Page 48 of Savage Love

But I did that, and so much more. And now it all feels like it happened to someone else.

Levin is out of the car in an instant when we pull up to the front of the emergency room, opening my door before the driver can get out and lifting me out of the car. “I can walk,” I protest this time, but he shakes his head.

“Absolutely fucking not,” he tells me sharply, holding me to his chest as he strides towards the revolving front door.

The next several minutes happen in a blur. Levin carries me straight up to the receptionist, who tells him that there’s a wait, and I hear him telling her,like fuck there’s a wait, my wife is bleeding, our baby—and then I don’t hear anything when another wave of pain grips me, and the world turns white around me for a second.

I think I do go unconscious for at least a short time. When I wake up, I’m in a hospital bed, Levin standing next to it, talking to a nurse. I think I hear him tell her the name of the doctor I’ve been seeing, but the room feels as if it’s swimming around me, and I let out a low moan of pain. I feel sore and tender, and bruised, and I want to go home.

“Soon,” Levin says, turning towards me, and I realize that I must have said the last part out loud. “She’s calling your doctor now. Once we know what’s going on, we’ll go home. I promise.”

He stays there with me as the nurse checks my vitals, his hand wrapped around mine, giving me something to hang onto. He answers the questions that I feel too out of it to manage, and I turn my head to look at him briefly, thinking to myself the words I can’t say out loud—how could you ever think that you’re not a good husband? That you don’t deserve everything?

“The bleeding has stopped,” the nurse tells us, as she gives me a quick examination while we wait for the doctor. “That’s a good sign. I’ll start you on an IV, and then we’ll wait for her to get here.”

I’ve known what it feels like to be exhausted down to my bones before, but this is a different type. It feels like I’m floating, and I cling to Levin’s hand as tightly as I can, because a small part of me feels like I might float away.

Isabella comes bursting in shortly after, looking shocked and pale, her gaze immediately landing on Levin as soon as she sees me. “What happened?” she demands, and I shake my head, lifting my other hand to try to get her attention.

“I fell asleep and woke up bleeding,” I tell her numbly. “Nothing really ‘happened’—”

“We don’t know what caused it yet,” Levin says calmly. “We’re waiting on the doctor.”

Isabella strides around the bed, her cool hand pressing to my forehead as she brushes my hair back, peering down at me. “It’s going to be okay,” she tells me calmly, her thumb stroking along my hairline. “This kind of thing happens. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

I can feel the tension in Levin, and I sense, vaguely, that he’s not overly thrilled with my sister. That he wants to be the one comforting me right now, even if he’s not entirely sure how to go about doing that beyond handling the situation and holding my hand, and I wish I could find the words to tell him that heiscomforting me, that what he’s doing is helping. That having them both here, the two people I love most in the world, is keeping me from spiraling into utter and uncontrollable panic.

But my mind feels too foggy to make the words connect, and I close my eyes, wishing to be anywhere else. Wishing for this all to be a bad dream.

When the doctor does arrive, she says the same thing Isabella did, comforting words about how this happens, how it doesn’t necessarily mean the worst-case scenario. She does a thorough examination while Levin holds my hand and Isabella asks pointed questions, and when she’s finished, she asks me a few more questions about how my day had gone and what I did.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I tell the doctor weakly. “I spent most of the day with Isabella; we picked out some things for the house—I cleaned a little bit? I went for a walk on the path behind our house. Nothing that I would think would cause—”

“I’m not saying it’s your fault,” she says gently. “Just trying to pinpoint if there’s something that we should avoid in the future. But it sounds like this wasn’t triggered by anything. It’s your first pregnancy; you’re young—this isn’t unusual. But it is early, and I want to take precautions. So I want you on bed rest for a little while. Not full bed rest, you can get up and walk around, go up and down stairs, but try not to do too much. Nothing overly strenuous. Don’t pick anything up, no sexual intercourse—” she glances at Levin, and I feel a slight sinking feeling in my stomach.Well, that gives him an excuse not to touch me.It’s not a fair thought, exactly, but it is there.

“For how long?” I ask weakly, and she smiles sympathetically at me.

“We’ll reevaluate at your next doctor’s appointment. If all is well and I don’t see any signs that anything is abnormal, and there’s no further bleeding, then we’ll take you off bed rest and see how things go. How does that sound?”

“Does that mean the baby is okay?” I ask, still feeling as if I have to reach down and rummage for every word. “Are they—”

“Your baby appears to be fine right now,” she tells me reassuringly. “I can’t see anything that suggests that you’re in a crisis. It was an alarming amount of blood, I understand, but I don’t think there’s a need for panic. Just a need for caution. You can go home if you like, or you can stay here overnight—”

“Overnight might be best, so they can watch you—” Isabella starts to say, but I shake my head.

“I want to go home,” I say firmly, looking between the doctor and Levin.

“You could come back to the house with me, so I can help.” Isabella bites her lip. “Or I can come with you—”

“I really appreciate it.” I fumble for her hand, looking at her and hoping she’ll understand. “But I just want to be in my own bed, with Levin.”

“I’ll call you if we need anything. I promise,” Levin tells her.

Isabella’s lips thin slightly, but she nods. I see a glimmer of our mother’s stubbornness in her, but she relents, undoubtedly thinking of the conversation we had in the kitchen after the first doctor’s appointment.

It’s early in the morning by the time we get home. Levin insists that we go to the guest room on the first floor, since our own bed is still bloody, and he doesn’t want me walking up the stairs. “I know the doctor said stairs were manageable,” he tells me as he helps me into the room, his hand solidly on the small of my back. “But I think it’s better not to risk it.”

I want to be in our room, but I’m too exhausted to wait for the bed to be fixed, and I know Levin is trying to help. So I give in, silently thanking my past self for having put in the effort to furnish and somewhat decorate the guest room despite the fact that we don’t expect to have anyone staying in it anytime soon.

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