Nothing to Worry About

When I woke up the next morning, Oliver was asleep in the chair beside my bed. I was about to wake him when a doctor came into the room holding a clipboard. When he saw me awake, he smiled at me widely.

“Hello, Miss Niles! It’s very good to see you awake. I’m Doctor Singer,” he said, extending his hand to me. I shook it quickly and glanced at Oliver. He had sleepily opened his eyes and was now slowly rolling his neck.

“I just wanted to inform you that you’re going to make a full recovery. Amazingly, you sustained very few injuries, none of which were serious,” the doctor said brightly, and Oliver got up from his chair and took my hand in his and squeezed it tightly.

“What about my baby?” I asked automatically, and his expression dimmed quite a bit.

“Ah, the gorgeous little Lucy Mae… I’m afraid the news isn’t as good for her as it was for you. She is stable at the moment, but I won’t give you a false sense of security. She was born so prematurely that there is no way of knowing positively whether she will pull through or not. We’re all praying she does, of course, but I can’t make any promises,” he said, and Oliver gave my hand another tight squeeze.

“Can we see her?” Oliver asked, and I nodded.

“Of course you can, she’s still in the nursery down the hall,” the doctor said, smiling one last time. With a small wave he exited the room silently.

Wordlessly, I got up out of the bed and began out the door. Just as I was about to walk into the hall, Oliver grabbed my hand. I spun around to face him. “I jus’ wan’ yeh to know…” he trailed off like he didn’t quite know how to put what he wanted to say into words.

“I jus’ wan’ yeh to know that I love yeh,” he said a few moments later, and I could tell from his tone that that hadn’t been what he’d originally wanted to say, but I decided not to push it.

“I love you too, Oli. Always,” I replied, wrapping my arms around him and kissing his lips lightly.



Two days later I was released from the hospital. That didn’t mean I spent any less time there, though. Oliver and I both spent almost every waking moment with our little girl. Family and friends came and went, after a while, all their faces blurred together and I didn’t really pay attention to them anymore. All I wanted was for my little girl to be out of that box where she was all alone. I wanted to hold her and hug her and kiss her, but I couldn’t.



After seven days, Doctor Singer confronted Oliver and I again. “I wish I had better news. I really, really do. But the truth is that she’s not looking very good. See, she’s not improving in any way. Not even slightly, and that’s obviously a concern. She’s not becoming stronger in any way, and by now she should be. I still can’t give you a positive answer of whether she’ll pull through or not, and don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely a chance that she will, but it’s not looking too good,” he said, and neither of us really gave much of a reply.



After fourteen days, she was still barely showing improvement. Both Oliver and I were completely on edge, and it was causing us to fight.

We were in our bedroom one morning before going to the hospital and he was sitting on his side of the bed tapping his fingers on his nightstand, and it was driving me completely insane. I asked him to stop once and he completely ignored me, so I lost it.

“Will you fucking knock it off?!” I screamed at him, and I felt all of my emotions over the events of the past few weeks rising to the surface and threatening to break free. With a glance at Oliver, I could tell that the same exact thing was currently happening to him.

“Will you stop bein’ such a fuckin’ bitch all the time?!” he screamed back, and it felt as though he’d physically slapped me, even though he hadn’t made any move toward me at all.

“Yeah, I’m the bitch in this situation. Sure, Oliver. I’m not the one that’s been doing anything they possibly can to get on the other one’s fucking nerves,” I said angrily, standing up and going to stand in front of him.

“Well excuse me for bein’ a bit stressed,” he said in a lethally quiet voice, standing up and stepping extremely close to me. So close, that I had to tilt my head upward to look him in the face.

“I’m fucking stressed too, Oliver, and lately it seems like you’re less and less concerned about us being together and comforting each other and more and more concerned with going out to the bar with your mates every other night and pretending that you can drink your problems away. Vodka isn’t going to make this go away, Oliver. You need to fucking face it. You got me pregnant, I got in a car wreck, and now our baby has about a ninety percent chance of death. This isn’t going to go away,” I said, and by the time I was done talking, there were tears rolling down Oliver’s face.

“I’m sorry I’ve failed yeh so badly. I never wanted any of this to happen. Yeh don’t deserve this,” he whispered before promptly turning around and walking out of the room. I heard him going down the stairs and slamming the front door. I moved to the window just in time to see him quickly backing out of the driveway and disappearing down the road.

As soon as he was out of sight, I collapsed on the floor, my body shaking with sobs.