Best Friend's Sister - Alexis Winter Page 0,81
being this early that there’s a chance they will have to be incubated, right?”
She nods. “I know. Just get them out and make sure they’re safe, please,” she cries, big tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I’ll do my best,” he promises.
Time seems to go so fast but stand so still all at the same time. I don’t know how it’s possible, but before I know it, there’s a baby’s cry filling the room.
“Baby number one: boy,” the doctor announces, handing the baby off. “Okay, Deven. Come on. Two more. You can do this,” he cheers her on.
Deven’s face is covered in sweat, her dark hair lining to her cheeks as she bears down to push again. She screams and yells and cusses me out all while breaking my hand, but after only a few minutes, another cry fills the room.
“Baby number two: boy,” the doctor says. “One more time, Deven. You can do this.”
She lays back, shaking her head. “I can’t. I can’t do it again. I’m so tired. Hudson, please. I can’t.” She’s completely exhausted, barely even able to hold her eyes open.
I place my hands on either side of her face and force her eyes to mine. “Look at me, Deven. You’re the strong fucking woman I know. You can do this, baby. You have to. You hear me? Reach deep down inside of you and find the strength you need. I’ll be right here, baby. If I could do it for you, I would. But only you can do this. Come on, give our boys a sister to protect. Give me a daughter.” I kiss her lips and she nods.
“Alright, let’s go,” the doctor says.
The room is only growing more and more loud with the boys already crying and Deven screaming out in pain. The doctor is cheering her on.
Deven pushes for ten minutes before finally, the doctor says, “Deven, come on. One more big push. I can see the head. Ready? One, two, three.”
Deven bears down and squeezes my hand as she cries and yells, but then I hear the most beautiful sound in the world. The sound of my daughter crying.
“Baby number three: girl!” The doctor passes her off and gets to work on getting Deven cleaned up.
She falls back flat on the bed and her eyes close. I run my hand over her hair and kiss her forehead. “Sleep, baby. You’re done,” I whisper.
I cut my daughter’s umbilical cord and follow the nurses around the room as they weigh and measure each of the babies. I get a nice long look at each one before moving onto the next. I’m so lost in the beauty of the babies that I don’t even notice when something goes wrong.
“We’re losing her. She’s bleeding out,” I hear someone say, and I spin around to see what the fuck they’re talking about.
“What’s going on?” I ask, rushing back over to her. She looks dead already. Her skin is pale, and she has dark circles under her eyes. She seems so small and weak lying there with her eyes closed. Her once dark, tanned skin almost seems gray. Her lips are turning blue.
“Cardiac arrest. Get the paddles,” someone else yells.
“What’s going on?” I demand yet again, getting in their way.
“Get him out of here,” the doctor yells, and a nurse pushes me backward out the door. I move around to the glass windows, but the blinds are quickly shut. I collapse, sliding down the wall and into a heap in the floor, wondering what happened, what went wrong, or if she’ll be okay.
16
Deven
My eyelids feel so heavy, I can’t even keep them open long enough to see my babies. I’m tired and dizzy, and I can’t fight against this tug that keeps trying to take over. I’ve fought too long now. I fought to bring each baby into the world. I have nothing left in me to fight for myself. Darkness pulls at me, then swallows me up altogether.
I wake sometime later, feeling sore, tired, and groggy. It’s like when you wake up in the middle of the night after you’d spent the evening drinking entirely way too much. You know you’ll just be pulled under again, but that doesn’t stop you from waking in the first place. I feel something move beside me, and I look to find Hudson’s head on my bed. He’s dead asleep. I lift my hand, even though it feels twice as heavy as normal, and run it through his hair. His head pops up,