Fleeting Moments

9 | Layne

Two days passed and Sean still hadn't woken up. I had spoken with the school and let them know what was going on, and they didn't take his scholarship. The coach told the school if they gave up on him, they'd be idiots. Sean had already started forming a relationship with the coach, Aaron Johns, and apparently Sean's deciding factor in that school was me. I didn't know he had an offer for a more exceptional school's football team, Moores University. They're about six hours away, and he picked our school because that's where I was going. I was his deciding factor.

So the coach's solution was to bench him for the first quarter of the season. Sean had enough time to be noticed by drafters and scouts if he still wanted to go professional. He wasn't set on that decision, because he said he wanted to do something more meaningful with his life. He really wanted to help people.

I finally convinced his mom to go home and get some rest: promising to call her the minute something happened. Sean was finally off life support, and he's opened his eyes for a few seconds before he drifted back off, but nothing beyond that. I sat by his side, his hand in mine. I need to tell him something but we hadn't been alone. I also don't want to stress him out. But it was eating at me and as the tears continued pouring down my face, I found the strength to say it.

"Sean, I, I lost the baby." I swallow the lump in my throat, continuing, "and I can't get through this without you. I need you to wake up."

After my fall, I made an appointment with my doctor and they did a few test, checked for a heart beat and performed an ultrasound. They couldn't find her heart beat. The heart beat we had just heard a few weeks ago, beating strong and promising, was gone. My baby, our baby, was dead. She still rested in my stomach, but she was gone and there was nothing they could do to bring her back.

They had to remove her before I died with her, so they did. They let me hold her and wrapped her in the smallest blanket I'd ever seen. She was just about an inch or two bigger than my hands, and weighed three ounces. My daughter didn't even get to see a pound. Because we weren't 24 weeks, she was counted as a miscarriage and not given a birth or death certificate. To the world, our baby didn't exist.

As scared as I was to be a mom, it felt like my heart was ripped from my test and shredded in front of me. I'd do anything to have her. I'd do anything to go back to last week and redo everything. I would have appreciated her from the start. I wouldn't have been scared. I would have embraced her immediately. But I couldn't. I was stuck here, without my baby, and right now without my fiancé, my rock, my everything. The one person who could help me get through all of this pain.

My doctor let us cremate her, but I asked how long we can wait and preserve her body. I wanted Sean to have a chance to hold his daughter. Though she was no longer there, I didn't want to take that from him. When the time was up, she would be cremated and we would get those tiny bit of her ashes. The doctors told me there wouldn't be much, but I wanted whatever I could have of her.

Sean really liked the name Julianna. We only talked about it once, lying in the bed of our new apartment. He liked Julianna and I liked Rose, so we were pretty set on Julianna Rose, but we were still thinking of others too. But now, we'd never get a chance to rethink. We'd never get to write our daughter's name on a birth certificate. We'd never get to proudly announce to our families that we were having a baby, a perfect and beautiful baby girl.

His hand squeezed mine, breaking me away from my thoughts. I keep telling myself he'll wake up any minute now and I'm praying I'm right.

Morgan walks in, carrying lunch for the two of us. She walks with a slight limp, trying to cover it up. "Hi, sorry I'm late."

"It's okay. Are you okay?" I raise an eyebrow at her.

"Yeah, I've been," she thinks for a moment, before sighing. "I'm not going to lie to you. I've been with Brandon the past couple days and he's been my...stress relief."

I can't help but laugh a little, "I knew you two were gonna hit it off. I'm glad Sean pushed the idea."

"Hit it off," she nods. "He's definitely something I've never experienced. He's silly, and sweet, and cocky, and unbelievable hot."

"This means double dates in our future," I force myself not to think of the negatives right now.

"If he can keep his hands to himself long enough," she laughs a little. "Actually that's not even a fear, I can tell he's in it for more than my body. But boy is he really making it hard to not want to jump his bones."

"Gross," a groggy Sean speaks up.

"Oh my," I jump forward, looking at him in disbelief as I hit the nurse's call button. "He's awake," is all I can manage to say.

He sends me a weak smile, and I know he heard everything as he looks down at my stomach. My empty stomach. He squeezes my hand gently, "I love you."

"I love you too," tears pour down my face.

The look on his face tells me everything is going to be okay, but it just doesn't seem like this is a pain that will ever fade. Morgan handles calling everyone and soon the doctor is in the room, asking Sean a bunch of questions.

At the end of his check up, he concludes he wants Sean to stay another day, maybe two, for observation and then he can go home. All of Sean's scans have come back normal, but they want to monitor closely for any kind of brain damage. Sean's not thrilled about having to stay, but he agrees without much of a fight. I'll fill him in on everything else when we're alone.

The doctor helped us get him set up so he could at least be comfortable. They helped him get in sitting position and removed some of the things he no longer needed.

As if he reads my mind, he speaks up, "Morgan, do you think I could get a minute alone with Layne?"

"Oh, of course! Just text me when you want me to let people in." She heads out, closing the door behind her.

"Come here." Sean tugs me lightly, and I carefully maneuver onto his bed. He wraps his arms around me, sitting up as carefully as he can. "We're gonna be okay, baby. I'm so sorry."

I pull back to look into his eyes, tears are already pouring from both of our eyes, "you almost died, Sean. I'm happy you're still here with me."

"Me too." He kisses my nose, lifting a hand to wipe my tears. "We'll get through it, okay?"

I begin to explain what happened, catching him on what happened to our baby. Ultimately, stress and my fall contributed to our baby's death.

"I had them hold off on cremating her body. They had to remove her and she's so small, Sean. She's so tiny. She was only three ounces and she," I sniffle, "she was perfect. Our girl was perfect. And now she's gone."

He holds me tightly as we both cry together. "I'm so sorry you had to go through it alone." He runs his hand through my hair.

"I don't know if you wanted to hold her," I admit. "It, it's heartbreaking."

He nods firmly, "I want to say goodbye." His face is soaked with tears, his eyes are bloodshot red. "I want to see her."

"I'll let them know. We can go when you get out." I nod, this time wiping his tears. "I thought maybe we could name her Julianna Rose."

He smiled weakly, nodding in agreement as he sniffs, "a beautiful name for a perfect angel."

"I can't help but feel like it's my fault she's gone." I admit.

He takes my face in his hands immediately, tears still pouring down. "Don't you dare say that, Layne. If anyone is to blame, it's me. You wouldn't have been stressed into a panic attack if I hadn't almost died, which makes all of this that bastard's fucking fault. You didn't do this, Layne. You were and were going to be the perfect mother to her." He doesn't usually swear, only when he's passionate about something or really pissed off.

He pulls me in to kiss my forehead, just as his mother bursts into the room, "Sean! Thank God!" Morgan probably couldn't keep her out. She's not usually one to overstep boundaries, but he almost died. I'd do the same.

Our families and friends slowly make their way in, filling up the room. Everyone has questions about what happened, if he could hear us while he was still sleeping, what the next move is. And while I don't have all the answers, I'm at least content with the fact that he's alive and relatively okay. With him by my side, I can get through anything. That much I know.