Page 53 of Night and Day
“Hey, you okay?” Marvin paused on his way to the copy room.
“It’s Tamika. She left me a message. There’s something wrong… I-I gotta go.” Anton jumped into the elevator and punched the button for the first floor.
The drive to hospital seemed to take forever, and he almost didn’t make it because he nearly sideswiped another car on the way. Finally, he was able to park and rushed into the hospital, his heart beating fast in his throat.
Tamika’s message had scared the crap out of him. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being alone and in pain. And their baby…
He ran up to the nurse’s station. “Hello, I’m looking for Tamika Jones. She’s here but I’m not sure what room she’s in.”
“Your name?” The nurse behind the desk said.
She was annoyingly calm, while he was yelling inside.
“Anton Bivens. I’m her fiancé.”
The nurse typed on the keyboard in front of her, and then she looked up at him with eyes filled with sympathy.Shit. That look made his heart plummet to his feet.
“Room seven-oh-two. She’s waiting for you.”
Anton hurried down the hall and found Tamika’s room. Looking through the glass window in the door, he saw her lying on the bed with her eyes closed. He took a deep breath to calm down. He needed to be strong for her.
He eased the door open, and she must have heard him because her eyelids creaked up.
“Hey,” he whispered, sitting beside her. He took her hand in his.
“Hi.” Her lower lip trembled. “We lost the baby.”
So many emotions—disappointment, pain, rage. They all lanced through him at once.
Anton squeezed her hand. He didn’t know what to say. What questions should he ask? He sat there, useless and helpless.
Tamika stared up at the ceiling. “Can’t have it all, right?”
“Don’t say that, sweetheart.” Anton kissed the back of her hand.
She laughed a little, and a tear streaked out of the corner of her eye. Anton brushed it away with his finger.
“You need anything?”
She shook her head. “No.”
To think, only a couple of hours earlier, they’d planned to have dinner and celebrate her accomplishment. Now they were both suffering.
Why was the world so unjust? Hadn’t they both suffered enough loss? She’d lost her mother and sister, he’d lost his brother, and now they’d lost their baby.
Except for those painful periods in their lives, they were nothing alike. Their personalities were different. He was more reserved, she was outgoing. He was cautious and preferred to think first. She preferred to act first and then deal with the fallout.
Despite their differences, he believed that sometimes people found each other because their lived experiences made them compatible—whether as friends or more intimately as lovers—even if on the surface they don’t appear to be compatible.
Because of that, he knew they would get through this. As long as they were together, they’d get past this painful period and thrive. They had each other.
“I’m here, sweetheart. However you need me, okay?” Anton said, his voice thick with grief.
Tamika gave him a wan smile. “Thank you.”
23
Anton entered the apartment after a one-hour workout at the complex’s gym. He heard Tamika somewhere in the back and paused, bracing for the sight of her and the maelstrom of emotions that constantly existed inside his chest.
