Page 68 of Best Friend Burden

“We're going to have a baby!” he said.

Yes, we were.

CHAPTER30

***KIEFER***

Iheld her hand all the way to the hospital. On the way, her expression quickly shifted from excitement to pained. Was this what was supposed to happen? Was this normal?

I had no clue.

I wasn't a doctor, I was a bassist. If only I'd had more time to prepare and go to the prenatal checkups and know what to expect, then maybe I'd at least know if I should be worried.

Oh, who was I kidding? Someone could have told me that this happened with every pregnancy, and I'd still be worried.

For the first time in forever, I had hope. When I saw Melody come towards me at the airport like some kind of big, sexy penguin, my spirits were instantly lifted into the stratosphere. Sure, I was looking forward to being a rock star in Tokyo, but it wasn't my dream anymore. She was my dream. And I wanted to be with her, and I knew her coming to me meant that we were in fact meant to be. I would have traded all the fame and fortune in a second if it meant that I could spend my life with her.

“Squeeze my hand,” I told her. “I've got you.”

She didn't respond verbally, but she did what I said, squeezing me with all her might through what was a very strained expression, cutting off all the circulation in my hand.

Fine, I thought.Squeeze all the blood out of it until it falls off, and I can't play a guitar ever again. I don't care.

God, I would have done anything to take the pain away from her and hold it inside me for a while, just to give her a break. I wondered if maybe I should have called an ambulance instead of an Uber, but before too long, we made it to the hospital. I ran inside and screamed as many words as I could without resorting to actual sentences.

“Baby!”

“Pregnant!”

“Pain!”

“Help!”

“Emergency!”

Eventually, the staff came running over with a wheelchair, thankfully understanding that I needed immediate insistence and wasn't some random crazy person. I pointed them in the right direction and tried helping Melody into the wheelchair when one of the nurses pushed me aside.

“Sir, we'll take it from here,” he said in a firm voice. “Just follow us.”

I ran after them when the Uber driver shouted at me.

“Mister!” he yelled. “Your bags!”

I didn't care about the fucking bags. He could throw my bass on the ground and run it over for all I cared, because right now I was the happiest and most concerned man alive. But I knew that wouldn’t be the logical thing to do. So, I grabbed my stuff from the back of his car and ran inside after the nurses, who were spouting medical mumbo jumbo at a rapid tempo, much too quickly for me to even parse too many individual words from their technical vernacular.

But the ones I could pick out were alarming.

“Rapid heartbeat.”

“Blood pressure extremely high.”

As I ran behind them, another nurse came beside me with a clipboard.

“Sir, I need you to answer a few questions for me. What is the patient's name?”

“Melody Cruz.”

“And what is your relationship to her?”

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