hands as I sob for the girl I’ve known since I was a teenager, the girl who was as close to me as my own sister, the mother of my beautiful niece, and the woman who always told me, especially over the past five months, that despite all the pain and hurt that I’d caused, that I was still a good man who was deserving of love.
