Where's My Happily Ever After?

I hear voices all around me, but they sound so distance, like when you’re talking on the phone to a friend who lives on the other side of the world. I could almost smell despair and misery in the air. But it got quiet all of a sudden. Only one voice remained and she sounded so desperate, so feeble. It seemed like she was really on the verge of dying...

“Jade, I’m so sorry! I should have been there! I—I don’t know. If I had just... I love you, okay? I don’t know if you can hear me, but I love you so fucking much. I won’t be able to live with myself if you don’t make it! Why couldn’t you have just drunk blood? Then you’d be fine!”

I groaned involuntarily as I rolled over, which caused a tremendous amount of pain in my side. I shrieked in pain as my eyes shot open and my hand darted to my head, trying to soothe the pounding headache I had awoken with. After the pain in my ribcage subsided, I was able to focus on the room.

Oh, joy: another hospital room. The last time I’d been there hadn’t been so pleasant, but a lot had changed since then. For instance, Edwin was not in the room. Quinn, however, was.

“Jade!” she cried, lunging at me. Fortunately, she stopped herself and settled for hugging herself rather than crushing me.

“Quinn...” We hadn’t exactly left on a good note. “I’m so sorry.”

“You have no reason to be. I was being ridiculous. But we got a new house. Maybe when you’re better you can come over. You can bring Edwin and Monique.”

“Okay, we will,” I smiled despite the horrid discomfort I was in. But then I became suddenly aware of the pain I was missing: the pain in my stomach of my child biting my insides. “Edwin!” I screamed, going into a fit of hysterics. Quinn stood in shock as I started bawling. Edwin was beside me in a heartbeat, hovering over me and kissing me feverishly.

“Baby, are you okay?” he begged in between kisses.

“No! The baby!” I wailed, bawling my eyes out. He looked miserably down at me.

“I know, Jade. It’s not your fault,” he murmured, his eyes filled with torment.

“What do you mean?” I demanded, sobbing. “How’s my baby?”

“Jade... They don’t know if he’ll make it.”

Shock is a right funny thing. You’re body becomes numb and all emotion leaves you. Everything feels so surreal, like a dream. I only wished I would wake up.

“Eddie, no!” I begged, clutching him to me. He let me bawl into his chest as he climbed gingerly into the small bed with me. “Isn’t there anything we can do? Please! I don’t want to lose my baby!”

“I already discussed that with them,” he told me softly, sending Quinn a fleeting glance. She nodded and left the room, obeying his silent plea. “They said there is one way to save him, but it’s really risky and it doesn’t one-hundred percent ensure he’ll be okay.”

“What?” I begged, holding him tightly to him, growing more panicked with each second that my baby wasn’t stirring.

“You can have him now with a C-section. He’ll be premature, but he might make it. But there’s also the chance that you might die, as well as him...”

“Edwin, I want to do it.”

I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or agonized by my decision, but he nodded.

“They’ll have you in a few moments then.” He kissed me feverishly. “But if you don’t make it, I hope you know that I’m coming after you. Quinn and Nathan said they would take Monique if anything happened. It’s going to be okay.”

Even though he promised me otherwise, I wasn’t so positive that it would all go so well...