Page 63 of Baby By my Best Friend's Daddy

“Snap out of it, nurse!” the doctor shouted. “We need all hands on deck.”

I nodded and pushed the thoughts of my sister away.

Instead, I focused on the now. I looked down at the woman. Her face was a bloodied mess, and her collarbone sat at a wrong angle, her shoulder sloping. Her body was twisted on the gurney, head strapped down, but she couldn’t lie flat; she had too many broken bones.

I rushed to her head.

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” I asked. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Amelia,” she said. “Where’s my daughter? Where’s Zoey?”

“She’s right here,” the paramedic said and lifted a little girl out of the truck. She had to be around four or five, and her cheeks were stained with tears.

“Mommy?” she cried out.

“I’m here, baby. It’s going to be—ahh!”

“We have to get her into an OR,” the doctor said, and they wheeled Amelia away.

“Mommy!” Zoey cried.

“Can someone take her?” the doctor asked when Zoey tried to run after her mom.

“I’ve got her,” I said. It was easier for me to deal with the child than the operation, the chance that this woman wouldn’t make it. I couldn’t shake the thoughts of my sister. I struggled all over again that I hadn’t been there for her, I hadn’t gone to fetch her. I hadn’t been there in her final hours to hold her hand and tell her it was going to be okay, that I would be there no matter what.

“Where are they taking her?” Zoey asked. I kneeled, focusing on the child.

“They’re going to make sure she’s okay,” I said. “She got hurt real bad, and the doctors are going to do everything they can.”

“Is she going to die?”

I couldn’t answer that. I didn’t know for a fact.

“Where’s your dad?” I asked, not answering her question.

“I don’t have a dad,” she said, and her lip trembled.

My heart sank. She only had her mom.

Shit, if she lost her…

“I have an idea. Let’s get something to drink from the cafeteria while we wait.”

Zoey nodded, and I took her hand. I led her through the hospital to the cafeteria and ordered sodas for both of us. Some sugar in her system would be good for the shock.

While we sat at the table, I talked to Zoey, trying to get her to tell me something about herself. I asked her about her school—she was five and in Pre-K. I asked her about her family—it was only her and her mom, and they’d moved from Ohio a while ago. I asked her about her birthday—September 6—and about her favorite color—purple.

Zoey told me about her life, chatting happily now that she was distracted from the gruesome accident, and while she chattered on, I saw a glimpse of my life in the future. Just me and my baby, facing the world. No father in the picture, no one who could be there for me.

I hadn’t talked to Landon since that day he was on my doorstep. I might have tried to fix things with him if I hadn’t found out I was pregnant, but now that I knew I was going to have a baby, I couldn’t talk to him. I couldn’t go back to the life we wanted to share, to the relationship we’d had and the love we’d declared for each other.

Landon was in the prime of his life. He’d built a company from scratch; he was successful, close to retirement, and able to do whatever he wanted. He didn’t need to start over now. I doubted he would want to go back to waking up at night with a colicky baby, doing diaper runs, school plays, graduation… he was past all that, and I didn’t want to tie him down.

Landon would do the right thing and be involved, but I didn’t want to do that to him.

The alternative was to do all this alone. I had to—my parents didn’t know about Landon, and if they learned I was pregnant, they would lose their shit all over again. It was just the icing on the cake of disappointment. The only daughter they had left had not only missed out on the dream job of being a doctor, but I was now pregnant with no boyfriend or husband in the picture.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to go down well.

---