Truly Madly Deeply

”Who let the dogs out?! Who, who, who, who?
Who let the dogs out?! Who, who, who, who?”

I groaned, my sleep-clumsy hand smacking at my bed and then my nightstand trying to find the infernal contraption. Once I succeeded, my balled fist rubbed at my eyes trying to make them focus on the ringing cell phone to locate the little green “pick-up” symbol before pressing it against my ear.

“Hello?”

“Louis? Thank God you woke up.”

“Ava? What time is it?”

“Louis, the baby’s coming, you have to get to the hospital now.”

My eyes snapped open almost comically and I hurriedly tried to swing myself out of bed, but got dizzy and had to lean against my bedroom wall.

“Now?! The baby’s coming now?! Are you sure?” I panicked lightly, pulling a pair of sweatpants that’d been previously lying on the floor over my shaking legs, the phone held between my ear and my shoulder. I quickly scanned the room for a shirt, but lost patience and grabbed the first thing my hand touched in the closet. I grabbed the beanie hanging off the door handle and jammed it on my head not having time to worry about my messy hair, but doing so nonetheless.

“Yes, Louis, now calm down. We can do this, okay? Nine months of prepping has led to this moment, okay? We’re going to be fine.” I could almost hear her smile through the phone. It was odd for Ava to take charge in any situation. We were typically rather equal when it came to immaturity, but we’re seventeen… what more could you expect?

I think our friends had expected us to suddenly get all serious and responsible when we found out about our little girl. Like we were supposed to grow up and become… parent-ly overnight. I was nervous about our ability to raise a child when Ave’s jokingly compared me to an infant myself. I did take comfort in how my mom jumped out of bed energetically and Lottie, Fizzy, Phoebe, and Daisy giving little squeals before shooing me out of their rooms so they could throw some clothes on. I knew I would always have my family for support.

It was about half an hour after our phone call that I was holding Ava’s hand as the nurse checked how far she was dilated. Her mother stood on her other side, brushing the stray curly strands of hair from her face and attempting to tuck them back into her bun. Ava was grinning at me happily while she rubbed her swollen belly to distract herself from the nurse examining a rather private piece of her body.

“I’m going to page the doctor, Miss Harding. You’re almost fully dilated and you should be able to begin pushing in about fifteen minutes.” The nurse gave us all a cheery smile before exiting the room. Ava squeezed my hand as she let out a controlled sigh and I bent over to kiss her slightly sweaty forehead.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Ava. Our baby is going to be healthy and happy and beautiful and just as charmingly hilarious as her parents.” I grinned as Ava laughed whole-heartedly.

“I love you.” She beamed up at me and I mirrored her.

“I love you too, beautiful.”

“This is the beginning of forever…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes gazed into the distance.

“Forever can’t possibly be long enough.” I kissed her lightly and chastely, conscience of her mother standing only a couple feet away, but I never wanted the moment to end. Nothing ever seemed to feel quite as right as when my lips were pressed against hers, but the next fifteen or so minutes couldn’t have passed any quicker and soon the doctor was in position telling Ava to push.

And so she did. With one hand grasping tightly onto mine and the other clinging to her mum, her face scrunched up and teeth clenched, Ava began to deliver our daughter into the world.

It felt like hours of repeating the same words of encouragement and rushed professions of love, but my eyes never once left her face. Those pesky curls were plastered to her red, sweat soaked skin. She had given up her early attempts at silence and was now screaming in pain. I wanted to do something, anything, to make this better, but I was absolutely helpless. It took me a while to realize that I was mentally cussing out Eve… as in Adam and Eve… with a distant memory from my childhood Sunday school teacher telling our class about how the pains of childbirth were women’s punishments for Eve’s sins… I really just wanted to blame someone…

I could hardly focus on anything, my mind was everywhere all at once. It was a nurse’s hand on my shoulder, pulling at me, that broke me from my thoughts.

“Sir! I have to ask you to step outside, the patient is crashing.” And with that I was practically shoved from the room catching a glimpse of Ava’s now paled face and closed eyes as I finally processed the loud, ugly note that droned from a machine with a straight green line along the bottom. What had happened?

Ava’s mom was crying as she pulled my numb self back to the sitting room where our families were waiting. I briefly remember my mother grabbing me in an awkward one-way hug before I collapsed in the chair that I’d sit in for the next hour.

”…the patient is crashing.”

I found it upsetting that she’d said “patient” not Miss Harding, not Ava, but an anonymous noun. “The patient” could be anybody. It could be a forty-five year old man or a one hundred and two year old woman. True, “the patient” could be a sixteen year old girl, but Ava Grace Harding was not just any sixteen year old girl. She was her parents’ daughter, her brother’s sister, my girlfriend....

I don’t know why they took so long to come talk to us, but it was a good sixty or so minutes before the doctor came into the small room and halted in front of our group. I quickly swiped the tears from my cheeks that I’d barely noticed until now.

“You’re all here for a Miss Ava Harding?” when we all nodded, the doctor continued.

“As you likely know already, childbirth causes extreme stress on the body. Sometimes, the body can’t handle the stress and, in those cases, the body fails. Ava’s heart failed and though we did everything we could, we were unable to revive her.”

My head dropped into my hands and I just wanted to curl up and cease to exist.

What about forever? What about our future? I couldn’t imagine a day passing by without seeing Ava’s beaming face. Never hearing her joyous, uncensored laugh or her sweet, charming voice. How could she be dead? She was my soul, my life, my heart, my very being, my everything. How was it possible that she could simply cease to exist just like that? Here one minute and gone the next as if none of it had ever happened. As if she hadn’t ever been here at all.

After all those promises we’d made… promises of forever that were broken just as quickly as they were made.

“Mr. Tomlinson?” My eyes shifted from my sweaty palms to find the whole group gazing at me with eyes as equally bloodshot as my own I could assume.

“I asked if you would like to see your daughter.” The doctor explained quietly and slowly as if he were afraid I’d attack him if he made any sudden noises.

“My daughter?” The doctor nodded.

I hadn’t even thought of my daughter. I guess I assumed she had died with her mother, but the doctor was soon leading me down endless white hallways to the nursery.

Upon entering the pale yellow room, the first thing I noticed were about six trolley-like beds with small either pink or blue bundles lying inside. My eyes followed the doctor as he approached one and gently lifted a pink-clad newborn out of it, cooing softly to the new life in his arms as he returned to where I stood frozen.

“Mr. Tomlinson, I’d like to introduce you to your new baby girl.” With that, the doctor handed me the pink blanket.

She was perfect, breathtakingly perfect and beautiful. Her skin was smooth and lovely. She had thick eyelashes and big eyes (though they were closed at the moment). Her hair was just soft brown wisps, but she had a good amount of it. She wasn’t like anything I could have envisioned in my mind. No, she was so much better.

She squirmed suddenly and let out a yawn as dazzling bluish-grey eyes slipped open. I remembered reading in one of the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” books that babies didn’t actually see when they were just born, but I could’ve sworn that she looked right into my eyes at that moment before those lovely little orbs slid closed again.

“You’re so beautiful little girl. Daddy’s got you and I won’t ever let anything harm you…”

I don’t know where the name that slipped into my thoughts came from at that second, but it seemed so right and so fitting that I didn’t question it.

“…Avalie. My lovely little Avalie Grace Tomlinson.”