What It Could Have Been

Chapter Two

|Puck|

It was an unconventional way to start the day, to say the least. Never in my life had I been jealous of people lying in hospital beds, until I had spent a night sleeping—or at least attempting to—in one of those chair-pull-out-things. I woke up with a stiff back and tense neck.

That had been the only thing I had focus on, until my eyes met a bundle dreaming comfortably in her bassinet.

It was insane how much she looked like Quinn. We'd manage to make a clone of her. She was perfect though, with her pouty little lips and her chubby, rosy cheeks.

Oh no! I was turning into a chic.

Suddenly, her nose scrunched up, and her lips began to quiver. Soon, a wail erupted from her mouth. It took me a split second—I was in shock, don't judge me—for me to jump into action.

I picked my baby girl up, as her face was turning red and her cries were getting louder.

"It's alright I got you." I tried my best to soothe her, rubbing her back, rocking from side to side, kissing her cheek. Nothing was working and I was panicking.

"What's wrong? Are you in pain?" I whispered, knowing she wouldn't respond—so I was essentially talking to myself.

I heard the rustling of sheets and the squeaky noise that the hospital beds made whenever someone moved on them. I looked over to the bed, where I found a half-awake Quinn, adjusting the bed so that she could sit up.

"Bring her over." Quinn mumbled, her voice still heavy with sleep.

I placed the still crying baby into her arms and she asked: "Did you check her diaper?"

I thought back to what I had done from the moment that our baby had begun to cry.

"No," I replied sheepishly, "I didn't even think of that."

Quinn laid the baby flat on her back and undid the thing that made my baby look like a burrito—update: I found out that it's called a swaddle—and took off the diaper, only to find a wet spot and a diarrhea looking load that stunk up the whole room.

"How did she even do that? She's so tiny," was the only suitable reaction, if you ask me.

Quinn just shrugged before asking me to hand her the wipes and a new diaper.

Quinn may try to deny this, but I definitely saw her gagging, as she tried her hardest to clean up the mess as quickly as possible, while our baby girl was still crying. She almost went through the entire pack of wipes, before the job was done. Then came the easy part, or so we assumed.

"That doesn't look right," I commented holding up the baby, her diaper just seemed off.

"I don't know what I did wrong," she said, before going over the steps: "Baby's legs up, diaper flat down, baby's legs down, bring half of the diaper up, then sticky things."

I thought about what Quinn had just listed, then looked at the diaper once again.

"Wait, aren't the sticky things supposed to stick to the front?"