Look After You (13 page)

I gather just enough power to drag my feet through my home-away-from-home and once I have sterilized my hands at the main double doors of the NICU, I walk through the hospital corridor. When I turn the corner to the room my daughter shares with two other preterm babies, the first person I see is Ashton and my heart plummets down to my feet at the look of concern on his face. I rush over to him as my entire body turns hysterical in a matter of seconds.
“Ashton, what’s happened to my Lily?” I gasp urgently as I grip hold of his white coat into a tight vice.

He gently takes hold of me by the arms.
“Ava, I’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours. Lily took a turn for the worse during the night.” My eyes widen in panic as I slap my hand over my mouth, choking on a sob. My phone. Shit, where is my phone? I have been so preoccupied with my own shit that I haven’t got a clue where my phone is.

“A turn for the worse? Wha-what’s happened? She was absolutely fine when I left her last night.” My entire world suddenly falls down around me, and if it weren
’t for Ashton’s tight grip, my knees would have buckled from under me.

“Come with me,” he speaks softly as he guides me to a private family room just outside the NICU. I sit down on what feels like a lumpy futon, and he crouches down in front of me. He smiles sadly at me as I continue to cry.

“She’s doing okay, she was having a few issues with her breathing during the night. She had symptoms of apnea, bradycardia, desaturations and increased work of her breathing. She had a high temperature, she was extremely lethargic, and her blood sugars were low. The high temperature suggested she had an infection. We took some blood, did an x-ray-”

What is it with doctors? Can they not just get to the point? My body is nearly convulsing with terror at the thought of something terrible happening to Lily-Mai, and all Ashton can do is ramble on about blood samples and apnea episodes. I know he says she is
 doing okay, but I feel his words are just a medical mechanism for delaying bad news.
“Jesus, Ashton, just get to the point. What the hell is wrong with her?” I cut him off mid-sentence, and all of the venom from the stress of the past week comes pouring out with every single word. He automatically pulls away, looking a little taken aback by my outburst, but I don’t care. This is the final straw, I’m not sure how much more shit I can handle right now.

“She has pneumonia.”

My heart drops to my stomach and the tears come on even stronger.
“Oh my God,” I sob out in a whisper.

Ashton moves in closer, delicately taking hold of my hand, looking at me with a sweet look that I don’t deserve, especially after the way I just spoke to him.
“Ava, it isn’t as bad as it sounds-”

“It isn’t as bad as it sounds?” I question astoundingly, cutting him off again. “She has an infection in her lungs, tiny lungs that are still developing. How can that not be as bad as
it sounds? Because from where I’m sitting, it sounds worse than bad, it sounds downright catastrophic.” I look away from his eyes and concentrate on a bit of invisible lint on my jeans, desperately urging myself to calm down, to ease my tears but instead they just continue to fall.

“Pneumonia is just a fancy medical word for a chest infection. Of course,
pneumonia can be serious, life threatening if not caught early enough, but we noticed the signs immediately, and because we acted fast, we determined she has a severe lung infection quickly, and she is now on a very strong course of antibiotics. I have put her back on the CPAP for a short while to prevent the possibility of her lungs collapsing from the infection. She is stable, her temperature has come down, it is still a little high, but she is doing great. I’m confident she is going to be just fine.”

I choke back a cry, my hand tightening into his.
“Really?” I ask.

“Yes. She
’s a little weak now, but with the help of the CPAP and the intravenous antibiotics, she will recover in no time. This is common with a lot of preemie babies due to the poor development of their respiratory system. They are more prone to infection, especially babies like Lily who have suffered with Respiratory Distress Syndrome, which increases the possibility of respiratory infections. And considering how common it is, early detection is easy, and it is rare that it results in further complication. I am not saying her recovery will be easy, but I’m guessing you already know that.”

I give a gentle nod, sucking in a deep breath, sniffling through my runny nose.
“Yeah, I think I know it too well, I have suffered six weeks of complications.” Complications I can hardly believe my daughter has survived. I don’t know how much more I can take, and I don’t know how much she is going to survive, of how much more I can survive. I feel as though I am drowning in the deepest of waters, without a life jacket, with no way of survival. I abruptly pull my hand out of his and bury my face deep into my hands. I angrily bite against my hand as I mumble, “I don’t how much more I can cope with.”

“Hey.”

My eyes water at his sympathy and that only makes me feel worse. I cry hysterically, wishing for just one moment that I wasn’t the poor girl with the preemie baby daughter. That I wasn’t the poor girl whose fiancé, was in Afghanistan, that I wasn’t the poor girl who was being tormented by her demons and fears. I want to be a girl, a normal girl without a worry in the world.

Of course, the perfect life doesn’t exist for me. It never has.

Suddenly I feel a dip beside me on the sofa, and when a pair of strong arms wrap around my shaking body, I accept them and bury my face into the incredible warmth of Ashton’s chest. I cry hysterically into the spot where his heart sits. After a few deep breaths, the steady beat of his heart begins to create a calming effect, and I don’t ever want to let go.

Ashton rocks me back and forth as I grip hold of his white coat, pain ricocheting through my body, causing me to wail through my ugly cries.
I feel a comforting tingle move down my spine as he lightly strokes his hand through my long hair. Somehow I must have lost my ponytail holder from its messy bun during my hysteria. He doesn’t utter a word as I lose control of my emotions. He just lets me break down into his arms. I know how inappropriate this would look to an outsider, how bad this would seem to Sebastian, but right now Ashton’s arms are all I have, and whether it is right or wrong, I like how he is making me feel. I finally realize how much I have missed him, how much I missed the friendship that we developed during the confined environment of this hospital. He made my day that little bit brighter. I could do with a pick me up, especially after the past week. I hate to admit it, but I love the way his arms feel around me, it feels natural. It feels perfect.

The room is silent when my tears eventually dry up. The only thing I can hear is the drumming of his heartbeat and the soft sound of light breathing coming from Ashton. I know, now that I have stopped crying that I should let go of him, but for some reason I don’t. I just keep locked into his embrace, and for the first time in a long time I finally feel content, and I don’t have the weight of my demons hovering over me. I finally feel safe.

“Are you okay?” I feel so calm and comforted, I literally just moan out my reply.
Ashton squirms uncomfortably from under me and slowly begins to pull away. I can’t help but blush when I unwrap my arms from him.

“Sorry about that, you’re just extremely comfortable.” I cringe as soon as the words come out, and as I look at his face, I am sure there is a hint of redness developing. This makes me smile on the inside.

“It’s okay.” He clenches his jaw, looking a little tense, and I take this as a hint that he is uncomfortable being in such close quarters. I shift away from him and sit back against the corner of the sofa, tucking my feet under my bottom, brushing out the odd few knots in my hair with my fingers. Then I notice the single ponytail holder sitting between the creases of the futon, and I pick it up and tie my hair back into a messy bun. I wipe at my swollen eyes with my fingertips, sighing as I remove all presence of my tears. “I must look a mess.”

He gives me a warm smile, shaking his head. “No, you look beautiful.”

That takes me by a surprise, and he cannot mistake the audible gasp that leaves my throat. I cough nervously, desperately wanting to move away from the heavy subject that involves our obvious attraction to one another and more importantly I need him to stop looking at me as if I am the most beautiful woman on this planet. Not because I don’t like it, it’s quite the opposite actually, and that seems to be the problem, a problem that leaves my mind riddled with confusion. I am not supposed to feel this way about anybody other than Sebastian. It’s wrong on so many levels. No. It’s wrong on all levels.

“So, where do we go from here?” I ask, and he gives me a look of confusion.

“We?” he answers, his voice thick with emotion.

“Yeah, with Lily.”

He looks momentarily lost for a second until he suddenly snaps out of his spell.
“Of course, Lily. Well we will keep her under close observation for the next forty-eight hours, keeping check of her vitals, her breathing and inflammation of the lungs. At the moment with her body still underdeveloped and with her immature lungs, the trauma from the ventilation has caused the inflammation in the lungs and the CPAP is there to help stop them from collapsing. Plus, the oxygen from the CPAP certainly helps with her restricted breathing.

“We will see how she responds to the antibiotics and once we begin to see dramatic improvements, we can see about taking her off the CPAP. I am confident she will start improving within the next twenty-four hours.”

I let out a long jagged breath, at yet another hurdle we have to face. As much as I hate that she is back on the CPAP, I am grateful that it isn’t any more serious than this. We can fight through this; we can push through to the very end.
“Just when I thought this intense week couldn’t get any worse, it outright punches me in the face. God, when I saw your face, for just one moment I thought I had actually lost her. I can’t lose her, I just can’t.”
I roll my eyes at my endless amount of tears that continue to fall. I wipe frustratingly at them with my fingertips, sighing.
“God, my emotions are all over the place.”

Ashton’s eyes darken with an intensity that scares me yet intrigues me at the same time.
“What do you mean by intense week?”

Oh, did I say that out loud? Shit.
“Err, um…ah,” I stutter in-between mumbles, hopelessly lost for words.

He shifts closer to me until our knees are touching, and this accidental touch alone makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“What’s going on, Ava?” I just shrug a silent answer, a little taken back by his direct question. “Look, I know I haven’t known you for very long but even I can tell something is going on, it’s written all over your face. Is it Sebastian, do you miss him? I’ve noticed that he hasn’t been to the hospital lately.”

I can’t help the sinister laugh that comes out from my mouth.
“That isn’t it, believe me. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Then what is it?” I purposely avoid direct eye contact with him. I am almost afraid that if I look into those incredible green eyes of his that he will see right through me and see the demons that are embedded in the deepest part of my brain. Or worse, blurt out every single secret that has riddled me from the age of fifteen. Every time I look him in the eyes I physically want to tear my heart open and pour every secret to him, bleeding myself of vulnerability, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me because I have never felt that kind of urge with anybody in my entire life, except with Caleb.

“Look, I shouldn’t have said anything, it’s nothing I can’t handle.” If only that was the truth. He gives me a pained look and shifts a little closer, which is detected immediately by my heart as the rhythm begins to pick up.

“I get it, okay, I get it. I
’m the last person you would want to speak to about your problems. For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry I was such a dick. That wasn’t fair on you.” I hate that he thinks our fall out, if you can even call it that, is the reason I don’t want to open up to him. It is the very opposite and I hate that too.
“But I like you, okay? And if you’re going through something, I would like to help. Even if you don’t trust me enough to tell me, I can refer you to a professional if that’s what you need.”

My heart rate skyrockets at his words, more importantly when he said, ‘but I like you, okay?’ and I can’t help but focus intently on his choice of words. Instinctively, I reach out to him and clasp my hand into the warmth of his as I find the courage to look him in the eye. I notice them widen at my intimate gesture, but he never hesitates when his hands tightens around mine.

“That isn’t it. I promise. It’s more complicated than that, but I don’t think a therapist would help, in fact, I know they wouldn’t. I’ve been there, got the t-shirt, but you’re sweet for suggesting that, so thank you. What I would like is a friend. You make everything disappear when you make me laugh and I want to laugh again. As it happens, I like you too.” I don’t add how much, but it is hardly necessary, not when my body language makes it obvious.

“I want to make you laugh, so much. I’m here, and I’m here if you ever want to talk, you have my cell number.”

I wrinkle my eyebrows in confusion.
“I do?”