TWENTY NINE
Elizabeth laid face up, her breath slow and shallow. Her arm atop her belly as she felt for it. It felt, almost off, that she was carrying a child now. Her own baby, a life within her that she would birth into the world and raise as hers.
At that moment, she slipped into a moment of derealization, just blinking and blinking until she heard the footsteps of a nurse coming into the hospital room where she laid.
She rose up from her sleeping position, her head still thudding softly. “Am I fine?” she asked the woman. “Fine to go home for the night. I'm exhausted and the hospital walls sickens me.”
Maria, the nurse, smiled softly at her, totally understanding her situation and predicament. Her skin wrinkled by the eyes, and her pearly white teeth were on display. “Yes, you can Mary. You just need enough rest, enough food, vegetables, fruit and water. Emphasis on the rest.”
Elizabeth made to speak. “But I—”
Maria cut her off. “No buts. Rest. It's needed. You've been overworking yourself. And that's not nice. Even if you're not doing this for yourself, do for your child.”
Elizabeth hand went to her belly once again. It wasn't a lump yet but she enjoyed knowing she had a life surviving, living, and breathing off her. If she was hurt. The baby also was.
Few minutes later, Elizabeth wandered out the room where she had taken injections and prescribed pills to dull the sickness and fever she was feeling. She was back in the hallway, sniffling, her head hanging low, the pill bag dropping down her right hand while her left was pocketed into her baggy sweatpants pocket. When the sudden sound of chaos looming overhead reached her. A couple of nurses were pushing a stroller, accompanied by a teenage girl bathed in sweat and tears. Her blonde hair was sticking to her forehead and temples in damp threads and her eyes were reddened and puffy from her tears.
Elizabeth noticed the blood on the girl’s shirt, staining a big part of the clothing. Her hands were quivering, her bottom lips, her fingers too. She kept on muttering and sobbing, uttering incoherent words. As the stroller whizzed past Elizabeth alongside the nurses and the girl, her eyes followed after them, her heart thudding in her chest at the ugliness of the woman in the bed.
Outside was frigid and cold, the evening had darkened and Elizabeth shuddered in her sweat shirt, her hands near shaking. When she settled into her car, about to insert in the key and get ready to drive home, the sudden sound of a device piercing through the air had jotted her, almost letting her heart fly out of her throat. “Fuck shit!” She palmed her chest before reaching out to grab her phone, carefully reclined back by her seat belt.
The bright light of the screen illuminated the confines of the car. Elizabeth’s lips pressed together in a mash when she saw the fifteen missed calls, and all was from Holly. She swiped up, unlocking her screen, to read through the texts that had been left for her. The last one was what grabbed her attention. Elizabeth, I’m coming over, had a terrible time with my boss, Gideon Cortez.
Before she could respond, the phone began the shrill ringing once again, another call from Holly. Elizabeth was swift to pick the call, she placed it to her ear and chewed on her lower lips, half expecting her friend to full on get mad at her for not picking up after so many texts and calls had been left for her.
“Elizabeth...?” Quite the contrary. Holly was sobbing. “Can you come home right now? Where are you?”
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Laura was seating on the waiting bench at the hospital when Cameron arrived, worry sketched over his face and his hair befuddled. He had rushed out of his parent’s house, drove downtown when he heard Laura’s incoherent crying voice over the phone. And now, there he was, within the all too familiar hospital walls where he had wandered most of his life because his mother worked there.
When Laura looked up and spotted him walking towards her, his pace fast, an over sized jacket draped over his shoulders, she leaped up from her seated position, her arms sprawled out, and leaped into his arm. Her chest tightened, a throbbing pain that wouldn’t just let go. Cameron smelled nice, homely, warm, as he always have his entire life. And she let herself relish in that warmth, soaking in his scent, fighting back her tears, trying to stay calm.
However, her fort broke down when Cameron placed a soothing kiss on her forehead and rubbed the small of her back like she was a baby being cared for. The sobs tore out, her body shuddering, her little shoulders quivering from the onslaught of tears that washed over her.
Cameron eyes ached with tears being held back. “I’m here, baby, you don’t have to be so scared anymore.”
Laura clutched at his jacket, her cries ugly, mixed with the urgency to yap what had happened to Cam. “I-I was so scared. He-he chased me, he-he was going to—” her voice broke. “Oh, my God. I was so scared. I thought I was going to get killed. I thought I was going to die. He was going to hurt me too.”
Cameron continued to soothingly rub the small of Laura’s back. He had a thousand question but then didn’t seem like the right time to ask her all. He led her back to sit on the waiting bench, anger eating him out from the inside, his head reeling. He and Jacob never got along, infact the man had restricted him from stepping into their house, three years back and ever since Cam had stopped doing so.
Laura was leaned against his shoulder, his arm draped around hers while he tapped gently against her to keep her calm. Soon, her eyes drifted close and she fell into a very light sleep that when the doctor pushed through the door, she jolted awake instantly.