Riiiiiiiip.
The dress tears right down the side. I can’t even bring myself to mourn its loss as I shred it off me. I don’t want the fabric so much as touching my skin. I want it gone.
I’m such an idiot. What was I thinking? A pretty ceremony? A shotgun wedding? My dream husband? They were all just silly little figments of my imagination. A stupid fairytale I was clinging to because I was alone and I was scared.
Who the hell did I think I was to deserve a happy ending?
“Get it off!”
“Okay, okay!” Elle cries, pulling the last scrap of the dress from my body. “It’s off. See?” She holds up the fine silk and then throws it onto the chair next to my bed. “Take a deep breath.”
“I’m trying,” I pant, turning my back on both Polly and Elle and burying my face in my hands. “I swear I’m trying.”
I can’t stand the way they’re looking at me. Like I’m some sort of broken charity case. No. Worse. A jilted lover.
Uri as good as left me at the altar. Pregnant, no less.
I’d been riding high after that conversation with my parents. It felt like a true fresh start. When I hung up, I could tell myself with a straight face that I was finally growing up, putting my past behind me, moving on with life. It felt like I was well on my way to healing.
And now?
Not one bit of that is true.
How fragile we are. How easily broken. The difference between happiness and despair is as simple and as instant as a phone call. A diagnosis. A few angry words and a pair of smoldering blue eyes.
“Hey,” Elle says, approaching me from the side as though I’m a trapped animal she’s afraid of spooking. “You’re shivering, hon. Let’s get you covered up, okay?”
I look down to discover that she’s right. My skin is pimpled with goosebumps and my hair’s standing on end. But it has nothing to do with the temperature in the room.
Still, I don’t stop her when she ventures closer with my sweats in one hand and a t-shirt in the other. She and Polly help me shrug my clothes on and when they’re done, it feels like an hour has passed. Maybe more. I glance towards my torn wedding dress and bite down on my tongue until I taste blood.
“Sit down, hon,” Elle says gently. “Please. You look dead on your feet.”
Fitting. I feel pretty dead inside, too.
All she has to do is nudge me and I fall back into the bed. I say nothing as she drags a blanket over me. “Alyssa, say something. You look…”
She trails off and that final unsaid word hangs in the space between us. Horrible? Sad? Lost? Hopeless? Pathetic? It doesn’t even matter; they all apply. Dealer’s choice, really.
“Lys.” Polly’s voice is soft as she moves to the side of my bed and takes my hand. “I don’t know what’s going on with Uri, but it has to be a misunderstanding. It just has to.”
I shake my head. My eyes float to hers but I’m not really looking at anything, or if I am, my brain isn’t bothering to decipher it. I just see shapes with fuzzy outlines. Planes of indistinct color that add up to something vaguely Polly-shaped. “He doesn’t trust me.”
“Well, that’s bullshit!” Polly says with all that teenage angst that I sometimes think I still haven’t outgrown. “I’m gonna go talk to him.”
“Don’t,” I protest weakly, but Polly’s already storming off towards the door.
“Pol—”
“She’s already gone,” Elle says, grabbing my hand. “Alyssa, what happened?”
I try to focus on Elle but it’s more of the same. It’s not my friend looking at me. Just a cacophony of meaningless, flesh-colored prisms. “I don’t know.”
She’s blinking a lot and fidgeting a lot, so I know that she’s worried. “Alyssa, hon, you’re not looking so good.”
I wish I had the energy to smile. “I feel… weird.”
“Are you having pain?”
So much pain. But that’s all in my heart, and I’m pretty sure she’s talking about my pregnancy. The babies. I try to concentrate on my physical body but there’s a weird disconnect happening that I’ve never experienced before. When I concentrate really hard, I feel faint traces of that familiar stabbing in my stomach and at my spine.
I wince and Elle’s eyes go wide. “Okay, that’s it—I’m gonna go and get a nurse.”
Before I can argue, she does the same as Pol did and disappears, racing out of the room as though I’m in imminent danger. It certainly feels that way, but as far as medicine goes, I’m not sure a broken heart qualifies.
The longer I lie there, the sharper the pain becomes. And by the time Grigory runs in with a nurse in tow, I’m actually relieved. The nurse isn’t familiar. She’s got dark brown eyes and jet black hair. She’s also got a nose ring that I would have appreciated a lot more if it hadn’t been for the stabbing pain that’s starting to push in on either side of my stomach.
“Alyssa, are you okay? What’s going on?”
I wince, the pain taking my voice hostage. Luckily, Elle is there, ready to speak for me. “She… Um, Uri was here a few minutes ago. I think they had a fight. She had a little freakout—” Did I? Is that what we’re calling it? “—and then she just got really pale and quiet. Something’s not right.”
“Okay,” Dr. Grigory says, all business. “Let’s check her vitals. We might be seeing the first signs of fetal distress.”
No.
I so desperately wanted to give both my babies their best chance of survival. Add that to the long list of things I’ve failed at before I’ve even started.
Marriage.
Pregnancy.
Motherhood.
Failure, failure, failure.
Elle grabs my hand and keeps a tight hold on it as Dr. Grigory and his nurse hook me up to machines, measure this, check on that. It seems to go on forever. And then—
Dr. Grigory turns to me. How have I not noticed how sandy his eyes are before now? Quicksand eyes, dragging me down… “Okay, we’re going to need to perform an emergency C-section. These babies need to be delivered immediately.” He turns to his nurse. “Prep her for surgery.”
Elle looks between me and the doctor helpless. “No. Wait! The father—”
The door to my room bursts open and a few more nurses come in, pushing a gurney between them.
“The father’s not coming, Elle,” I say so softly that it’s a wonder she can hear me at all. “Uri’s not interested. I’m on my own with this one.”
Elle’s face ripples with determination. “No, you’re not. I’m going to be with you. I won’t leave your side.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to,” Dr. Grigory says gently. “No one is allowed in the operating room except medical staff.”
“Can’t you make an exception?” Elle demands. “She needs me.”
“I’m afraid not,” Dr. Grigory insists as I’m transferred onto a gurney.
“But—”
I grab Elle’s hand and squeeze as tightly as I can. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’ll be okay. I can do this.”
She doesn’t look confident. She looks ghost-white and fidgety. “Alyssa—”
“This is for my babies,” I choke out despite how much energy it’s costing me to speak. “I can do this… for them.”