Table of Contents
Unexpected Love Story
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue One
Epilogue Two
Broken Love Story
Books By Natasha Madison
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Natasha Madison. E-Book and Print Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons or living or dead, events or locals are entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/ Use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.
All rights reserved.
Cover Design: Melissa Gill with MGBookCovers & Designs
Interior Design CP Smith
Editing done by Jenny Sims Editing for Indies
Proofing Julie Deaton Author Services by Julie Deaton
Dedication
Matteo, may you find someone who loves you unconditionally, every step of the way.
Chapter One
Crystal
“Thank you so much for coming in.” I smile at the receptionist while I hand her my insurance card. She looks at my name on the card, then gets up, and asks me to follow her.
“No problem,” I reply, nodding at her. “I mean, I didn’t think it was a suggestion when you called so …” I remember the urgency in her voice when she called with my results and asked me to come in to the office.
“The doctor will be right in with you.” She nods at me, then gestures for me to wait in his office. I look around at all the baby pictures lining his office walls. I smile at some of the red squished faces, thinking about if one of those was my child. Since I was five years old, the only thing I ever really wanted was to be a nurse and a mom.
I’m in my second year of John Hopkins University nursing school. However, the baby will have to wait just a bit or a while. I have my future semi-mapped out for me.
My first goal is to graduate nursing school at the top of my class. It’s fucking on. My second goal is to be an emergency room nurse. The hustle and bustle are what I strive for, searching for the adrenaline rush. Making someone better, it is just … I sigh … amazing.
The doctor opens the door and enters. “Hey there, Crystal, thank you so much for coming in.” The lack of eye contact worries me. Rule number one when you give bad news is not to make eye contact. My palms start to sweat as I sit here, wringing my hands. He pulls out his chair and sits in front of me, his eyes never meeting mine as he shuffles the papers on his lap.
My heart almost beats out of my chest, the sound echoing in my chest. I came in two weeks ago after not having had my period for six months. At first, I thought it was the stress of school and working. But then one month turned into two, and then there I was six months later.
“So we got your results back.” Dr. Vincent starts talking as he lifts one paper over another. I look over to see if maybe I can see anything, but all the letters and numbers look like zeros.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, my voice trembling, my leg starting to shake on its own. I look down at my Converse, studying where the white part has turned a light gray from the dirt.
“I’m afraid it’s not good.” He closes the file and finally looks up to meet my eyes. Folding his hands on the file, I almost feel like he’s protecting it. “The test results from the last time you came in are back. We conducted multiple tests.”
“I know, I was there,” I say. “I’m not dying, am I?” I laugh shakily, thinking this can’t be fucking happening.
“No, no.” He shakes his head. “You aren’t dying.”
I exhale and smile. “Well, that is good news, I think.”
“It is, but there is bad news.”
I chuckle. “I think me being able to live will outdo the bad news,” I joke with him.
“You’re sterile.” Two words … two words I wasn’t expecting to hear. Two words that make living not the best news. The tears come fast, they come hard, and my hand flies to my stomach as if to protect it.
“How can that be?” I shake my head, brushing the tears from my face. “It’s not possible. There must be a mistake.”
“I’m afraid I ran the test twice. That’s why you haven’t had your period. You don’t ovulate.”
“But I’ve gotten my period almost regularly since I was thirteen.”
“It’s almost as if your body is going through menopause.”
“There must be something I can do. There must be something that can be done. I mean, I don’t want to have a baby now, but eventually, I would like to become a mother.” I’m trying to get him to tell me everything is going to be okay. I’m begging him to tell me I can have a baby.
He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could tell you that we can freeze some eggs. But the truth is that last time you came in, we checked and not one egg was released. You had none.”
“What if I take hormones?” I sift through my medical knowledge in my mind but come up blank. “I’m nineteen. Are you saying I’m never going to be a mother? That my body is nineteen, but my uterus is fifty?” A sob breaks free.
“At this time, nothing you can take will help.” He looks at me. “I wish there was something I could do.”
“So what do I do?” I ask him, my chest heaving, my soul empty, and my heart broken. I will never hold my child in my arms. I will never have that moment when you sit down and feel your baby move inside you.
“There is always adoption,” he tells me, but I shake my head.
“I think I just need to go.” I get up from the chair and walk out of the office. My head is in a daze, and I keep my eyes downcast, not looking at anything but my feet. On the ride home, I feel like I’m on autopilot, just going through the motions.
Unlocking my apartment door, I’m happy my two roommates aren’t home. Closing my bedroom door, I flip the lock. My jacket slides off my shoulders, and my shoes get kicked off. I fall onto my bed, bouncing as my body hits the mattress. I turn onto my side and gaze out the window. Little beads of water trickle down the glass. Was it raining? My hands go to my stomach, placing my palm on the emptiness that is inside. Sterile. One word with so many different mean
ings, but to me, it means one thing. My dreams are broken.
Crying into my pillow, I feel the sobs rip from my chest as I groan out my pain. The pain of never having my own child; the pain of never being able to give my husband a child.
My dreams are shattered, just like my heart. I sob until I have nothing left inside me and my heavy lids close. My phone rings somewhere in the distance. All my hopes and aspirations gone. “I’ll never put someone else through this,” I say to the empty room as my eyes fight to stay open. “I will never tell anyone,” I whisper. “I will never.” And my eyes close as my dreams are of darkness. Running. I’m always running. Running after my dreams. Running away from love. Running. Simply running.
Chapter Two
Crystal
Six Years Later . . .
“Two hours, people,” I say to the people hustling in front of me. “Two more hours and I am off for four glorious days.” I lean back in the chair, turning in a semi-circle. I am sitting at the nurses’ station in the middle of the busiest emergency room in three counties.
“Four days off. I bet you get bored in about one day.” Dawn, another ER nurse, laughs at me.
I turn to look at her. “Not this time. I have a date with my bed and my DVR.”
She shakes her head as she continues to write on the chart in front of her. “How many patients do you have?” I ask her as I look over at the whiteboard that keeps track of the patients in the emergency room.
“I’m at twelve.”
“You want me to take two? I only have eight.” I look over at the board, wondering if any would give me a challenge. We are a busy ER, but nothing urgent has been brought in. The phone on the counter rings.
It is the phone that the dispatch calls when an ambulance is on its way in. “Dibs.” Dawn does not even bother to look up when I jump up.
“Crystal speaking.” It’s routine to just give my name.
“Hey, Crystal.” I hear Carole’s voice on the line. “We have an ambulance coming in Code one, R-twenty-three. Status zero. ETA is three minutes.” Her voice goes quiet.
“Fuck.” I hang up the phone. “We have an accident victim coming in, and he’s DOA.” I walk around the desk and jog to the back where the ambulances come in. Holding my stethoscope, I look down at my black Crocs, taking in the outside sun. I haven’t been outside today, but it looks like it’s clear without a cloud in the sky. I spot the white ambulance backing in, and Dr. Arnold appears next to me. “I hate these calls,” I tell him.
Dr. Arnold and I started here at the same time. He’s the only doctor I actually like working with, and that’s only because he lets me do my thing. He lets me treat the patient and asks my opinion. “Hey, who knows. Maybe we can be this man’s miracle today.”
I shrug my shoulders, jogging outside with him as the EMTs pull the gurney out. “What do we have, boys?”
“We have a twenty-eight-year-old male, hit by a truck with an impact of ___ miles per hour. He was down when we arrived and initiated three rounds of CPR, shocked him twice, and injected a half milligram of epi through his IV. We intubated him on scene with ten liters per minute O2 at respirations of ten breaths per minute. Blood pressure is eighty palp, pulse forty-eight weak and irregular. No immediate changes and transported emergent,” one of the guys says as I look down at the patient. My heart stops or rather speeds up.
“Eric,” I whisper, and everyone stops moving, looking back at me. “It can’t be. What is the victim’s name?” I look at the two EMTs, waiting for their answer. Waiting for them to tell me it’s all a mistake.
“Eric McIntyre Schneider,” Chad, one of the EMTs, tells me.
“Fuck.” I turn to Dr. Arnold. “This is Hailey’s husband.” He just nods at me.
“Let’s try to make a miracle happen.” I nod, and we start running with the gurney. “What are his vitals, or what were his vitals?”
“He was DOA. We did CPR for three minutes but nothing. We shocked him twice and nothing.”
We make it to ER room five. “Firemen had to saw him out of the car.”
“On my count,” Dr. Arnold says, telling us we are transferring him from the gurney to a hospital bed in three seconds. “One, two, three.” We move him to the bed. I take out my scissors, cutting through his t-shirt, careful of the shards of glass falling off him. Not a speck of blood is present, but you can tell his chest has been crushed. I look at his face and see the swelling starting. His cheek appears shattered. Pale bruises forming where the blood has stopped flowing lead me to guess it’s been about thirty minutes since his heart has stopped. Thirty minutes without oxygen to his brain, which means he wouldn’t survive no matter what we did. No matter how long we worked on him, he was gone. His fingernails are white, but his hands are tinged blue. I look up at Dr. Arnold, who looks at me with a defeated look.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers as the EMT techs just look down.
“He was T-boned by an eighteen wheeler,” the EMT says, trying to make me see nothing could have been done. Nothing anyone could have done. He was gone.
Dealing with death is just a part of this job you have to come to terms with. Normally, I can block it out, but I can’t do it this time. “Time of death, twelve thirteen,” Dr. Arnold says, looking at the clock on the wall over the door.
I nod and walk out of the room, the tears burning my eyes while my heart starts to beat so fast, my breathing starts to block in my chest. I lean with my hands on my knees, the sting of breathing hurting. “I will handle it,” Dr. Arnold says, letting me know he would inform my family.
I stand, praying for the strength. “I got it,” I tell him, going over to the nurses’ station. I sit in the chair I was just in moments ago and pick up my cell phone to call Blake.
“Hey,” he answers, chipper.
“There was an accident.” My voice doesn’t raise; it doesn’t go lower. It stays monotone. “Eric.”
“Where is he?” Blake asks right away. I hear what sounds like running, then a car door slamming. I think it sounds like tires screeching, but I’m not even sure at the moment.
“He was DOA,” I finally say out loud, my body slumping in the chair. “There was nothing we could do.” I don’t even bother finishing because Blake is talking now.
“Call Hailey and tell her I’m on my way. I’m four minutes out.” He disconnects, and I feel a hand on my shoulder. Looking up, I see it’s Dawn.
“Do you want me to take over?” she asks. The news has already spread in the ER.
I shake my head as a tear slips out of my eye. I pick up the phone to call Hailey, gazing at the picture of us smiling at the camera. She is my best friend. But more importantly, she’s my cousin. She is my person. She is the one I would die for, the one who I know would die for me. I would use my one phone call on her, but knowing us, she would probably be with me. Growing up, I was older by six months, and she never let me forget it.
The phone rings three times before she picks up, and I hear the song “Glorious” in the background. “Hello,” she answers almost breathlessly.
“It’s me.” I try to mask my voice, but I’m not sure I’m doing a good job. “Where are you?” My voice tries to stay calm, tries to stay monotone, but toward the end, it cracks, and she knows I’m not okay. That nothing is okay.
“I’m home,” she whispers into the phone. I gather the strength I need to get through the phone call—one more minute before I can break down without her hearing it.
“You need to come to the hospital.” I keep the sob at bay, impeding the trembling of my voice. “Blake is on his way to get you.” I think of her at her house; the house she shares with Eric, her husband of six months. I think of the fact she will go back there alone tonight. Tears roll down my cheeks, and my nose starts to run. I grab a Kleenex and bring it to my face. “You need to get in the car, okay?” I say softly but firmly. “Listen to me, Hailey. Go outside and get here.” She doesn’t say anything as the call is disconnected, and I know Blake got there. The phone slips fro
m my hand as I get up, rounding the nurses’ station as my aunt and uncle come running through the door. One look at them, and I let go of my pain. My uncle grabs me in his arms as I sob on his shoulder. “He’s gone.” Two words. Why does everything bad only take two words? Two fucking words break me for the second time in my life.
I have my breakdown while my aunt rubs my back. “I need to go clean my face. Hailey will be here in a couple of minutes, and I have to be strong for her.” He just looks at me. “Dawn.” I look at the desk and find it’s not just Dawn, but also Cori, Melanie, and Marie all standing there. My work wives all ready to hold me up.
“We can do this,” Cori says as they all nod next to her.
“I need to wash my face.” I turn, walking into the bathroom, and splash my face with cold water. I look at my face; the redness of my eyes evident. “You can do this,” I tell my reflection. “You have to do this.” I do what I do best—close myself off, remove myself. Except no matter how much training I’ve had, nothing could have prepared me for what is to come. Nothing.
I come out of the bathroom and go to the nurses’ station. Sitting here, I look at the clock. The ticking from the second hand echoes loudly in the room full of hustle and bustle. The nurses are still working. Patients are still coming in. It’s almost as if I’m watching this from out of my body. My eyes try to focus on the movement of my aunt when she finally sees Hailey walk in. Her eyes scanning everywhere as she looks for answers. Her face pale, drained from the happiness there just this morning when she was gushing about Eric being back after being gone a month. She looks up at Blake, asking him questions while she walks down the hallway. I walk around the desk, and her eyes find mine.
She stops in her tracks. I look at her, my brain telling me to remain focused, but my heart takes over as I try to calm my trembling lower lip. She tries to walk forward, but instead, she falls to her knees. When her blood-curdling wail fills the room, I rush to her. She turns her head, not aware the sound is coming from her.
She is on her hands and knees in the middle of the hospital corridor. Her eyes find mine, and her screaming stops. I don’t think she realizes she is the one screaming because she has detached from her body. But by the look she gives me, I know she knows. A look of helplessness overtakes her. She knows nothing will ever be the same again. Her eyes close as I hold her in my arms as she turns her face to me and her tears soak through my blue scrubs.
Unexpected Love Story (Love Series Book 2) Page 1