by Lacey Black
“No! You listen to me. I’m a grown adult. I get to say who I date, when, and why. You don’t get to make that decision for me. You’ve been doing it my whole life, and I’m done. I’m so fucking done that I have no problem showing you the door and closing it forever. You’ve been nothing but rude to Sidney since we had dinner together, and that’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable as a guest to the table, but more importantly, as someone that I love.” Her eyes widen with shock. “You want to force me to choose between you and her, is that it? Well, I have news for you, Mom, you’re not going to like my decision. Because it’s her. I will always choose her and our babies.”
“She’s pregnant?” she whispers, the tears swimming in her eyes starting to slip from the corners.
“Surprise, Mom! You’re going to be a grandmother again. We’ve known for weeks, but you know what? We didn’t feel like we could tell you. You’ve made it so uncomfortable that we couldn’t even tell you that we were pregnant.”
Once I started laying into her, I can’t stop. I should feel guilty purging years of frustration back at her face, but I’m not. In fact, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I feel lighter, freer. And even if it comes down to choosing between my mom and the woman I love, I know picking Sidney is the right and only thing to do. But honestly, I hope it doesn’t come down to that. Because as crazy as my mom is, she’s still my mom and I love her.
Before I can say any more, my cell phone rings. I want ignore it, but knowing that it could be Sidney makes me pull it from my pocket and answer it.
“Hello?” I ask, unable to hide the frustration and irritation I have coursing through my body.
“What the hell did you do?” she hollers into the phone.
“Carly?”
“You are the biggest pile of dog poop I know, Lucas Aaron Thomas. I can’t even believe you’re related to Blake. He would never do something so thoughtless, so inconsiderate, so…I can’t even think of another word, I’m so mad at you!”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, stepping away from Mom while she dabs at the corners of her eyes with a Kleenex.
“Sidney!”
I stop moving. I stop breathing. I just stop everything. “What do you mean?” My words are silent, afraid.
“I’m on my way to the hospital, dumbass. Your new girlfriend sent your old girlfriend into some sort of attack, possibly labor!”
Jess chooses that moment to enter the living room. When my murderous eyes find hers, I see it. Guilt. “What did you do?” My voice is low and menacing.
“I didn’t do anything, dumbass. You did this!” Carly yells.
“I’m on my way,” I tell her, walking towards the door.
“No, you’re not. She doesn’t want you there.”
“I have to fucking be with her, Carly! Those are my babies. My babies. They’re my life.” My words drop off, barely above a whisper. I stop at the doorway, terrified of what I’m about to find when I get to the hospital.
“Why was your ex-girlfriend at your house today?” she asks calmly, pulling me back to my reality.
“Long story, but I wasn’t the one who gave her a key,” I say rubbing my forehead.
“I only want what’s best for her, Luke,” Carly says, her words laced with the pain and fear that’s driving me.
“Me too, Carly. I love her. Please tell me where she’s at? I need to be with her. What if something happens? To the babies. To her.” I choke on the words. They gut me straight up the center, ripping me open and spilling my soul on the hardwood floor.
“She’s at Summerlin Hospital. Her OB admitted her for observation. I’m on my way there now,” she says but I cut her off before she can speak further.
“I’m on my way.”
Pulling my keys from my pocket, I end the call and turn towards the two women in my house. One looks sad, but the other looks terrified. I start with Jess. “She was here today? While you were here?” Guilt washes over her face once more. “You’re not welcome here. I’m with Sidney. I’d appreciate it if you’d respect that and leave. If you need any more help with your case, call Riggs directly. I’m done.” She averts her eyes and nods her head.
“And as for you,” I start and turn towards my mom. Her face is ashen and her eyes full of terror. She looks as if she’s seen a ghost. Everything I was going to say is lost. Right now, it doesn’t matter. Getting to Sidney and being by her side is the only thing that matters. “I have to go,” I say as I turn and run through the door. I don’t stop until I’m getting into my truck.
The engine roars to life, but before I can throw it in drive, the passenger door opens. I’m surprised to see my mom getting into my truck and fumbling the latch of her seatbelt. When she turns to stare straight ahead, I see tears streaming down her face. We sit in silence for a few moments before I shift into gear and fly towards the hospital.
“She’s pregnant? With twins?” Her words are shaky and full of distress.
“Yes.”
“Is everything okay? With the babies?”
“I don’t know.” Saying it out loud hurts in a way I never experienced. “I hope so. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to any of them.”
She cries softly to herself. Her reaction to everything is completely throwing me for a loop. Instead of being mad at her, I find myself comforting her. “Mom, it’ll be okay. I’m sure everything’s going to be fine.”
“You don’t know that. Sometimes, it’s not fine. Sometimes, things happen.”
I glance over at her quickly before returning my eyes to the road. Dread starts to churn in my gut as I continually steal glances at her while she cries. I don’t know what to do or say right now, and her words are definitely not helping. Instead of reassuring me, she’s scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. I just need to get to the hospital so I can see and hold Sidney in my arms.
“You were a twin, Luke.” Her words are so soft that I almost don’t hear them.
“What?” I ask, stopping at a stoplight and turning to face her.
The wretched look in her eyes may haunt me until my dying day. She looks gutted, lost in a memory that’s better left buried. “You were a twin.” She says the words once more, but it still doesn’t register properly.
How is this possible? How do I go my entire life without knowing I was a twin? No pictures, no mementos, no memories. I wrack my brain, looking for a sliver of a string to pull in hopes of finding a piece I seem to be missing, but I come up with nothing.
The light turns green, but I don’t move. I find myself staring straight ahead, oblivious to the horns honking behind me. “How is that possible?” I ask, still not comprehending how I can be twenty-nine years old and not know I was a twin.
Risking a look at the woman beside me, my mom looks as if she’s aged ten years in the last two minutes. She’s wringing her hands together as tears stream down her face. Her eyes look defeated and tired. She’s a mess, completely unlike the woman I’ve known my entire life who insists on full makeup and hair just to run and grab a gallon of milk.
Another horn honking and the sound of skidding tires pulls my attention to my surroundings. We’re going to cause an accident, and if that happens, I’ll never make it to Sidney’s side. I push hard on the gas, my truck lunging through the intersection and racing towards the hospital.
The only sound in the cab is the mixture of my erratic breathing and Mom’s sniffles. “I was thirteen weeks pregnant,” she starts, her words barely a whisper. “I started have abdominal pain so I went to see my physician. By the time I got to the office, I was bleeding, heavily. They called an ambulance and rushed me to the hospital, but it was too late. I was miscarrying the other baby.”
Sidney is thirteen weeks. The timeline blares in my head like a foghorn. My foot pushes heavier on the pedal as I maneuver in and out of traffic. Mom doesn’t say a word about my driving, just quietly cries beside me.
“You were frat
ernal twins and everything appeared to be fine with you. They kept me overnight and sent me home the next morning as if nothing had happened. But it did. I was distraught, terrified that I was going to lose you too. I couldn’t even be around Blake for a while because I’d burst into tears and upset him. Your father didn’t know what to do, how to console me.” She takes a deep breath. “He couldn’t. I was inconsolable.”
“Mom, I’m sorry you went through that. I didn’t know. How could I not know?” I ask, turning on the road that’ll take me to Summerlin. A few more minutes and I’ll be there and will see Sid. I’ll be able to hold her, touch her, breathe her in.
“I didn’t want you to know. It took me a long time to get over losing the baby. I was horribly depressed. We agreed to not talk about it. It was the only way your father and I could get through the day. Every time it was brought up, I relapsed into a deep fog that would take me weeks to come out of. I knew that if I didn’t get help, I was going to lose your father and brother the way I lost the baby.
“So I pushed everything to the back of my mind and just numbly made my way through each day. I fought to hide my anxiety the closer it got to your due date. I’m sure your father knew, but he didn’t bring it up. He watched me closely, but for the most part, abided by my wishes.”
I pull into the parking lot, heading towards the emergency room.
“That’s why I’ve always kept you close. I was terrified of losing you too.”
I find a parking spot and shut off my truck. Risking a glance over at my mom, her hands are cupping her face while she cries. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I pull her into my arms and hold her tight. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“No,” she sniffles, “I’m sorry. I’ve been a bit overbearing over the years.”
“A little?” I ask with a smile.
Her laughter fills the truck cab. “Maybe a bit more than a little. I’m sorry that my insecurities made things more difficult for you, Luke. I never meant to hurt you or Sidney. I actually really, really like her. I just felt like everything was out of my control and that you’d leave me too. I already lost your brother to Carly, but the thought of losing you to Sidney terrified me.”
“Mom, you haven’t lost either of us,” I reassure her.
“I know that, really. And I knew Jessica was all wrong for you which is why I was pushing you towards her. I knew she wasn’t the one. But I saw something special in Sidney, always have. Even when you were little, you gravitated towards her.”
“I love her.”
“I know. You always have.” She smiles at me, a real smile. I’m not sure I’ve ever really seen one. No, I take that back; she smiles at Natalia all the time.
“I need to go inside.”
“Yes, you do.” She sits up straight and tries to dry her eyes before quickly turning back to me. “Can I go with you?”
“Yes,” I reply. Honestly, I could use her support right now, but if she says or does anything that stresses Sidney out in the least, I’m not above throwing her out of the room. She may have explained a bit about her behavior, but there’s still tons of shit we need to talk about. As long as she’s good to Sidney, I’ll be able to move forward from all of this.
But first, I need to get to my girl and make sure she and our babies are okay.
Together, we run through the sliding doors of the brightly lit emergency room. A young woman with blond hair sits behind the registration desk, a pleasant smile on her round face. “Can I help you?”
“Sidney Rogen. She was brought in a while ago, probably to maternity.”
The woman clicks on her keyboard. “Are you related to the patient?” she asks.
“I’m the father of the babies.”
She gives me a small smile and returns her attention to the screen in front of her. “She’s in room five twenty, but it says here -” she starts before I turn and run towards the elevator, essentially cutting her off.
As I reach the elevator, softer footsteps sound behind me. Mom is by my side a second later, her gentle hand holding my forearm in a comforting manner. The touch reminds me to calm down and take a few deep breaths. The last thing I need is to run in there, guns blazing. She’s probably pissed as hell at me right now over the Jessica mess, so as much as I want to storm the castle, I need the reminder to stay calm. There’ll be time to explain everything later. Right now, my only concern is the health and safety of her and the twins.
By the time the elevator arrives and deposits us on the fifth floor, I’m a mixed bag of anxiety and nervousness. I have no idea what I’m walking into and that thought terrifies me. The lack of confidence and control over the situation has left me in uncharted water. Seldom am I missing both in any given scenario.
When we reach a pair of locked doors, I push the intercom button with force. “May I help you?”
“Sidney Rogen.”
After a few tense moments, the lock disengages and I open the door. An older nurse with a grey bun and teddy bear scrubs is standing before me, basically blocking the path. “Please come with me,” she says pointedly before turning and heading towards a small waiting room off to the side.
Inside, a man sits watching The History Channel and pays no attention to our arrival in the room. The nurse leads us over to a table off to the side next to a coffee machine. She sits down and waits. Like hell I’m sitting down now, lady!
“Listen, I really just want to go back and see Sidney,” I plea, running my hand through my short hair.
“I understand that, sir, but Ms. Rogen is with the doctor right now. She has requested no visitors at this time.”
“But I’m her boyfriend. Those are my babies.” I drop down in the chair, feeling tired and defeated. “Are the babies okay? Is she okay?”
“I’m not at liberty to say anything about our patients, sir.”
Does she not understand? That’s my woman and my babies in there! Like hell I’m just going to sit out here and do nothing. I’ll be damned if she’s in that room by herself, dealing with whatever is going on solo. Fuck that.
“Listen,” I start, gazing down at her nametag, “Ruth. I need to see her. I’m not leaving this hospital until I know what is happening with her and our babies. That’s my life in that room. Please just let me make sure she’s okay. I can’t sit in here and wonder.” My eyes lock on her hazel ones. “Please.”
Her throat works to swallow and she holds eye contact. “Let me go back and see what I can do.” She quickly stands up.
“Thank you, Ruth.”
With a quick head nod, she leaves, heading down a long corridor before turning and disappearing.
“Don’t worry, Luke. You’ll know something soon enough,” Mom says, dropping into the seat beside me. Silence descends, even though the television is on. I’m trapped in my own mind, praying and wishing for answers to my many questions.
Ten of the longest damned minutes later, a familiar face rounds the corner and walks into the waiting room. I’m out of my chair and charging towards her before I can slow down.
“What’s going on?” I ask my sister-in-law.
“The doctor is just finishing up.”
“That doesn’t tell me shit, Carly. Is she okay? The babies?” I choke on the words once more.
“I think everything is fine, but we’ll find out more when they’re finished.” Her dark brown eyes hold sympathy and concern as she speaks words that don’t really comfort me. Seeing Sidney. That’ll bring me comfort.
“I need to get in there with her.”
“Listen, Luke, she knows you’re here. And for as much as she says she doesn’t want to see you right now, I saw relief in her eyes when the nurse said you were adamant to see her. Give her a few minutes to finish up with the doctor and I’ll take you back. But you have to promise me you won’t upset her,” she says with that stern voice she uses on her daughter.
“I promise. Carly, I love her. The last thing I want is to upset her.” Rubbing my forehead,
the dull throb of a headache rages into a full-blown drum solo raging in my brain.
“You love her? Awww, Lukey Pooky! You’re in love?” she coos. Even that fake voice women all use to talk to babies can’t stop the smile from spreading across my face. “Have you told her yet?” She’s bouncing on her feet, clapping her hands together.
“No, so I’d appreciate it if you’d not say anything until I get the chance to see her and tell her myself.”
Mom steps beside me, a casual smile on her lips. “We won’t spoil it, Luke. The most important thing is for you to get in there and be with her.”
The look on Carly’s face is priceless. Her eyes are wide with shock as she slowly looks between Mom and me. The corner of my mouth curves upward as the nurse from earlier comes into the waiting room. “You can go back in there.”
Without saying a word, I fall in step beside my sister-in-law. Mom stays in the waiting room as we make our way towards where the woman I love is resting. My steps falter as we approach a semi-closed door. She turns and smiles at me, offering her support and encouragement. With a knock, she peeks her head around the door and steps inside.
I, on the other hand, feel like my heart is going to beat out of my chest. I’ve been dying to get to this very place for the last thirty minutes, but now I can’t seem to make my feet work. What if everything changes when I walk into that room? I could lose everything that’s important to me in one brief moment. I’d be a fucking liar if I said that walking through this door wasn’t the scariest moment of my life, worse than the moment she told me we were having a baby.
But what’s the alternative?
Life without Sidney?
Or could walking through that door bring me everything I’ve ever wanted?
There’s only one way to find out.
I push open the door and walk inside.
Chapter Twenty-Nine – I’ll Take Forever For A Thousand, Alex
Sidney
Carly enters the room and gives me a bright smile. She’s glowing in her pregnancy, but this is something more. She has a look that says she has a secret, but doesn’t say a word as she walks over to the chair on the far side of the room; not the one beside the bed that she’s been sitting in since her arrival earlier.