Jenalyn: Crossing Lines (#4) [Complete]

Chapter 89: Evelyn

Sunday, 6:24 A.M. EST

I don’t know if anything is even real anymore… 

I’d say it’s sleep deprivation, but shit! I’ve got to be asleep right now! And if I’m not asleep, I must be high as a kite! I must’ve taken something on accident in all the craziness that took place all night! 

Or maybe I’m just that traumatized; Childbirth is fucking crazy, and even crazier when it’s a whole night ordeal involving a drug-addicted mother...

One tiny baby cries softly; Its cries still sounding as if fluid is caught in its chest despite Rob’s numerous attempt to clear it. Another, much bigger baby... yeah, another fucking baby doesn’t cry as much as it…hiccups? Gasps? I’m not sure what it means, but Rob did his best to try to clean that up too. 

And Jena lays, exhausted and trying but failing to fight sleep despite her babies just having been born.

But they’re somehow all alive!

It’s one more life than we accounted for when we started this... but we did it! And I’m just floored. 

Aside from questioning how we even pulled that off, I can’t get over the fact that there are two baby girls bundled up on that pillow... 

How did Jena not know there were two? How did they even make it?! I had a hard enough time believing we’d be able to deliver a single baby; How the hell did we manage two?! 

“Come on, Ev! Stop standing around!” Robs voice cuts into my thoughts, bringing me back to the hectic reality of everything we’re trying to do right now. “Get these babies out to the truck for me so I can start carrying Jen down! We got to get them to the hospital NOW; The bigger one isn’t doing too good!”

Holy shit, I’ve been so dumbfounded over the fact that we just successfully delivered two babies that I completely forgot about the hospital, and how Tyler Robson has been waiting at a hotel across the street from it for a few hours now. 

“Yeah yeah yeah!” I say, gathering my head before I rush to the bedside towards the twins with butterflies in my stomach. 

How is this happening…? Did we really pull this off? 

My thoughts are interrupted again when Rob hands me a small laundry basket with a quilted blanket bunched up inside. “Bundle them up in here, nice and secure, and then wrap the passenger seatbelt around it-“ he says, rushing to grab a few other things before he makes his way over to Jena. “Stay here while I take them to the hospital with Jena. Sierra will be back from her run soon; If she calls Dane wondering where everyone is, it’ll throw off the rest of the plan. It sucks, but you have to say bye now.”

I set the basket down on the bed, nodding my head as I slowly and carefully lift the first swaddled baby. This is the tiny one... she feels almost weightless aside from the towel wrapped around her. It makes the butterflies more crazy; I’ve never held such a small human before. Still, I bundle her tiny body into one side of the basket before leaning in to give her a gentle kiss on the head. 

I lift the bigger baby now, immediately sensing the difference between their weight and size. This is the one Rob says isn’t doing well; I’m sure this is the one Jena thought she was “saving.”

My chest is aching now. There is no way I’ve built an emotional attachment with these babies; They’ve been on this earth all of five minutes!

But here comes a tear racing down my cheek. 

“I’m so sorry for everything you girls went through...” I whisper as I place the bigger baby gently into the bundled up hamper. “I know I wasn’t rooting for you in the beginning, but I am so glad you’re here. And maybe, one day when your mommy forgives me for what I did... we’ll meet again, out in California when she takes me out there to live with her!”

Obviously neither baby responds to me, but they both reach out their tiny little hands until they grasp each other, and that’s enough of a response for me. 

I did it... they’re alive!

“Come on, Ev. To the truck,” Rob says, sliding up beside me with Jena in his arms, and they truck keys hanging off his finger. “We don’t have much time. They need medical attention as soon as possible.”

I can’t help but feel a little bad for him… 

I’m over here getting all choked up over these babies, and aside from a last-minute effort to bring them into this world? They have nothing to do with me! 

Apparently Rob is their father…

“I’m... sorry for your loss...” I mumble, picking up the laundry basket and following him out the bedroom door. “I know it must be hard only getting to see them for a few minutes...”

Rob shrugs his shoulders, but I’m sure if he wasn’t walking in front of me I’d see sadness on his face. “No loss here!” he says after a moment, trying to seem nonchalant though emotions are definitely dripping from his words. “All I wanted for my girl… girls, now- was a happy and healthy life. Away from all of this shit, away from Dane, and honestly? Away from me too… This is the best thing that could happen.”

We make it to the truck, packing everyone in before Rob turns to me once again. This time, I can see the sadness I know he tries to hide. 

“Make the call to Dane as soon as I leave?” he asks, making sure that everything is still going smoothly with my plan. 

I nod my head, pulling Jena’s flip phone from my pocket and pulling up the messages with Ty Robson.

Me: I’m heading to the
hospital now. Please wait
until I text you again before
you come looking for me?
You’re going to be…shocked.
And I’m super friggen sorry
that all of this happened!
But you’re here now, and
everything will be better.
I just need you to help me
get through this. 

I flip the phone shut and hand it to Rob. 

“As soon as you get there, drop her off outside the regular entrance- not emergency because there are cameras there. Text the number in this phone on the top of the list as soon as you do that, and then scram. Tyler Robson, the guy from California? He’ll take it from there, and... well, we’ve got to deal with Dane…

Robs face falls in the same way my heart sinks realizing that the hardest part, a part not involving delivering two babies without practically any help from the mother, is yet to come…

“You got it,” he says, trying to sound confident anyway.