Page 67 of While You're There
Silent tears streamed down her face as she gazed up at him in earnest. She was right. He hadn’t been here. He had made it impossible for her to reach him. She had been alone up until this point, but not because she wanted to be. He’d been too much of an asshole to let her even get through to tell him about their baby.
Their baby.
Fuck.
Rhett assessed her for a moment as he decided his next move, then lowered himself on the edge of the bed to join her.
“Fine. I won’t apologize to you tonight then. But you’re not alone now, and you won’t be alone through whatever comes next,” he insisted, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into a hug. The best thing he could do now—the only thing he could do really—was honor her request. Tonight wasn’t about him. It was about her: about her pain and the crushing reality she was most likely facing. He couldn’t give her anything else, but he could at least be with her tonight.
Chapter twenty-eight
Tori
1:35a.m.
The obnoxiously loud second hand on the clock was taunting her. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. She didn’t know if she should sit or stand. Every movement she made set off a cacophony of sound that echoed through the small cave-like waiting area. She was the only one seated out here, alone in every way.
They’d been at the hospital for more than an hour now, and she knew nothing about what was going on down the hall in Chandler’s room. Not that she was entitled to know. But the pain of not knowing and being kept in the dark was starting to take root. There was a constant ache tightening around her heart. How much longer until Rhett sent her some sort of update?
She considered going out to the car to wait. But the Prelude wasn’t any comfier that the concave plastic chair she was sitting in. And she hated the idea of Rhett coming out to look for her and not finding her where she’d promised she would be. She knew cell phone reception could be spotty in a hospital. It was best if she just waited for him to find her. He’d come update her soon.
This was the first time she’d spent any real length of time in a hospital waiting room. The last hour had felt like an entire day. The heaviness of everything that had happened and everything that was still yet to come made time drag on.
She tried to pass the time playing on her phone, but all she could do was stare at the calendar on her phone. She had learned everything that was to know about ovulation and the luteal phase over the last few weeks. Rhett was usually the planner, the reader, the organizer, but she had taken the reigns on all the fertility and egg retrieval research. It was her body, after all, even if it was both their futures.
Based on what little information she knew, Chandler was probably between eight and nine weeks pregnant. Meaning she had gotten pregnant seven weeks ago. Less than two months ago. The weekend of Easter. The weekend of her scans. The weekend Rhett didn’t come home.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. The guilt and responsibility of what she had done—about the series of events that created this situation and allowed it to happen in the first place—weighed heavily on her mind. It was a cruel and merciless Universe that pulled at the thread unraveling their lives tonight.
A noise down the hall alerted her to someone approaching. She squinted her eyes, eager to see if her husband was coming out with an update. She didn’t even know what she wanted him to say; there was no right response to hope for. But just knowingsomethingwould be better than sitting here clueless at this point.
Instead of Rhett, the same nurse from earlier emerged in the hall. She didn’t bother looking up from the file in her hand as she closed the space between them before veering left and circling around the check in desk. Tori knew that engaging her would be futile. She wouldn’t know anything until Rhett texted her or came out and updated her himself.
She tried not to let her mind wander as the second hand on the clock served as a staccato metronome to her anxiety. Why hadn’t she thought to bring her AirPods? Probably because she hadn’t had time to think. She had just reacted.
Her husband had gotten another woman pregnant.
Her husband could have been, or was still going to be, a dad, but she was not the mother of his baby.
That role went to a woman Tori had insisted he date; A woman Tori had hand-picked because of what now seemed like a childish, absurd, ridiculous arrangement.
She blew out a long sigh, frustrated by her own immaturity and naiveté that had brought them to this place. What the hell had she been thinking, messing with their lives—with their futures and their hearts—the way she had done? Now people were hurting. No, not just hurting. Now people were suffering.
She wasn’t innocent in any of this. She was the root cause of so much of this. She was the storm. Rhett got Chandler pregnant. Chandler was possibly losing the baby. And all of it— every broken branch, every downed power line, every crack of thunder— all of it was happening because of what Tori made him do.
She shoved to her feet in frustration. She couldn’t sit still any longer. She knew she couldn’t just take off, and it wasn’t her place to go find Rhett, but she needed to do something. She needed to move.
She took a few steps out of the waiting area and cautiously glanced over at the check-in station. The nurse wasn’t sitting there any longer. Tori was alone once more.
She followed a long hallway opposite the way they had come in and found a small room marked Family Lounge. The door swung open easily, so she didn’t feel too bad pushing into the space. A refrigerator, sink, and a few cabinets dominated most of the room. A quick peek inside revealed a fully stocked fridge with just a few items labeled like they belonged to someone. She helped herself to a water bottle, then pulled open one of the cupboard drawers. The inside was filled to the brim with packaged snacks and candy bars. She snagged two packs of peanut M&Ms since they were Rhett’s favorite, and they at least had a bit of protein to balance out the inevitable sugar high.
She looked around for a price list or donation jar but didn’t see anything of the sort.I’m sure it’s all covered under the crazy hospital charges,she thought to herself as she slipped back into the eerily quiet hallway.
Shit.
Did Chandler have health insurance? She had just graduated college a few weeks ago. Did she have a job lined up? No, wait. Maybe Rhett had told her Chandler was applying for internships at some point? Tori was embarrassed to admit just how little she knew about the other woman.
About the mother of her husband’s child.
