Between Two Sisters (contemporary western romance novella) (13 page)

Things between them were going well, for the most par
t. It was taking some time, but Melanie slowly began to feel like less of a houseguest and more of a partner of sorts. They were both still adjusting to the idea that this was real, and they were a couple now.

Billy still had the engagement ring, but he didn’t feel as though the time was right to formally propose yet. He wanted to wait until they felt more like a couple, and less like roommates. They slept curled up together, and they had even briefly kissed here and there, but
the fire and spark of before were dampened for now. The whole situation was still too new, and their wounds were still too fresh. There was too much upheaval in their lives at the moment, and romance had taken a back seat for the time being.

Everything was fine when they went to bed on Thursday night, but Melanie woke him up in the wee hours of the morning.

“Billy,” she gasped as she shook him awake, “Wake up! Something’s wrong!”

He sat up quickly and
let his eyes adjust to the light in the room. Melanie had turned it on already, and one look at her face confirmed that something was terribly wrong. Her eyes were wide and terrified, and her complexion was ashen. Billy felt his mouth go dry.

She threw aside the sheets to reveal a huge pool of blood on her side of the bed.

Billy sprang into action. He threw on his jeans and jacket without bothering to throw on a shirt and pulled the comforter off the bed. He wrapped Melanie up in it, and carefully gathered her up in his arms.

“C’mon. Let’s get you to the emergency room.” She clung to him as he gently carried her out to the truck.
He forced himself to remain calm, but the amount of blood she had lost was alarming. He knew it would be faster to race her to the hospital himself, instead of waiting for an ambulance to make it all the way out to the ranch.

As he sped through the empty streets, he tried to keep her talking. It was both to make sure that she hadn’t passed out, but also to keep himself from breaking down. If he had a job to do, he could hold it together, but he feared that the minute someone else took over, he would fall apart.

He made it to the hospital in about half of the time it should have taken, if he hadn’t sped the whole way. He pulled up in the ambulance bay and laid on his horn before jumping out and gingerly pulling Melanie out of the truck. Her skin was clammy and she was barely responsive. Blood had soaked through the comforter, onto her seat.

Nurses rushed up to him with a gurney
for her, and he held her hand as they rushed her into the emergency room. He stayed with her until they reached a private room, at which point one of the nurses pulled him aside to gather her personal information. Billy made sure to mention the pregnancy straight away.

“
Any issues with the pregnancy?” the nurse asked briskly.

“No
t that we know of.  She just scheduled her first doctor’s appointment.”

“Do you know her blood type?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Tell me- has she…has she lost the baby?”

The nurse sighed. “We won’t know for sure until the ultrasound is finished. She’s lost a lot of blood, and she may need a transfusion. Are you her husband?”

Billy cleared his throat nervously. “No, I’m her boyfriend.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in the waiting room, then. Family members only at this point. Does she have
any family in the area?”

He
cursed under his breath when he realized he hadn’t even alerted the Haffners to her condition yet. “Her parents- I haven’t had a chance to call them yet.”

“You go do that now,” the nurse instructed as she finished filling out some information in her chart. “I’ll come find you if we have any more questions for you.”

“Will she be okay?” He could barely get the words out. He knew losing the baby was possible, but he had to know if Melanie would recover.

“
The doctor will answer all of your questions,” the nurse deflected woodenly.

Defeated, Billy followed the signs through the emergency room
back to the waiting area. There were only a few people waiting there, and he took a seat in the corner furthest away from everyone else.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the Haffner residence. He dreaded making this phone call, but it had to be done. He felt remiss in not doing in sooner, but there simply hadn’t been time. Getting Melanie to the hospital had been his top priority.

Mr. Haffner picked up on the third ring.

“This better be important,” he grumbled.

“Mr. Haffner, it’s Billy. It’s Melanie, Sir. She’s in the hospital.” Mr. Haffner was silent on the other end of the line as he explained what had transpired.

“We’ll be there in half an hour.” The line went dead in his hands.

It felt like an eternity, pacing the waiting room, waiting for news on Melanie, and waiting for the Haffners to arrive. Eventually an older doctor came out and called his name, gesturing for him to come away from the waiting area so they could discuss Melanie’s status.

“I understand you’re the father?”
the doctor first confirmed.

Billy nodded, anx
ious to move on with the news about Melanie and the baby.

“Melanie has suffered a miscarriage, and a rather severe one at that. The hemorrhaging
has been substantial, but we’ve got the bleeding under control now. She just narrowly escaped needing a blood transfusion, and she’ll need to stay in the hospital for observation for the next few days. I’m so sorry about the baby.”

Billy stared at him as the news registered. “The baby’s gone? She lost the baby?”

The doctor nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“But Melanie will be okay?”

“Yes. She should be able to get pregnant again in the future, and many women who miscarry go on to have healthy pregnancies down the line. There’s no reason against you two trying for another pregnancy in the future. I’m afraid we don’t know what caused the miscarriage, or why it was so severe. Sometimes there just aren’t answers for these things.”

“Can I see her now?”

“Not yet. I understand that her parents are on the way?” Billy nodded. “She keeps asking for her mother. At this point I’m inclined to limit visitors to her parents only. If she asks for you, we’ll come get you, but otherwise you’ll have to wait until morning.” The doctor gave him an apologetic look before excusing himself to go deal with his other patients.

Billy wandered back to the waiting room, numb from the shock of it all. He was relieved that Melanie would be okay, and that this didn’t ruin her chances of having children in the future. The
news that the baby was gone left him feeling hollowed out and empty inside. The pregnancy may have been unplanned, but it didn’t make it hurt any less that his child was gone before it ever even properly arrived. It was a lot to take in all at once.

No sooner had he sat down again in the waiting room than the sliding entrance door slid open and the Haffners rushed in. Billy
jumped up as they hurried over to him, and his heart raced when he realized Cass was with them.

Cass. He hadn’t seen her since that unfortunate incident with Melanie’s engagement ring. She had successfully avoided him since then; not that he had gone looking for her. Even now she refused to look him in the eye. Mr. Haffner caught him staring at her and gave him a stern look. His unspoken message was clear: leave her alone.

“What’s the news?” Mrs. Haffner asked breathlessly. Her eyes were rimmed red from crying the whole way over, and even now her cheeks were wet with tears.

“She lost the baby, but she’ll be okay. She has to be admitted for a few days.” Billy explained the few details the doctor had conveyed to him as Mrs. Haf
fner wrung her hands and Mr. Haffner listened with creases of worry on his brow. Cass hung silently behind them, and Billy made sure to not even glance at her again.

Mrs. Haffner gave him a quick hug before she asked the nurse at the emergency reception desk to take them to see Melanie.

“Parents only,” the nurse explained, looking at Cass. She gave her mother a quick hug and said something in her ear, but Billy was too far away to overhear it. The Haffners followed the nurse into the heart of the emergency room, and Cass took a seat in the waiting area.

Billy stood there for a moment, debating what to do. He picked a seat as far away from Cass as he could get and sat down with a magazine to wait.
It was hard to even be in the same room with her. The evening had been emotionally charged enough, and now she was there, too.

Billy spent the next twenty minutes staring at the same page in the magazine, pretending to read while his mind was in another place. He desperately wanted to see Melanie, to support her during her time of loss, but the doctor had made it clear that he wasn’t welcome to visit her yet unless she requested him. He was a bit hurt t
hat she hadn’t asked for him, but he tried to remind himself that she and her mother were very close, and it was only natural that she wanted her mother by her side right now.

T
he events of the evening were so overwhelming for him that he didn’t even realize that Cass was approaching him until she was right in front of him. He braced himself against the wrath he was convinced she was about to unleash.

“Hey,” she said softly. Her tone was quiet and uncertain, and it took him by surprise.

“Hey.”

“I was thinking about grabbing a cup of coffee. Do you want one?”

He shrugged, unsure of how to react to her offer. “I guess that’d be good.”

Cass turned and began to head towards the doorway that would take her to the main hospital, and the cafeteria. “Aren’t you coming?” she called back over her shoulder.

Billy got up and followed her hesitantly. They walked in silence through the corridor, and he left plenty of extra space in between them as they made their way to the cafeteria. He didn’t have any idea what to say to her.

They got their coffees
without speaking, and Cass said nothing when Billy pulled out his wallet to pay for the both of them. It wasn’t until they were almost back at the emergency room that Cass attempted to break down the wall of tension between them.

She stopped suddenly, a few paces from the emergency room doors, and Billy stopped automatically as well.

“I’m sorry about the baby, Billy. Really, I am.” He could tell her words were genuine, and it touched him. After all he put her through, she was still able to offer him her condolences.

“Thanks, Cass. It’s weird, you know? I don’t think it’s fully set in for me yet that the baby’s gone.” He examined his coffee with great interest as he spoke, trying to avoid her gaze. He didn’t deserve her kindness. “I’m just glad Mel will be okay.”

“Me, too.”

They stayed like that, standing awkwardly in the hallway
, unsure of how to react to the other.

Billy took a deep breath. It was now or never. “I’m so sorry, Cass. For everything. This isn’t what I wanted for any of us.”

Something within Cass seemed to change, and instead of answering him, she bolted into the emergency room without another word to him. Anger boiled off of her, and Billy chastised himself for bringing it up right now. It wasn’t the time or place for it, but he feared he’d never get another chance to apologize for the pain he caused her. He couldn’t change the past, but he could at least try to let her know how much he regretted it.

When he
entered the waiting room, Cass was in a chair against the far wall. She didn’t even glance up at him. He picked a seat far from her and leaned against the wall with his eyes closed. He fell asleep at some point, because the next thing he knew, Mrs. Haffner was gently shaking him to wake him up.

“Melanie’s asking for you,” she told him. “We’ll wait out here to give you two some privacy.”

His eyes snapped open and he rose from his chair, eager to see her. A nurse waited by the door to lead him to Melanie.

Her color was still awful, but she gave him a weak smile when he entered the room. Various machines monitored her vital signs, and bags of IV fluids were steadily entering her body through the catheter in her hand.

Billy carefully kissed his cheek before sitting down in the chair beside the bed. “How are you doing?” He felt stupid asking her that, but he didn’t know what else to say.

“The baby’s gone,” she whispered, with tears in her eyes.

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s over, Billy. This is all just a sign that we’re not meant to happen; not this way. I don’t think-”

“Don’t talk like that, Mel. It’s been a terrible night, and you’re very upset. It’s not the time to make any rash decisions right now.”

“It’s not a rash decision,” she argued. “It was a rash decision to decide we had to be together because we had a baby on the way.”

“Don’t say that,” he admonished her. “You’re weak, and we’ve just gone through some serious trauma. You don’t know what you’re saying!”

“I know exactly what I’m saying, Billy. This was good, in a way. Marty wasn’t
right for me; I know that now.”