Made To Leave You

October 30, 1987

Ceaseless rain soaked the streets of idyllic Clifton Park, New York as 17 year old Preston Carmichael III rounded a sharp curve onto the very familiar and immaculately maintained pavement of Wildwood Court. Heavy oak trees, their leaves just beginning to change from green to gold, lined the quiet upper class suburban street and, for a brief moment, partially shielded him from the heavy downpour that was near icy in the chill autumn air. Taking his seldom used Schwinn hadn't been preferable by a long shot but, with his Ferrari in the shop, he'd had little recourse. Not with the phone call he'd just received. Not when Sloane so desperately needed him.

It seemed like only yesterday that Sloane Tinsley-Carrington had walked into his life. It was the first day of eighth grade, the day after Preston's fourteenth birthday. He had just exited the upstairs boy's bathroom (having made sure his new feathered haircut was just James Spader-ish enough) when he saw her. It was one of those moments, the ones you only see in the worst of romantic comedies, one of those moments where time slows down, where orchestras swell, where your heart stops. Because there she was, not five feet in front of him, the girl of his dreams. To call her beautiful would have been an understatement. Gorgeous? A sin. No, this girl, this goddess, was absolute perfection. She was effortless sex appeal, she was lips and legs and lust. She was a femme fatale Lolita wrapped in sunshine, spritzed in Love's Baby Soft, and stretching her Lacoste polo to the limit. She was it. The one.

Her image, as she has been that very first day, filled his mind, his every thought, and hung there momentarily, shimmering, golden, immaculate before being caught away in the great swirl of pictures flickering across his brain, snapshots of memories of everything that had led up to this day, this night. Their first date, her nervous laughter, his sweaty palms, the perfectly imperfect kiss they'd shared outside her house, stolen quickly before her parents caught them. The homecoming dance, her red dress, his tux, the slow dance that set the mood for so much more. The bonfire at Ballston lake, the first time they'd made love, giving each other everything and more, the first time he'd whispered “I love you” as they were falling asleep beneath the stars. Steff's spring break party, the night they'd been too drunk to be careful. The phone call, a few weeks later, Sloane's voice almost unrecognizable through the tears. The doctor's visit, the positive confirmation, nine months till the beginning of the end. Their perfect lives shattered, obliterated.

It hadn't been an easy secret to keep, not in the least. But with families like theirs, families with so much clout, with so much prominence, it was a necessity. Things like this simply didn't happen in Clifton Park. Or if they did they were dealt with immediately and without question. It was funny, even now, to Preston that, given the circumstances, there was never even a moment, not one solitary second, in which he and Sloane envisioned a scenario in which they didn't keep the baby. It just wasn't an option as far as they were concerned. This child was a part of them, a living, feeling, incredibly miraculous part of them, and no force on heaven or earth was going to make them give that up, not for anything or anyone.

And so Preston started saving. He saved every penny. He sold his valuables, including some of his mother's extensive jewelry collection (who would miss a few diamonds amongst hundreds?). He worked two after school jobs, telling his father he wanted to “build some character” before heading off to Harvard. He even mastered the art of poker and took his two older (and even more wealthy) cousins for everything they were worth. Sloane did the same, saving each crisp hundred dollar bill of her quite sizable allowance, though, in the end, most of her money went towards doctor's visits, prenatal vitamins, and Benetton sweaters large enough to conceal her ever growing stomach.

The months ticked by, one after the other, in a painful succession of days spent living a lie that would sooner or later have to be brought to light. An eventuality neither of them were even remotely prepared for. Thankfully, as if maybe, just maybe, their incessant prayers had finally been answered, Sloane's parents decided on a whim to take a three month holiday to the South of France in celebration of her father's newest acquisition, a large and highly profitable oil company run out of Houston, Texas. The timing could not have been better as Sloane entered the latter half of her second trimester and really began to show, despite the oversize clothes and the strategically held backpacks and purses.

School soon became an impossibility as horrific morning sickness and ongoing pain and nausea plagued Sloane's every waking moment. Preston managed to find a qualified tutor to visit her at home so that she didn't fall behind in her coursework but he could tell that everything was starting to crumble. Despite his best efforts to keep up a brave face for Sloane's benefit, he was starting to feel the walls closing in little by little every day. Sure they had a little money, sure they were in love, sure they were going to get married as soon as they graduated and he was able to afford a decent place to live, but what did either of them know about raising a child? What were they going to do if their parents disinherited them? What were they going to do if he couldn't find a good job? What were they going to do if the money ran out? What were they going to do?

These were the things running through his mind as he lay in bed, wide awake at four in the morning, when the phone beside his bed, his private line, rang loudly, nearly giving him a heart attack.

“Hello?” he answered breathlessly, adrenaline coursing through his body. “Sloane? Is something wrong? Is everything okay?”

The voice that answered wasn't Sloane's, instead it was the rough Polish accent of her maid Irenka.

“I'm so sorry to call at this hour of the night,” she said, her voice choked with worry. “But I don't know what to do. Miss Sloane is in terrible pain, she's doubled over in her bed and clutching her stomach, I tried to call Dr. Rubinstein but he's not answering. I-”

She was cut off mid-sentence as someone grabbed the phone from her hand.

“Preston,” Sloane's agonized voice groaned. “Something's wrong. Something's wrong with...the... baby. I...need...to get to the...hospital...now. Hurry. Please. I...I love you.”

Preston's vivid imagination worked overtime as he pushed both his bike and his body to the limit, covering the dozen or so miles between his house and Sloane's in record time, each worst case scenario more terrifying than the last, each dark thought exacerbated by the sharp memory of her anguished voice, her pain palpable even over the shoddy phone connection. Sloane was the strongest person Preston knew. To hear her so scared was unbearable.

Soaked to the bone and shaking, he dismounted and threw his bike aside almost before the wheels stopped spinning. Something deep in his gut told him there wasn't a second to spare. Not one second.

“She won't wake up,” Irenka said, her brown eyes glistening with tears as she cradled Sloane in her arms. “I called for an ambulance...I didn't know what else to do. The blood...there's so much blood.”

Irenka's voice fell upon deaf ears as soon as Preston caught sight of Sloane. There she lay, her honey brown hair falling thick and tousled around her perfect face, her blue eyes closed as if she were merely asleep, safely tucked away, dreaming, in sound slumber. But no manner of restful sleep would have her breathing so labored, so erratic. He watched as her chest rose and fell in an uneasy pattern of shallow, shaky breaths and he could feel the color draining from his face when he saw the dark blood matting the short skirt of her cotton nightgown against her creamy thighs. This can't be happening, he thought, falling to his knees beside her. This can't be real.

An hour passed.

Two.

Three.

Ten.

“...losing too much blood...”

Eleven.

“...only at seven months...delivery inadvisable...”

Fifteen.

“...should contact the parents...taking a turn for the worse...”

Seventeen.

“...inducing labor...”

Preston stood, unmoving, his face pressed to the glass of the O.R. window as a countless procession of doctors and nurses swarmed around Sloane, snippets of their conversations passing in and out of his consciousness. Time seemed to be both lightening quick and infinitely slow. Each second, minute, hour brought him closer to something, something he knew he couldn't handle. Something he couldn't, or wouldn't, come back from.

“Son,” a gruff male voice addressed him after what seemed like an eternity without direct communication. “Your girlfriend isn't...she's not...we're not sure how easy this delivery is going to be. We'd prefer if you'd wait in the lobby. We'll inform you the second anything happens.”

“I'm not leaving her,” Preston said, his voice thick, strangled with all the emotion he couldn't face. “I won't.”

“Son, I don't think you understand,” the doctor said, obviously unsure of how to say what needed to be said, his bedside manner sorely lacking. “This isn't going to be pretty. We're not sure...we don't know if we can...salvage the situation. We don't know if we can save both your girlfriend and the babies. She's already lost far more blood than most people usually survive and we still can't seem to staunch the flow. A transfusion at this point isn't possible and obstetrical hemorrhaging is almost always fa-”

“Babies?” Preston asked abruptly, interrupting the doctor mid-sentence, his mind refusing to process anything else he'd just been told.

“Yes,” the doctor answered, not understanding Preston's confusion. “Surely you're aware she's carrying twins? That's a large factor in the complications she's experiencing.”

Twins.

The word resounded in Preston's mind as if it were devoid of anything else, the single syllable echoing, reverberating, growing in volume until it was the only thing he could hear. He knew Sloane had skipped her last few obstetrician’s appointments due to being so ill but surely they would have determined this ages ago....The doctor was wrong. Obviously. He had to be. And if he were wrong about this...then he was wrong about everything else and Sloane was going to be okay. That was the only explanation that made any sense. She was going to be fine. Sloane was going to be fine. More than fine. This was all a bad dream, just some horrid waking nightmare. It would all be over soon. It had to be.

But even as the smallest ray of hope illuminated the darkness that had been enveloping Preston's mind there came a commotion from inside the operating room.

“Doctor!” a nurse cried. “We're losing her! We're losing her!”

The next few minutes were the slowest of Preston's life, each second passing as a year, each minute a century. Terse commands flew across the operating table as machines hummed and blinked and beeped in the background, not nearly loud enough to drown out the gut-wrenching cries being ripped from Sloane's beautiful lips. Her screams reached a crescendo when, at exactly 11:59, the doctor delivered a tiny, deathly still infant.

The baby was whisked away almost immediately and Preston watched Sloane follow it desperately with her eyes before, with one last choked sob, she fainted dead away and the machine monitoring her heart flat-lined.

“Patient coding!” the doctor cried. “Defibrillator! Now! And...clear!”

Three failed attempts later and the monotony of the heart monitor was finally interrupted by the very weakest of beats.

“We've only got minutes, people,” the doctor said, his voice stoic, emotionless. “Let's make them count.”

12:08 came and was punctuated by a shrill cry as the second baby was delivered, this one clearly healthier than the first. Again a nurse removed the crying infant as the doctor turned his attention to Sloane who was lying still as death and covered in blood.

“Is that the father?” a voice from behind Preston asked in hushed tones.

Having seemingly gotten an answer in the affirmative, a nurse laid her hand gently upon his shoulder.

“Young man,” she said, her voice full of compassion. “I'm going to need you to come with me.”

“I can't,” he said, surprised to hear his voice so choked with emotion, having not realized till then that tears were pouring down his cheeks. “I can't leave her.”

“She's in the most capable hands in the country,” she assured him. “I promise you that. But right now you need to tend to your daughters, there's no use in you standing out here. I swear to you that we'll come get you the second you can go in and see her.”

Once Preston realized that any and all argument was futile he allowed himself to be escorted to the nursery, his every thought still with Sloane, his mind numb with the horror of everything that was happening.

“Right over here,” the nurse said, walking him to an incubator that held two impossibly tiny infants, barely bigger than Preston's own hand. “Say hello to your daughters, Daddy.”

For a moment everything ceased to exist except the miracle of life that lay right before his eyes.

“My daughters?” he asked, uncomprehendingly, tears of another sort flooding his eyes and blurring his vision.

The nurse nodded with a kind smile.

“We were a little worried about this one,” she said, gently handing him the first of the baby girls. “But she's a fighter.”

“And this one,” she said with a laugh, picking up the other baby. “She's going to be a heartbreaker. I can already tell. Look at that gorgeous head of hair.”

As Preston held his daughters in his arms, looking down at them in absolute wonderment, he felt his heart swell with more love than he ever thought was possible. If ever he'd wondered why he'd been put on this earth, surely this was it.

While he cradled them close, completely and utterly mesmerized, a solemn faced nurse entered the room and motioned for the woman beside him to follow her into the hallway.

A few moments later she returned, her kind green eyes filled with unshed tears.

Preston glanced up at her and knew at once, his blood running ice cold.

“No,” he said, his voice no more than a whisper. “No.”

“I'm so sorry,” she said, putting her hand on his arm. “They did everything they could but she...she just lost too much blood. I...I'm so, so sorry.”

“No,” he repeated, his voice getting louder. “No! You're wrong! You have to be wrong! She's fine! I know she is!”

“Son-” the nurse started, her heart breaking for him.

“No!” he yelled again, cutting her off. “Take me to her! Take me to her right now! I'll show you! I'll show you you're wrong!”

A wide-eyed nurse on the other side of the nursery quickly rushed over and took the still sleeping babies from his arms and gently placed them back in the incubator as Preston rushed from the room, his sneakers squeaking loudly on the hospital's polished floors.

Within seconds he reached the room where Sloane lay. She was still as stone, covered up to the neck in a clean white sheet, her eyes closed, her dark lashes heavy against pale cheeks.

“See,” he said, his voice teetering on the edge of hysteria. “See! I told you she was okay. She's only sleeping.”

The nurse said nothing, looking at him with unadulterated pity.

“I'll give you a few moments alone,” she said, squeezing his hand once more before silently leaving the room.

Preston took a few shaky breaths before walking over to the operating table.

“Sloane,” he said quietly. “Sloane, baby, it's time to wake up now. It's time to wake up and meet our daughters. They're so beautiful, baby. They look just like you.”

Sloane lay still and unmoving and Preston grasped her hand, running his thumb over the smooth skin affectionately.

“Come on, sleepyhead,” he said, his voice starting to break. “You have to wake up. Please.”

She remained unresponsive and Preston could feel the tears start sliding hot and fast down his cheeks.

“Baby, please,” he choked out. “Please. You've gotta wake up. Please. I can't do this without you, Sloane. I can't. Baby, please.”

Still no response.

Preston bent over her unmoving form, burying his face in her hair as the unbearable pain of his heart shattering into a million pieces overtook him and made it impossible to breathe.

“Please,” he whispered one last time before sobs racked his body, before he surrendered to the darkness.

“Please.”