Dirty Little Secret

I slipped in and out of darkness. Each time I emerged from the black and was able to open my eyes I saw a new and strange person. Every single one of them had the same concerned and desperate look plastered on their face as they moved their mouths but I couldn't understand. I was only able to get glances of the stranger people before my eyelids fluttered shut and I was dragged back under.

"Miss. Page, we need you to stay with us," A feminine voice said breaking the silence.

I tried to speak to her, tell her that I was right here but I couldn't. I tried as hard as I could, I tried screaming at the top of my lungs but my brain wasn't working and my mouth wasn't moving.

"Try squeezing my hand Miss. Page," she said again. "Does anyone know who her family is?"

Panic set in, I couldn't move my hand but I also couldn't feel a hand to squeeze. The only thing I could feel was that I was being dragged further into the darkness. I could feel my chest tighten as I tried to frantically gulp for oxygen before I was completely submerged in the black abyss.

"Oh my god! Cori," It was Liz. I heard Liz scream my name.

Now I fought with everything I had left in me to open my eyes or move a body part. The harder I tried to break free the tighter the monster squeezed against me, pulling me even further.

"She's pregnant, oh my god! Cori, open your eyes please!" Liz begged. I could tell that she was crying. "Oh god, please."

"Ma'am we have to get her into surgery or both she and the baby will die."

I felt lips press against my forehead before I felt nothing at all. The only thing was the slowing beep somewhere in the distance, and even that was growing faint.

**

I could feel some of weights being lifted off my chest but not enough to be able to resurface from the darkness. The fog was still there, thick as ever, as death began playing mind tricks on me. Death would allow me a few minutes of reality. I was only able to hear certain bits and pieces of conversations that were going on around me. Sometimes I just heard beeps and other machines that worked around me, before he was dragging back down to the pits of Hell and into the darkest corner of the deepest hole.

"Your child is your number one priority. I don't want you to end up like me, submerged in your job and not having enough time for your family. I don't want you to ever feel like this," that was all of my dad's voice before falling back into an unconscious state.

**

"Hey Baby, it's me," this time I heard Tate's voice speaking to me. "We still need to get married Baby, so why don't you open those big beautiful eyes for me."

I wanted to, so bad. I wanted to look up and see my fiancé’s face peering down at me with his goofy grin. I wanted to feel him, hold his hand. I wanted to tell him I loved him. I wanted to ask him about our baby. Where was my baby?

**

The darkness stopped being lonely after a while. I came to enjoy the moments where Death was pulling back down and away from the people surrounding my body. I no longer craved the sounds of even the simplest of things, I craved release. I craved ending to this madness. I started to beg for Death to take me officially, I was too tired to fight any longer. I didn't want to go on, I couldn't.

If my baby was dead, I would want to be with it. If my baby did survive whatever happened to us, I know that I would be leaving the baby in good hands. Tate would be a great father; his parents would help him through everything. Even my dad would be there to supportive. Everyone would make sure that my baby knew who I was and that I love it so much. And Baby Daniels and everyone else would carry me on in memory.

Yes, I've made a decision; I would die.

**

I saw the light that everyone talked about. It was more of a pale orange glow that penetrated through all of the black as it warmed my bones. Gradually the light got brighter until the pale orange turned bright and vivid. The weights on my chest were far from gone but the uncomfortable feeling was manageable. Even with fog lifting from my mind, it was hard to think. My body ached and felt heavy, where I was expecting to be free from this pain.

I opened my eyes to find white. There where white walls, with a white ceiling, and orange light casting dark shadows on my white clothes.

I wasn't dead. I was in a hospital, surrounded by multiple machines that were connected to wires and hoses that were connected to me. Some just taped to my skin, others having needles going into my veins.

Besides the constant beep of my monitored heartbeat, there was a sound of heavy breathing coming from the couch located underneath the wall of windows.

"Dad?" I croak. My voice sounded unfamiliar and childlike.

The heavy-breather jumped up with a startle. "Corinne!" My dad said taking my hand immediately. He pressed his warm lips to my forehead then to my cheeks. I felt wet tears slide down his cheeks and onto mine as he pulled away. "Oh my beautiful princess, I've missed your eyes."

"What happened? Where's Tate? Where's my baby?" I ask frantically.

"Sh, calm down. Let me tell a nurse that you're awake. Everything is fine," He left to tell a nurse and returned only seconds later with a younger girl walking right behind me.

"How are you feeling Corinne?" She asked as she began to check some of the monitors and everything that is connected to me.

"I hurt a lot. What happened to me?"

"You were in a pretty bad car accident. It's a miracle that you and your baby survived. The doctors that operated on you and your little one couldn't believe it, they wrote both of you off completely but your fiancé said that you were a fighter."

"My baby survived?"

"Tate's in the NICU now. I called him and Steve, Liz is working with a patient then she'll be up," my dad told me as the nurse continued checking me over.

Once she left and the doctor had come to tell me that I had broken my left collar bone and crushed most of the bones in my wrist. Most of the ribs on my left side had split into two, causing one to impale my lung. My cheek bone on my right side had a hairline fracture in it and my skull was fractured in multiples places from hitting the airbags and steering wheel so hard. My pelvis was crushed. The internal bleeding was severe. I was put into a medical induced coma until the swelling in my brain went down. The medically induced coma only lasted for two weeks but I had been in a coma for just over a month.

Once the doctor left I turned back to my dad, he didn't try to hide his tears as they freely rolled down his reddened cheeks. "Oh Cori, I love you."

"I love you too dad."

"No, no. I've been such a bad father for eighteen years. You tried so hard to make me proud of you but I'm proud of you no matter what. You are such a beautiful, caring, genuine girl. I don't deserve a daughter like you, not the way I've treated you. I promise I'm going to be there for you every day for now on. Forgive me please."

"I forgive you," I say as Tate walked into the room. His eyes immediately filled with tears.

"I'll let you guys talk," My dad whispered quietly before kissing my head and leaving the room.

The room was too big and Tate was too far away from me. There was nothing I wanted to more than to curl up against his body but my bones protested as I tried to move. Tate rushed to my side, connecting his lips to mine.

It baffled me that I chose death over this. This alone was worth fighting a million times over for. "I was so scared, Cori. Sergeant Major got the message directly and relayed it to me, I was on the first flight back to here. You were still in surgery but our baby was out and recovering in the NICU. Cori, we have a son. He looks like me, exactly like me. We have the same chin and eyes. He has my hair and everything."

"I bet Jackson's beautiful."

"Jackson?" Tate questioned.

"On the flight home I was thinking of names. I thought that would be a good one for a boy. Jack for short?"

"Jackson is a very good name. I love you."

"I love you too. I want to see Jack."

"You will, you need to focus on getting better."

"Can you bring him to me?"

Tate shook his head no. "He still needs to stay in the NICU. He only has about another month until he's able to get out. When I first saw him I didn't think that there would be any hope. He was so small and his body was purple and cold. He had all of these wires connected to him and he ate through a tube. It was worse than seeing you. I knew that you were a fighter but Jack was so little and fragile. I couldn't leave him. So your dad watched you and I watched Jack and my parents watched us."

"I stopped fighting. I felt like I was drowning and I just stopped treading water and waited for Death to finally pull me under one final time. I'm so sorry."

"No, no Baby. You've been through a lot. Close your eyes now, you need rest. I'll be right here when you wake up."

So I closed my eyes and sleep welcomed me as an old friend.