“I love you, Delilah.”
I couldn’t believe it. Preston was having a dream about me. Did he mean those words? Was that something he said to me in his dreams often? I leaned back into the headboard of the bed, turning the moment around in my thoughts. Was I making something out of nothing? It was possible I was dreaming myself. That I could wake up and this could all be some dream-within-a-dream thing. But my heart leapt with joy as the phrase fell from his lips again.
Unmistakable and clear as day.
This was what I wanted, but I couldn’t trust a man in a dream state. Could I? Dreams were just a manifestation of the subconscious, right? And those were usually things people wanted, no matter how weird. I mean, loving me wasn’t weird. I didn’t think so. But that was what I wanted.
I wanted Preston to love me the way I loved him.
I needed answers. As I hunkered back down into bed and tried to close my eyes, I knew I would have to ask him about it. These babies would be here in a few days and I needed to know how to proceed. I needed to know if I had a future with him or if he was set on simply being a co-parent.
My eyes watered at the idea of not having him, but it was no longer in my control. This entire scenario was because I had tried to keep him at arm’s length, so I had no right to complain when my plan failed with me but worked with him.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, dreaming of a new day. A day when I could hold my children in my arms, feed them from my breast, and see Preston standing at the door grinning at the sight. I dreamt of lying in his arms, rolling around with him in bed as our bodies writhed together. I dreamed of the life we could live. The vacations we could take and the home we could build.
I dreamt of him telling me he loved me every night as we fell asleep, his lips never leaving my body and hands always digging into his strength.
Twenty-Five
Preston
“You said this was just a routine checkup,” Delilah said.
“It was. But they’ve found some issues with your placenta that are worrying them. That’s why they’ve admitted you,” I said.
“‘Routine’ means that things are supposed to be normal.”
“No. ‘Routine’ means it’s a regular occurrence. And it’s because of these reasons why they are regular,” I said.
I brought Delilah back into the hospital for her routine checkup and her steroid shot, and they ended up admitting her. There was a shadow in her uterus they couldn’t explain on the ultrasound, so they admitted her to run more tests. I knew Delilah was freaking out, but she was encasing it in anger. She was huge, she was retaining fluid, and her heart rate was higher than it needed to be.
“Should I call your parents?” I asked.
“I don’t care what you do. I don’t know if they’re fighting or if they’re okay. So whatever happens when they get here is on you,” she said.
I got on the phone with them and told them what was going on. I booked them a hotel room and sent them the receipt for their airline tickets. I wanted them on standby in case something happened with Delilah. In case these kids came early than expected.
And I was glad I did.
As I was getting Delilah and I dinner that night from her favorite restaurant across town, I got a call from the doctor. Delilah had been rushed into an emergency c-section, and she was crying for me. I dropped the food I was carrying and raced for my car, calling Delilah’s parents who had just landed. I told them to get to the hospital as quickly as they could as I raced across town, then tossed my phone in the backseat of my car.
I raced to the O.R. and scrubbed in for the surgery. Delilah was refusing to have it done, even though the doctors were insistent. I got down by her head and kissed her cheeks, coaxing her to a point of relaxation as monitors beeped around us. Her heart rate was soaring and her skin was hot. I kept her attention on me as the doctor’s cut into her, trying to free our children from a body that had been put under so much pressure.
I kissed Delilah’s tears away, and in that moment I wanted to tell her how I felt.
I wanted to tell her that I had fallen in love with her. That somehow, between the foot rubs and sleeping apart and fighting over how to make all of this work, I had given myself over to her. I wanted to tell her that she had eroded my walls beyond recognition and planted herself into a place I kept heavily guarded for a reason.
But as I dipped my lips to her ear to tell her, monitors started beeping.
“Her heart rate’s plummeting. Get those babies out of there.”
“We need two pints of blood. O negative, as fast as you can get it.”
“We’ve got two babies. I’m still pulling one out. Give me a second!”
“Sir, we need you out of the room. We need you to leave.”
I felt someone’s hand come down on my shoulder as I watched Delilah seize on the operating table. I was screaming for her, trying to push the doctors off my body. Delilah needed me. She needed my comfort and my strength. She was dying, bleeding out on a table giving birth to my children and they were trying to take me away from her.