was always his name.”
“Tell me everything that you can about him.”
“Only if you promise to have dinner with me.”
“No, I'm serious. I have to know the truth.”
“Well, then you won't mind having dinner with me in return.”
I think about that for a minute.
“What do you know?”
“I'll tell you everything that I know tonight at seven. I'll pick you up at your place.”
I want to protest and tell him no, but this is an important part of the story. He's the only person who I know for sure knows Liam. Maybe there's some hidden information that he's holding that he doesn't even know about.
“What do you say?”
“I'll have dinner with you for one hour and that's it.”
“Perfect,” Alex says and I can almost see him grinning on the other end.
25
Emma
When I get home, I drop my bag on the floor and melt into the couch. I want to immediately get to work on finding out the truth about Liam, but I can't physically make myself move.
The ups and downs of the last two days have thrown me for a tailspin. The odd thing is that I hadn't even realized the extent of my exhaustion until right this moment.
My eyes feel heavy and impossible to lift. My lids close all on their own and despite how much I fight it, I start to drift off and fall asleep.
Sometime later, I wake up and realize that I have slept for hours. When I pick up my phone, I have close to fifty notifications.
Who is messaging me so much? I wonder out loud, expecting to see memes and funny comments from the big group text that my whole family is in together.
Unfortunately, that's not the case.
I have a number of missed calls along with voice mails and at least five messages each from my mother and Brooke.
“Lindsey's in the hospital,” Mom writes. “Not sure what's wrong. Get here as soon as possible.”
“She might be having a miscarriage,” Brooke writes. “We are at Cedars-Sinai, going through the emergency entrance.”
“Where are you? Why aren't you answering our calls? You have to get here as soon as possible.”
Still in a daze from the drive and the impromptu nap, I grab my bag and rush to the hospital. It's at least a half an hour drive from here and the traffic has only gotten worse.
I call Brooke on the way and she updates me on the situation.
“They don't know much yet. She had a lot of blood, but they're not sure if she's having a full-on miscarriage. We are here in the waiting room… Waiting.”
My heart doesn't stop pounding until I see my family sitting in the waiting room. My mom immediately walks up to me and takes me in her arms.
“What's going on? What do you know? What are they saying?” I keep asking, but she just keeps shaking her head and refuses to say a word.
“We don't know anything yet,” Brooke says, putting her arm around my shoulder.
My dad is sitting at the far edge of the waiting room with his head in his computer.
He gives me a brief nod hello but continues typing away.
If I were anyone else, then I would think that he didn't really care.
The problem is that I know him and I know that this is what he does when things get very stressful.
“Where's…” I start to ask about Lindsey's husband, but Brooke interrupts me and says, “He's with her.”
“How far along is she?” I know that it's six months, but for some reason I want to know the precise number of weeks, as if that's going to mean anything.
After we talk a little bit about all the things that we don't know and all the control that we don't have over the situation, I feel a tinge of jealousy toward my dad.
I want to open my own laptop and bury myself in my own work just to think about something that isn't this painful.
Frankly, I've had plenty of pain over the last week and I think I'm due for a break.
“That's so selfish,” I say to myself. “This is something that Lindsey's going through and all you can think about is yourself.”
The truth is that I'm kind of looking forward to being an aunt and having a nephew or niece.
I don't have much experience with kids and I’ve never really given it much thought on having my own, but I've been looking forward to playing with this little one.
“I'm sorry, Mitch, they don't have any French vanilla coffee.” Alex comes out