Dwindle [Motough]

{Chapter 22}

Beth's POV

The doctor digs into my stomach with a scalpel. The pain seares into my stomach. I cry out in pain. I squeeze Brittany's hand. She is standing beside me. She promised to stay with me.

"It'll be okay. You're doing great, Beth."

"Any updates on Derek or Jeremy?"

Brittany shakes her head. "I tried to call them, but neither of them answered.

Brittany had called them both as she was driving to my house to notify them that I was going into labour. Then, she rode with me in the ambulance.

I had tried to postpone the emergency c-section until one of them arrived, but I was advised and eventually convinced not to because the baby was in danger. My baby was early and I had cancer. Oh, why did I ever think this was a good idea.

***

I hear small, ragged cries. They're high pitched and quiet. A nurse is called to bring a blanket. The doctor measures the weight and cleanses the newborn soul. Brittany is standing closer to the doctor then I am. They hand off the little bundle to Brittany. She walks up to me, cradling the baby in her arms.

"It's a girl." She simply says.

She hand off the baby to me. Tears cup in my eyes. She is so beautiful. Now, I remember why I thought this was a good idea.

"What are you going to name her?"

I had thought about the name for weeks. There were a few, but now, I knew which one.

"Nicole."I said without a hint of hesitation.

Then, Nicole begins to weep in my arms. I begin to hyperventilate. I don't know how to soothe a baby. How do I get Nicky to stop crying?

Some type of ringing appears. Nurses or maybe doctors flood into the room. I recognize one of them. He was the leader for my surgery. He begins to say some commands. Nicole is quickly whisked away from my embrace.

"Brittany!" I call out to my sister as she is being ushered out of the room. "Tell Derek and Jeremy and mom that I love them. And please take care of Nicole and let her know how much I love her."

"I will. I love you, Beth, so much. Thank you for everything you've done for me." Tears are welling, then streaming down her face. "I love you, Beth."

"I love you Brittany." And then, she is gone. She was holding Nicole in her hands, I think.

Then, the pain dawns on me. My throat feels swollen and sticky and itchy. My stomach feels non-existent and is numb but I know that a lot of blood is seeping out. My heart feels like it is beating out of my chest. I can barely lift up my fingers because my body is paralyzed in pain.

"Bethany, can you hear me?" Someone in the room shouts out to me.

I try to answer back but it come out as a zombie groan.

Black stars speckle my eyes. I stare up at the ceiling and remember the drawing on the ceiling of my room. I can see it in my mind.

"Bethany, blink once if you are okay and blink twice if you're not."

Doctor crowd me. Some picking at my hands and some working at my stomach. They are running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I let out another yelp. A doctor mutters an apology.

I lower my eyelids and open them and bring them down again to represent that I'm not okay, but then my eyes feel to heavy to open. My everything feels to heavy. My heart feels too heavy on my ribs and my brain feels to heavy on my skull.

On the inside of my eyelids, I see black. The yelling and beeping happening in reality ringing in my ears. Then, everything begins to fade. The black present in my eyelids turn into a grey. The cries begin to subside into muffled sound. My jaw falls opens and my breathing begin to slow. I feel light and weightless. I feel everything from the tips of my toes to my fingertips to my strands of hair. The sounds are cut off into deadbeat silence and the grey of my eyelids turn into white and my breathing slowly stops...

I wake up to see white covering my eyelids. I look around. Everything is white. I am wearing white. My body is weightless and it feels like I'm floating.

In the faraway distance I can hear muttering and footsteps that are inching toward me. It sounds like two people are bickering. I begin walking towards them. As I near closer to them I realize that I know them. The two men are Derek and Jeremy.

"Bethany, what are you doing here?" Derek asks.

"Where is here?"

"I don't know, Jeremy and I just got here."

"Your baby bump is gone." Jeremy says. I look down at myself. I am wearing a plain white sundress. There are no scars, not even that permanent scar that I had gotten on my wrist after I had cut too deep.

I shrug. "I guess so. What were you two arguing about."

They look at each other nervously.

"We were arguing about you." Jeremy answers.

"Me?"

They both nod.

"We wanted to know who you would chose because you had never made it clear." Derek says.

I walk up to Jeremy. He smiles. His eyes read "I knew you would choose me".

"Thank you Jeremy. You were the one who kept me going in high school. You were always there for me, like that one time you beat up Andrew after he had called me a b*tch."

The memory flashed in my eyes. Jeremy swung his fist into Andrew's right cheek. Andrew fell back and quickly surrendered and scurried away.

"I loved you then. I wasn't aware that you loved me...but now I've moved on-"

I reach my right hand and clasp Derek's hand in mine, our fingers interlock.

"-and I love Derek."

They both intake the information. I place a kiss on Jeremy's cheek and a kiss on Derek's lips. They both smile.

I clasp Jeremy's hand and I have Derek's hand in my other hand. We look at each other and without speaking a word, we begin walking together.

Once again, everything fades into white and I can't see either of them, but I can still feel their hands gripping in mine.

Then, my whole life flashes across my eyes like a super-speed time lapse. The day I was born, November 7; that first time I sat in front of the webcam and recorded; that first time I met Jeremy; the first time I met Derek; the first time I met Nicole; and my last sight, the doctor who without, Nicole wouldn't have survived. Everything, I saw everything.

And at last, I could no longer feel their hands in mine but somehow I knew that everything was, is and will be okay.

And it was.

The End

Author's note will be released very soon.