Worth the Fight

chapter forty-two

ｃａｒｓｅｎ

I run down the hallway, disregarding who's in my way. Though the moment they catch sight of my immense frame hurtling towards them, a collective gasp escapes their lips as they scramble to get out of the way. With each passing room number, the anticipation builds as I count down to the one the front desk nurse gave me, the fluorescent lights humming overhead.

When I first arrived, the place seemed small. The hallways were all crammed together, the emergency room barely had any space, and the delivery ward was tucked in a small corner of the hospital. Yet now, it feels daunting as I struggle to find Ryan.

Relief consumes me when I finally locate the room, and without hesitation, I barge inside.

Ryan sits in the middle of the room, her hospital bed tucked by the side wall. Stirrups prop up her legs, and her gown bunches above her hips. Her hair is a dark mess atop her head, with loose strands sticking to her flushed face. Her skin is dripping with sweat as I see the beads collecting along her temples. A nurse tries to cool her down with ice chips, but she's practically chewed through her bottom lip. Straining and barely breathing, she clenches her hands into fists against the sheets beneath her.

"Okay," the resident who will deliver our baby says as she comes out from between Ryan's legs, "Take a deep breath and get some rest. You're fully dilated now, so I'm going to give you a minute before I get you to push with everything you've got."

Ryan slumps, frustrated, tossing her head back as she exhales loudly. "Fuck," she cries, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes. She palms her forehead, wiping away the sweat accumulated there. I would have laughed about her no-swearing rule if it hadn't been for the tired look that casts across her features.

I've never seen her like this, exhausted and completely depleted. I wish I could take away her pain and make this process easier for her, but unfortunately, that isn't something I could do.

"Has anyone heard from Carsen?" I guess this is why the nurses have been blowing up my phone for the last half hour. Each time I answered, I gave them an approximate ETA, but finding parking and the room itself had delayed me.

"I'm here," I scurry to her side just as Ryan snaps her gaze to mine. Her face softens as more tears surface within her dark blue eyes, "I'm right here, baby."

She lets out a quiet sob, "I thought you weren't going to come in time."

"And let you do this all by yourself? I wouldn't dream of it." I grab her hand and gently squeeze it.

While the two of us were happy about the news of our baby, it really came at the worst time. Ryan was still in the last year of her PhD program and had to defend her dissertation in a few months. And I'm still away for football. The hope was that we would get married this summer, and as soon as she received her doctorate, she would move to Pittsburgh so that we could spend more time together.

But alas, it seems this baby has other plans for us. 

I remember Ryan panicking, calling and telling me to come to Cardill immediately. She wouldn't tell me anything over the phone. When I walked into her living room, she was pacing before she thrust the pregnancy tests in my face and told me to tell her it was all a lie.

I remember the sheer panic I felt when I found the positive tests staring back at me. It wasn't just one or two tests either. Ryan took ten pregnancy tests to confirm, and they all came back positive. I came around to the idea much sooner than Ryan, but I was concerned about how this would affect her.

Ryan is driven and focused. Without her plans and priorities, she felt like everything was crumbling around her. And so, after getting her to sit down and getting yelled at for it being my fault she was pregnant, I got her to calm down and talked through a plan with her.