Baby Fever

The Waiting Room

Jeremiah's POV

I'm still struggling to understand how I got here. 

The doctor had said something about a placental abruption? Something about controlling the bleeding. I'm sure I heard the words emergency c-section. 

I still don't know how I got here. I rested my forehead on my palm as I thought about the fight. 

"All you've done for the past several months is eat off the kindness my mom has been offering you," She had said. 

There are so many things I could've said. I could've told her the truth about Emma, but I didn't. I hadn't wanted to. I just wanted her out of my face. 

"Don't start with this shit again," I had said. "What did I even do?"

I genuinely didn't know why she was so angry at me. 

"Nothing! That's the thing, you don't do anything!"

Honestly, I had zoned out after she said this. I couldn't believe that after everything I had gone through for her, she still thought I wasn't serious. 

She started yelling and going on and on about a business transaction. Apparently, she thinks I only cared about the baby and not about her...or something like that. 

 Why did it have to be either or? Why couldn't I care about the both of them? I genuinely struggled to understand what she wanted from me. 

"What more do I have to do to prove that I care about you?" I had asked. 

And she never answered my question. She just jumped from one thing to the next, and I couldn't keep up. She was mad about my acceptance letters, she was mad that the principal tried to send her home, she was mad that she had to quit cheerleading, she was mad about so many things. I honestly just thought she was sick of being pregnant. 

I tried. 

I tried to explain to her that it hasn't been the easiest for me either, but she wouldn't have any of it. 

What more am I supposed to do in a situation like that?

The rest of the conversation was honestly a blur. I stopped trying. In fact, I had stopped caring. 

The conversation was getting all too familiar. Victoria had given me the exact same look my mom gave me when she decided she was done with me. I think in the last moments of our fight, Victoria became my mom. 

I knew I was going to get kicked out one way or another, so I just sped up the process. 

"You were unstable then, and you're still unstable now." I had said. 

Nothing I did was enough for her, and it would never be. I gave up on her. 

And now look where I am: in a fucking waiting room. 

This has got to be some kind of sick joke. 

When I had gone in to see her, there had been so much blood. 

"Can you hear me, poms?" I had asked. "It'll be okay, poms. You can fight this, it's what you do."

Could she fight it, though? 

I balled my hands into fists as I got a flashback. 

"Papa? Can you hear me papa?" I had asked my father's lifeless body at the hospital. "Mamma won't stop crying, papa. You can fight this, pappa. It's what you do."

There's no insurance in love. 

This, I looked around the hospital walls, this is what it always leads to.