Fighting for Us - Bella Emy Page 0,1

for as long as I can remember. And then, after just six months of trying, BAM! Two pink lines on a pregnancy test confirmed we were expecting our first bundle of joy. Little did we know Gianna would be our only child together.

Sylvia was the happiest preggo around. Her pregnancy went well, although it wasn’t a piece of cake. With complicated medical history on her side, we had a few scares, but bed rest and multiple doctor visits had helped get her through.

Anyway, fast forward to August sixteenth of this past year, and out came little Gianna Michelle Trevano. She was a healthy six-pound–five-ounce baby girl with her mother’s piercing blue eyes and cute button nose and my smile. I’d seen Sylvia in the happiest of times, but none of those moments compared to the radiating smile on her face the moment they placed Gianna into her arms. The picture we had taken of her at that moment is the wallpaper on my phone.

When October rolled along, Sylvia started complaining of headaches. She’d lie down for a few hours while I took care of Gianna. Well, sooner rather than later, hours turned to days and days turned to weeks, and that was when I brought her in to see a doctor. Her headaches were getting longer and occurring more frequently. Something was up; I just knew it.

I had no idea it would be this.

And now, in the middle of December, my beautiful Sylvia is barely hanging on. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. She used to wake up for minutes at a time, but when she did, she would scream and cry out in pain. She’s lost a vast amount of weight in such a short amount of time. Her once full golden locks are now limp strands of a washed out, faded yellow. Her voice hoarse, her cheeks barren… She’s dying, and I’m dying alongside her.

What kind of life is this without her? She was supposed to be my forever, my one true love, and now? Now she’s being ripped away from me, and I can’t take it.

To see her suffering like this breaks my heart. And to think, I have a baby girl at home who needs her. Gia needs her mother. I can’t raise my daughter on my own. I’m scared, and I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I’m thankful for my parents and siblings who are with Gianna while I’ve been here alone, wondering again if today is the day I have to say good-bye to my wife forever.

I snap my head up and look at the ceiling. As I shake my head, the rage inside me feels as though it wants to rip through these damn four walls. I’m tired of being here, tired of having to stay in this room, waiting for the worst. I want to take Sylvia home so we can be with our baby girl, so we can be a family again. I want her to be better, and I want our life back.

But it’s not coming back. Not after what the doctors are telling us. She’s hanging on by a thread, and it’s only a matter of time before she’s taken from me. We’re never going back to the way things should be, and she’s never coming back to me. She’s never going to open her eyes and look at me with her warm, caring smile ever again.

A tear falls from my eye as realization kicks in. I’m not ready to let her go. I don’t want to.

I’m twenty-eight years old. How can it be possible that I’m about to lose her? We had our whole lives planned. We were supposed to grow old together. This… This fucking nightmare was never in the plans we had set out for one another.

More tears cascade down my cheeks. This is a damn horror movie, not my life. I hang my head and grab it on both sides.

“You hanging in there, sugar?”

I snap my head up, wiping my cheek, at the sound of one of the night nurses coming into the room. Cynthia, a sixty-five-year-old widow and mother of three, is our regular nurse on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Originally from the South, she moved up to New Jersey when her husband passed a few years ago.

“Hi, Cynthia,” I respond, running a hand through my thick, dark hair. “How’s she doing?”

Cynthia checks my wife’s pulse, then takes her temperature. She frowns. “No change. You