It’s dark outside, so I run to the nearest intersection to flag down a cab. “Emergency room. Please hurry!” I hold Bria close to my chest, praying. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” She’s too calm, and I start rocking her in my arms. “Please, baby girl, you’re going to be okay. Hurry!” I yell at the driver, fear creeping into my lungs and stealing my breath. He pulls up, and I jump out, running through the large sliding glass doors.
“Help! I need help!” I scream to anyone. My pulse is erratic, blocking out the whispers and gasps of onlookers seated in the waiting room. “Please, someone help me!” A nurse hurries to my side.
“What’s wrong?” She tries to pull Bria from my grip. “Honey, let me see.”
“She’s got a fever, she was crying, I thought it was teething, but now she’s so still! Please!” Panic washes over me and I become hysterical as the nurse pries Bria from my grip. I don’t want to let her go. I’m afraid if I do, she’ll disappear on me.
“Miss, we have to take her to get examined, okay?”
“Willa?”
My name echoes from a few feet away, and I whip around to find Jake dressed in a lab coat. “What’s wrong? Are you not well?” He rushes over to me, taking notice of the nurse holding a baby. His eyebrows raise, and shock fills his gaze. My heart clenches as his lips press tightly into a thin line. He blinks, refocusing, and reaches for her.
The nurse addresses me. “Willa, is that your name? Jake is our best resident on staff. He will get her the help she needs, okay?”
I dare a look back at Jake. His focus is on Bria. I nod frantically as Jake gently unfolds the blanket she’s wrapped in and glances down at the baby in his arms. His eyes flash with confusion, then understanding, and the final knife to my heart: anger.
He glances at me, furious, then goes into medical mode. “I’m taking her into triage two.”
“Jake,” I call for him, but he doesn’t turn back. He walks through the doors with our daughter.
The nurse has me fill out paperwork, then guides me back, where I find Jake and a team of nurses working on Bria. I stand behind the glass window like an outsider while my baby girl lays motionless and pale. My world spins, and I grab onto the ledge to steady myself. If anything happens to her…
My mind takes a dark turn. All the horrible things that can go wrong. Everything I should have done differently. After what feels like an eternity, Jake walks out of the room. I hurry toward him. “How is she? What’s happening?”
Gone is the gentle man I’m used to. His eyes are cold as he grabs my bicep and drags me away from Bria. “Jake, tell me, is she okay?”
He stops abruptly, opens a door, and throws me inside a supply closet.
“Jake—”
“Is she mine?”
His voice is consumed with utter rage.
“Jake—”
“Answer me!” I startle at his tone.
“Yes.” Turning, he punches his fist to the wall, then swipes a row of supplies off a shelf. “I tried to tell you—”
“You didn’t try hard enough!” He whips around, his chest heaving. “Is this what you survived? Is this why you left?”
I refuse to take the blame for this. I’m the victim here. Not him. He’s been jet-setting in France and living his life while I debated whether mine was truly worth living. While I suffered from so much loneliness, I couldn’t bother to leave my bed for days. While I gave birth to a child, alone and scared. All because everyone in my life shoved me away and forgot about me.
“Don’t you dare turn this around on me. You left me. I tried to reach you. I spent weeks struggling to contact you. I even went to your mother.” He freezes as his eyes narrow. “Yeah, and she told me to get well and shooed me away. Not even a day later, I received an email from you telling me you didn’t want it. That I was a mistake, you were proposing to Rebecca, and you wished me well.”
With wide eyes, he flinches and steps back as if I just slapped him. “I never would have done that.”
“But you did!” I lash out.
“You think that low of me? After everything, you think if you had told me I got you pregnant that night, I would have sent you an email saying to abort it?”
I choke on my own truth. Because I don’t think he would do that. “Yes.” The lie is sour in my mouth.
He comes at me, his grip bruising my shoulders. “I came back for you.”
“And I wasn’t there because I was shipped off to a nunnery to have a baby alone while my parents told everyone I was touring the world. When I was given an ultimatum that I could either return home without my child and stick to the lie, or not come home at all, I chose our child.”
His jaw tightens, and he backs away, rubbing the back of his neck. A hurricane of emotions flashes through his eyes. It triggers the storm inside me, and I inhale a deep breath, hoping I’m able to weather it. “I made a choice. I refuse to be the one to blame in this.”
He clenches his hands on top of his head and lets out an anguished breath. He comes at me, cupping my cheeks. “Jesus, Willa. You had a fucking baby. Our baby?” His forehead rests against mine, our heaving breaths mingling. “I’m so sorry I did this to you.”
He’s sorry he did this to me? Fury flows rapidly through my veins, and I rip out of his grip. “You’re sorry? You’re sorry you did this to me? You know what—I don’t need your sympathy. I don’t need you at all. I’ve done this on my own so far, and I can—”
“Jesus, shut up!” He shakes me, lost in his own anger. “Just shut up and stop degrading what we are—what we were. I’ve been trying to tell you since I found you again, and you keep shutting me down, turning my truths into lies. You’ve made me into this person I’m not. And I am sorry. I’m sorry for the shit our parents caused, but I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know.”
I shake my head. I can’t stop. My mind has been warped into believing one truth for the past two years. If I truly believe he didn’t write that letter, then this whole time…My chest cracks, and a rugged sob tears up my throat. “They gave me an email. I was so upset—I just—I tried to call you. I tried, but they wouldn’t let me. They sent me away—”
I cover my face. My knees give way, and I collapse. Jake catches me and cradles me in his arms as I convulse with sobs.
“Shhh…Willa, please…”
I thrash my head back and forth against his chest. “I did this. I caused our pain. They deceived me, and I allowed it.” I slam my fists against his chest. “Why? How could they do this?”
“Because this is what they do. They control us like puppets and force us to play along.” He hugs me tightly to him. We stay embraced until my cries subside, and reality smacks me in the face. I tear out of his arms.
“Bria—”
“She’s fine. We have her on fluids. Her temperature is already down drastically. She had a small urinary tract infection.”
“Oh my god, how did I—?”
“Willa, this was nothing you caused. It’s very common in babies. You brought her in. You did exactly what a good mother would do.”