Page 479 of Now and Forever

I still. Damn, I slept for hours! Fuck!

Drake’s throat bobs a few times before his hoarse voice gives me infinite dread. I start to shiver. “Just in case I don’t survive—” he starts, but I cover his dry lips with my fingers, hushing him.

“No. Don’t think like that. You will survive this. You’re a fighter. Don’t give up on me . . . or the baby. Please,” I beg. I watch as his face contorts with pain.

“I will try, Lil. You know I will, but this is beyond my control.” He reaches for my hand and lightly tugs me closer to place my head on his chest. When he speaks again, he’s choked up with tears, too. “I don’t want to die. I want to see you swell with my baby. I want to see my child being born into this world. I want to share that joy with you. I wish that more than anything. You must believe me.” His voice shakes and it takes him another minute to speak again while I listen to his erratic heartbeat.

“If things turn for the worst, I’m hoping you will name our child with my last name? I want him or her to have something of me.”

My body racks with sobs. The thought of Drake thinking about this breaks my heart. It simply fucking breaks me into pieces.

“When the time comes, I want you to move on. I want my child to have a good loving home and a good father figure for him or her. Will you . . . promise me that, Lil?”

How can I promise him something so repulsive? I don’t want anyone else. I want him.

Drake.

No one else.

I lift my face off his chest and look at the man whose fighting spirit is non-existent. “No. I won’t promise you that. I will never fucking promise you that, Drake Tatum. There will be no other man, except you, do you hear me? So, get your ass in gear because you will survive this. You can and you will do this because if you don’t, I will fucking die without you. Do you hear me? Yeah, I will die from heartache. So, please, don’t do that to me.” My chest aches and contracts when I speak those words to him. I mean each and every one of them.

That definitely shut his ‘move on after I die’ speech. He even manages to laugh, though it sounds like it is a lot of struggle to do so. At least he’s smiling again. “Damn, you are right, woman. I forgot how stubborn you are.” His eyes trace my face, studying me with great intensity. “I’ve always loved you. I think I fell in love with you after we did that fake marriage in the gazebo. I’m sorry I fought against it. I was stupid and young.”

“I knew you set me up for a good reason.” I laugh. Our laughter is short lived when the nurses come and inform us that it’s time for Drake to go to the OR.

We hold hands as they slowly wheel him out of the room. Once we get to the OR, the nurse informs us that this is the furthest that I can go. My heart dreads and aches as I watch Drake say his goodbyes to his parents. My mom hugs him fiercely before leaving me to talk to Drake.

I give him a chaste kiss on the lips. “I will see you very soon. Think of me and our future together while you’re dreaming, okay? I love you, Drake.”

That seems to put him in good spirits. Good. We need all the help we can get to make him fight inside the operating room. “I will see you very soon. I love you, Babe.”

I give him another kiss before the nurse takes him away from me. I stare at the door and pray to God that he will bring Drake back to me.

There’s nothing I can do, but hope for the best.

---