Page 65 of While You're There
She was also intimately familiar with the heartache of hope. People talked about hope like it was this ethereal, everlasting ideal. Like hope was worth hanging onto. That couldn’t be further from the truth in a situation like this. Hope was the fucking worst. Knowing that there was a sliver of a chance that things could work out was so much harder than just getting on with the act of grieving.
“We’ll be there as soon as possible. I can’t promise it’ll be okay. But we’ll know more soon.”
She knew it wasn’t enough. She knew a better woman would have sat there and promised it would all be okay, that everything would work out, that they would experience something akin to a miracle. But that just wasn’t who she was. The grief of losing her mother when she was eleven, coupled with the decade-long worry that she’d succumb to the same fate, had made her too much of a realist when it came to life and death.
She wouldn’t wave empty words of comfort or false hope in his face. She couldn’t. She knew how this was all about to go down. She knew she was driving her husband to his undoing. She wouldn’t give him hope that any of this was going to be easy or okay. She loved him too damn much to lie to him. Getting him there safely was all she could do for him now. It would have to be enough.
Chapter twenty-seven
Rhett
“ChandlerCunningham’sroomnumber,please,” he practically begged when they finally reached the right floor.
The woman sitting behind the nurse’s station assessed him up and down.
“This floor isn’t open to visitors. One immediate family member per patient only.”
“I’m…” He faltered, not sure how to explain who he was to Chandler anymore or why the hell he was standing in a hospital desperate to be by her side.
“She’s…” He glanced over at Tori and saw her stand up a bit straighter beside him as she took his hand. She squeezed once, reassuring him, encouraging him to keep going.
“She’s pregnant with my child,” he finally uttered, the words still foreign on his tongue.
The nurse behind the desk continued to assess him, as if trying to decide whether he was telling the truth or not. After a few drawn-out seconds, she blinked, picked up a clipboard, and started to rise from her seat. “Follow me,” she instructed, not bothering to turn around and see if he was behind her.
“Go,” Tori urged him forward before he could even get a word in. He glanced back down at their joined hands, feeling powerless to this moment that seemed to engulf them.
“I’ll try to see if…” he started, only to have her interrupt him.
“No, you won’t. I don’t even know what you were about to say, but I know where your head’s at. I’m fine, Rhett. Go. You need to be with her. Take your phone, and just text me and keep me posted. I’ll be here. I’m going to sit right over there,” she assured him, pointing to a cluster of hard plastic chairs.
He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to go. He could barely bring himself to take a single step forward.
She held his gaze, her face calm and steady. She squeezed his fingers one more time, then dropped his hand. “Go,” she asserted again with a pointed look.
He couldn’t hesitate. If he did, the fear would consume him. He looked at his wife for one more second before turning quickly and making long strides to catch up with the nurse. Every bone in his body told him to turn around, to give Tori one more glance. But he charged forward instead, not trusting that if he glanced back, he would find it in himself to keep moving forward.
“Go on, then.” The nurse held out her arm toward what must have been Chandler’s room. He reached for the door handle but hesitated. Chandler knew he was coming, but he had no idea the proper protocol. Should he knock? Should he text her and ask if it was okay to come in?
He didn’t get to dwell on the issue because the nurse rolled her eyes and pushed into the room in front of him, letting the large wooden door bang against the door stop.
Rhett followed behind her, his eyes scanning the dimly lit area as he made his way into the room. There was a low buzzing sound coming from one of the machines pushed up against the wall, accompanied by a less frequent but higher-pitched beeping. Everything smelled sterile.
“Everhett.”
He’d been so distracted by the foreign setting he hadn’t even looked toward the bed yet. Chandler was sitting up, her hair thrown up in a messy, sweaty ponytail.
He strode over to her without a second thought, looking her up and down as the nurse he’d followed into the room wheeled over a computer cart toward the bed.
“Are you in pain?” he demanded when he reached her bedside. He reached out and brushed a few stray strands of hair behind her ear, noticing just how pale she looked now that he was closer. Her skin was flushed yet pallid. She had sweat all along her hairline and on her upper lip, and she had a slight grimace on her face.
“Yeah, I have really bad cramping,” she admitted, winching as she sat up a little more.
“Can you give her something for the pain?” he asked, directing his question at the nurse who was starting at the screen in front of her. She finished typing, then looked up slowly before responding.
“Can you convince her to accept the pain meds?”
Rhett whipped his head back around, bewildered and blindsided. “You haven’t taken anything? Chandler, if you’re in pain…”
