The Only Exception

Time is totally fucked. Every second feels like it has been longer than the last. Every minute feels like an hour. The clock doesn’t seem to be moving. People are moving in slow motion. Their bodies are blurry in my eyes yet they are moving so slowly a snail could beat them in a race.

I blink my eyes, hoping to remove it all from my sight but it doesn’t. Things continue to go slowly and my palms are beginning to sweat. I’m shaking and my legs feel like lead as they carry me to a chair where I place myself and wait patiently.

I’m not allowed in there with Harper and Carley so they placed me out here in the waiting room. I can’t even hear them. I really want to. I want to know that Carley is all right. Sure…at first I was jealous of her, worried and scared that she might take Harper away.

But now that I’ve gotten to know her I know she isn’t a bad girl. She can be a bitch and a little crazy but she’s becoming more and more like a sister to me every passing day. I want her to be ok. I want the kids to be ok, for her and Harper’s sake.

I can only imagine how Harper is feeling. He’s in there now, probably holding her hand and telling her everything is going to be all right. He’s going to be a father and he must be incredibly proud, worried, frightened, excited and so many other emotions.

I wish I could be in there to tell Harper everything will be ok because I’m sure he is just as shaky as Carley.

Sitting out here is like torture. I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t hear the babies cries from here so I have no idea if they made it through the delivery or not. I’m sure they will. Carley said that they’ve been healthy this whole time and she’s been taking extra good care of herself lately.

Still, one can’t help but worry.

The kids aren’t even mine and I’m scared.

As I’m taking in deep breaths a man and woman walk into the room. My eyes don’t fall on him until I hear him ask the receptionist, “My son and his girlfriend arrived here earlier. Simon Harper and Carley Haines.”

“Oh yes, I’m sorry but you can’t go in right now. Please take a seat and get yourself comfortable though,” the receptionist says and as she does I look up to catch the eye of the man.

His eyes are nothing like Harper’s. His are a light brown but his hair is just as dark as his son's. Their facial structures are very similar and both are extremely tall. The woman at his side has graying brown hair with Harper’s eyes. She’s fairly small but she seemed to have this brightness to her that made her shine through.

I stand to my feet and take a chance. “Um…Mr. Harper?”

Harper’s father turns to face me. Wrinkling his brow he asks in a professional tone that makes me feel small, “Do I know you?”

“Uh…I’m your son's neighbor,” I manage to mumble out, nervously tugging at my long sleeves. “I’m Roy.”

The woman smiles and comes towards me. Her thin arms wrap around me and I stiffen until she giggles into my hair, “My son told me about you. My name is Karen it’s a pleasure to finally meet you and this here is my husband Simon.”

I look towards Simon and finally realize why Harper prefers to be called Harper. He always told me he and his father aren’t the closest. I guess that’s why he prefers not to be called by his father's name. I throw on a nervous smile and take the large hand offered to me.

Shaking it, I sigh, “It’s nice to have someone else to wait with…I’m nervous just sitting around. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you two.”

Karen takes a seat beside where I was sitting. Nervously, I take a seat beside her and Simon sits on the other side of Karen. He wraps an arm around his wife’s shoulder as she whispers, “It’s nerve wrecking. I hope they’re all ok.”

I nod in agreement and just like that, we fall into silence. Once again everything seems to be going unbelievably slow. I try my best not to look at the clock until I feel its been a while but every time I check it feels as if the minute hand has gone back. I could have sworn its been five minutes when in reality time hasn’t even changed.

My heart is throbbing. My lungs are constricting. My entire body is shaking and I can’t keep myself from moving and squirming in my seat. Karen and Simon are no better.

Simon is pacing back and forth. He sits down and gets right back up to pace once again. Karen is picking at a napkin, ripping it into as many pieces as she can before getting up to throw it away and grab another one. We’re all panicking and it seems like for-fucking-ever before finally a doctor comes out.

He calls out to the family but I still get up to walk over to him. Simon and Karen are standing close, hands closed around the other and we’re all waiting for him to smile and tell us to go in and see them.

That’s not what he does.

My face falls as he says the one thing that I really didn’t want him to say.

“I’m so sorry but…they were stillbirths. We couldn’t save them.”

And time seemed to slow down again. Everything just stopped and started to crack and crumble down to the floor. Karen began to cry and her sobs just seemed to grow louder and louder while everything else around us got softer until it didn’t exist anymore.

My chest is starting to hurt and my legs are giving out because I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it. I want to open my eyes and realize that this was a dream, an incredibly bad dream. But when we are escorted to the room and I see Carley bawling her eyes out in Harper’s arms and I see the blank expression on his face I know it’s real.

It’s all real and it really happened and I can’t even imagine what he’s feeling. I can’t imagine the pain that he’s going through, knowing that his children were born dead and there was nothing he could do to save them.

I’m not sure what to do so I stand back and watch. I watch as he rocks Carley back and forth, trying to hush her but I can hear it in his voice. I hear the pain and I know that he wants someone to comfort him too. I know that he wants someone to hold him and tell him he’ll be ok and if his parents weren’t around I would do that.

But for now I just watch and wait for this all to end.