*Disclaimer: The events described in this chapter are not based on personal experiences, but are merely the subjects of extensive research*
GET IT TOGETHER, SON
TAYLOR
Taylor lay on the sofa at two in the morning, his eyes wide open. He was almost certain he hadn't blinked more than two or three times in the past hour and he hadn't even attempted to change for bed. Not that laying on the sofa was really an attempt to sleep. It was more along the lines of avoiding the bedroom he shared with Mel, not wanting to face having to sleep alone. It was one thing when he slept alone when she was simply out of town. It was something entirely different when he slept alone due to her walking out on him for being the worlds biggest jackass.
She walked out. She packed a bag and she walked out on him. She had never done that before. She had been right. It was his fault. HE was the one who was driving her away. How was he going to fix this? COULD he fix
it? The fact that he even questioned it made him sick to his stomach.
The only reason he knew it was two in the morning was because he checked the clock on the wall when his house came under attack. Maybe "under attack" was a strong term but the simultaneous beating on the door and ringing of the doorbell made it seem as if he were in the middle of a nuclear invasion.
He should have been more alarmed at this action happening on his front porch in the middle of the night. However, with the way he was currently feeling, he prayed that whatever was behind the door would reach out and gruesomely torture him. Any amount of physical pain would feel like ecstasy compared to how his heart
felt.
Not even caring enough to check before opening the door, he was a little surprised to find Zac there. It wasn't totally uncommon for Zac to pop over at random hours, however it was his slightly disheveled nature that arose a mild sense of alarm in Tay. "What's going on?"
"What are you doing, I've been trying to get ahold of you for the past half hour. AT LEAST."
Tay glanced behind him then back at Zac. "Yeah...my phone is in a thousand pieces at the bottom of the
staircase..."
Curiosity merely flickered in Zac's eyes, but he didn't ask any questions. Instead he said, "Look, Mel's mom called. She's been trying to reach you. Mel's in the hospital."
Zac may as well have just reached inside of Tay's chest and ripped out his heart and fed it to a pack of wolves. He had never gotten himself together so fast in his entire life. He didn't even bother to put socks on and he honestly wasn't sure if the coat he wore was even his. Did he lock the front door? He left the house to fend for itself, hoping for the best.
----------------------
The ride to the hospital was a blur. Tay's brain had no idea where to go. Zac didn't know anything except that he kept saying she was okay. Well how the hell did he know if he couldn't tell him anything more? Zac flew out of bed like a bat out of hell at two in the morning to drive Tay to the hospital. In what universe did that simply make her just okay?
Tay didn't wait for Zac to stop the car before his door was open and Zac had barely closed his own door before Tay was through the front doors of the emergency room. Barely halting to a stop at the check-in desk, Tay said quickly, "Melody Banks!"
The lady looked up at him. "And you are?"
"Her fiancée."
"Taylor," Mel's mother's voice called from across the waiting room. Ignoring the receptionist, he met her in the middle of the waiting room.
"Where is she? Is she okay? Why won't anyone tell me anything?"
"I can't tell you what I don't know," Zac said, coming up behind him.
"She's fine," her mother said to him calmly. How could she be so calm? Why did everyone keep saying she's fine? "Come here, let's sit down."
He was too restless to sit and he wasn't having any of it. Fidgeting endlessly and nearly losing his mind, he shook his head, his eyes darting around the hospital. "No. I'm not sitting, I want to see her. What's wrong with her? Let me see her."
"Taylor, look at me," Susan said firmly. She placed her hands on either side of his face to keep him in focus. "Sweetie, listen to me. Okay? I need you to focus. Mel had a miscarriage. But she's fine. She's okay."
Tears sprang to his eyes and he shifted his weight in nervous restlessness. He was so heartbroken he could
barely hold himself up. "She had a--a--she was pregnant?" His voice abnormally rose, trying to escape through the tears he fought to hold back.
Susan rubbed his arms with her hands in an attempt to calm him. "She had no idea she was even pregnant,"
she assured him. "Not even a clue."
"How far along was she?"
She shook her head solemnly. "We don't have any more information, sweetheart. They gave her something for pain and now the doctor is talking to her. We should know more soon."
Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around her and sobbed onto her shoulder. His sobs were infectious and he
could hear Susan sniffling in his ear, as well. He didn't care who saw him cry. His pride didn't even matter to him. She stroked the back of his head gently as his voice muffled into her shoulder. "It's my fault. I did it. I made it happen."
"Shh, no. It wasn't anyone's fault. These things happen."
"We fought. It was bad. I upset her and got her so worked up and--and it's my fault. All of it."
"Come on," she said gently. "Let's go sit down."
Tay let Mel's mother lead him to a row of chairs where she sat beside him and Zac sat on the other side of
him, squeezing his shoulder for support. Her father sat across from him, his hands in his lap. Everyone was quiet for a few minutes before his deep voice rang out suddenly. "You're gonna have to be strong for her, son."
Taylor lifted his head and looked up at his future father-in-law. He simply nodded in agreement.
"I mean it," he continued sternly. "I don't ever want to see my daughter show up at my doorstep again in the state she was in today. She loves you, and so do her mother and I. I'm damn proud of you. But I'm telling you now, you better get your act together and get it together fast or next time you'll be dealing with me. You don't want to deal with me."
Tay straightened up in his seat and cleared his throat, heeding Paul's warning. He respected Paul, almost more than his own father. Paul trusted his daughter in Tay's hands and Tay was failing miserably. He knew this. But he wanted to change. He wanted to figure himself out and be a better person for himself and for Mel. And for everyone else around him. He appreciated Paul's blunt honesty.
Tay stood and approached Paul, his hand extended to him. "Yes, sir," he responded, as confidently as he
could muster, given the circumstances.
Paul stood and looked Tay in the eye. "Get that hand out of my face and come here, boy." And then Tay was pulled into a bear hug by Mel's father, signaling that he was forgiven. At least for now.
At that moment, the doctor came through the door and four pairs of expectant eyes fell on him anxiously.
Zac's hand squeezed his brother's shoulder once more for support as the doctor spoke. "Mel is going to be just fine," the doctor began. "I don't see any reason her body shouldn't recover in a timely manner, however
emotionally may be a different story, as with most cases like these. We put her on a morphine drip for the pain and gave her an ultrasound and pelvic exam to confirm the miscarriage and to examine the contents of her uterus. It appears that the miscarriage had completed itself on the way here, judging by what was found in her clothing when she arrived. She does have some tissue buildup in her uterus that will need to come out and there are a couple of ways that can be done. She could take a pill that would allow her to pass the contents naturally over a short period of time, or we can do a D&C procedure that would require anesthesia but it would be an immediate fix."
"What's a D&C?" Tay asked anxiously.
"Stands for dilation and curettage. It's a quick procedure where we dilate the cervix and scrape the lining of her uterus to clear it of any leftover pregnancy tissues, blood, etcetera. We would keep her for several hours observation afterward and then she's free to go home."
"How far along was she?" Tay asked, nearly afraid to know the answer.
"It's hard to say, but based on the clot, per se, that she passed, we estimate four weeks. Maybe three at
minimum. Miscarrying at this early of a stage in the pregnancy is actually more common than most people realize. Most miscarriages don't even make it as far as Mel's did tonight. Every woman's body is different in
how it handles things of this nature. In Mel's case, it seemed like her body was just ready to get it over with and it unfortunately caused her some great discomfort. But like I said before, once this is over, she will be
perfectly fine and then she can start trying to conceive again whenever she's ready."
Try to conceive again? Hell, Taylor wasn't even aware they'd been "trying" to conceive in the first place, but he decided not to waste his breath on the correction. Right now, he just wanted his questions answered and he wanted to see his fiancée in one piece. "So...what caused it? What happened?" Tay dreaded the answer. He almost didn't ask. He just knew that the next words out of the doctor's mouth would be how Tay was a horrible, good-for-nothing person who did nothing but cause her grief and upset her and stress her to the point where her body couldn't handle it and caused her to lose their unborn child. He waited for the doctor to point blank tell him that he was single-handedly responsible for killing their baby.
"In most miscarriages that happen this early, it's typically a chromosomal abnormality. There's usually a shortage in chromosomes in either the egg or the sperm--it's rarely ever genetic, just merely by chance that this unfortunate event occurs. I believe that was the reason for Mel's situation. She's an otherwise very
healthy woman."
Tay was relieved that he didn't get the answer he expected but he still wasn't totally convinced that he didn't
play at least some small part in it. "When can we see her?" he asked the doctor.
"Oh, you can go ahead and see her now. She's resting but I'll be in shortly to discuss the next step in clearing the uterus."
Tay glanced over at Mel's mother, who nodded her head toward him. "You go ahead. She'll be glad to see you."
-------------------
Taylor stepped through the doorway to Mel's room and his heart broke all over again. When he saw her, he prayed that he could take her place and take away her pain and make it his own. She lay there on her back, expressionless, her head facing the wall opposite the door. An IV was hooked to her arm and her wrist was adorned with hospital bracelets. She was in a gown that was much too big for her and the room itself was cruel to her. The harsh fluorescent lights made it difficult for anyone to relax in there.
Upon seeing her, his first instinct was to lift her out of the bed and carry her straight out the hospital door. Instead, he pulled a chair next to the bed and took her hand in his, placing a long kiss on her knuckles. He then rubbed her hand between his two. "Your hands are like ice," he said quietly.
She didn't move her head. Her voice, in startling monotone rasp, responded, "I didn't even know."
"Well they are."
"About the baby."
He interlaced his fingers with hers and rubbed the top of her hand. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "About this. About everything. I know sorry will never be enough, but--Mel, I'm an asshole. I'm a hopeless asshole. And you were right today, about everything. I treated you like shit and--and now you're here and--and I couldn't even be there to comfort you through it because of my own selfish pigheadedness."
She finally turned her head to face him, her face still expressionless. "I'm over it. Really. We both said things...we both...I mean, it's water under the bridge now. I killed our baby. I'm pretty sure I win the asshole-of-the-year trophy for the rest of our lives."
"No. You didn't kill anything."
"I did. All the drinking, all the stress over work--I realized that I haven't relaxed in over ten years. All I do is drink and worry about work. Had I just put the bottle down and taken a chill pill, it probably would have lived."
"The doctor says this is common. That it was merely a chromosomal abnormality--there was nothing that could have prevented it."
"What kind of a woman am I if I can't even carry a child? That's what women are supposed to do. Our purpose is to bear children. And I can't even do that. It's like I'm putting you back in the same position you were in ten years ago."
"You are an amazing woman, Mel. And you will make a fantastic mother someday. But now--well maybe now just wasn't our time. Okay? Everything happens for a reason."
"How could I not even know I was pregnant? How do I not even know my own body? How many more ways
can I fail at life? I mean, the count's getting up there. I can't--I apparently fail at making you feel secure with me, in our relationship--"
"Mel--"
"I can't keep my electronics in working order--I can't even do pregnancy right. I mean, my own baby didn't
even want to stay with me. I literally fail. At life."
"If it makes you feel any better, my phone is in a million pieces at the bottom of the stairs."
He saw the corners of her mouth turn up slightly. She was amused. That was a step in the right direction.
The doctor, then, walked in the room, interrupting their conversation. "How are you, Miss Banks?" he asked.
"As well as to be expected, I guess. I'm kinda loving this morphine. I told the nurse to keep it coming, but she's kind of a stingy bitch."
Tay's eyes widened in embarrassment. "Mel--"
The doctor waved him off. "It's fine, he said knowingly. "It's the medicine. Filters seem to disappear right along with the pain." Then he raised his voice so Mel could hear him. "Uh, so. We need to go ahead and move on to the next step. We need to cleanse your uterus of any excess blood and tissue left behind. We recommend the pill that lets the excess naturally pass, but if you really want the D&C, we can go ahead and schedule the procedure."
"What's a D&C?" Mel asked.
"Dilation and curettage, it's a small surgical procedure where we dilate your cervix and scrape the lining of
your uterus to rid it of excess tissues and blood--"
"You had me at 'rid.' Will there be anesthesia involved?"
"Yes."
"Do it."
"What?" Taylor turned around and asked her. "Are you sure you don't want to discuss it first?"
"No. Get it out. All of it. I just want this to be over. I don't want to be sitting around the house just waiting for it to run its course. Not when I have an option to do it all at once. Where do I sign?"
Tay looked back at the doctor. "Uh, well, I guess there's your answer."
"Very well, then. I'll have the nurse get your paperwork ready and we should be able to get started in the next hour or two."
Taylor returned to his seat next to Mel and took her hand again. "Is there anything you want me to do for you? Anything at all?"
"I'm pretty sure I'll need fresh clothes when I leave here. My pants and underwear look like the zombie apocalypse had a party down there and I'm sure they're in the garbage by now. But it looks like I'll be here for a few more hours yet, so no rush."
"Okay," he agreed. Then he cleared his throat. "Do, um, do you want me to call Jason for you?"
Mel smiled weakly, her eyes heavy with exhaustion and morphine. "No," she said quietly, squeezing his hand. "It's not necessary for him to know about this."
"I didn't mean anything I said today. I didn't mean any of it, I swear to you. I know it's going to take a lot to earn your trust and your respect back, but I want you to know, I'm not gonna be that guy. He's your best friend and I respect that. I respect you and I love you Mel. I love you more than you'll ever know."
She smiled again, her eyes getting heavier. "Am I allowed to take a nap?" she muttered listlessly.
"Um--" The truth was, Tay had no idea.
"It's okay. I'm just gonna nap until they tell me I'm not allowed. You wanna lay with me?"
Tay smiled. "I don't want to crowd you. I'll stay right here, I'm not going anywhere."
"No. I want you to lay with me." She patted the bed next to her. "Come on."
"I think your mom wants to see you--"
"Just lay with me," she muttered.
Choosing not to argue any further, he climbed in the hospital bed beside her, on his side. He kissed her cheek and took her hand in his again. He wasn't sure if this was even allowed, but it was a risk he was willing to take. He probably should have made her stay awake to sign the paperwork for her procedure, but he figured
they'd cross that bridge when they got there. He knew it was the morphine and her lack of sleep that couldn't keep her awake and he was uncomfortable as hell but, in that moment, there was no other place he wanted to be.
.
GET IT TOGETHER, SON
TAYLOR
Taylor lay on the sofa at two in the morning, his eyes wide open. He was almost certain he hadn't blinked more than two or three times in the past hour and he hadn't even attempted to change for bed. Not that laying on the sofa was really an attempt to sleep. It was more along the lines of avoiding the bedroom he shared with Mel, not wanting to face having to sleep alone. It was one thing when he slept alone when she was simply out of town. It was something entirely different when he slept alone due to her walking out on him for being the worlds biggest jackass.
She walked out. She packed a bag and she walked out on him. She had never done that before. She had been right. It was his fault. HE was the one who was driving her away. How was he going to fix this? COULD he fix
it? The fact that he even questioned it made him sick to his stomach.
The only reason he knew it was two in the morning was because he checked the clock on the wall when his house came under attack. Maybe "under attack" was a strong term but the simultaneous beating on the door and ringing of the doorbell made it seem as if he were in the middle of a nuclear invasion.
He should have been more alarmed at this action happening on his front porch in the middle of the night. However, with the way he was currently feeling, he prayed that whatever was behind the door would reach out and gruesomely torture him. Any amount of physical pain would feel like ecstasy compared to how his heart
felt.
Not even caring enough to check before opening the door, he was a little surprised to find Zac there. It wasn't totally uncommon for Zac to pop over at random hours, however it was his slightly disheveled nature that arose a mild sense of alarm in Tay. "What's going on?"
"What are you doing, I've been trying to get ahold of you for the past half hour. AT LEAST."
Tay glanced behind him then back at Zac. "Yeah...my phone is in a thousand pieces at the bottom of the
staircase..."
Curiosity merely flickered in Zac's eyes, but he didn't ask any questions. Instead he said, "Look, Mel's mom called. She's been trying to reach you. Mel's in the hospital."
Zac may as well have just reached inside of Tay's chest and ripped out his heart and fed it to a pack of wolves. He had never gotten himself together so fast in his entire life. He didn't even bother to put socks on and he honestly wasn't sure if the coat he wore was even his. Did he lock the front door? He left the house to fend for itself, hoping for the best.
----------------------
The ride to the hospital was a blur. Tay's brain had no idea where to go. Zac didn't know anything except that he kept saying she was okay. Well how the hell did he know if he couldn't tell him anything more? Zac flew out of bed like a bat out of hell at two in the morning to drive Tay to the hospital. In what universe did that simply make her just okay?
Tay didn't wait for Zac to stop the car before his door was open and Zac had barely closed his own door before Tay was through the front doors of the emergency room. Barely halting to a stop at the check-in desk, Tay said quickly, "Melody Banks!"
The lady looked up at him. "And you are?"
"Her fiancée."
"Taylor," Mel's mother's voice called from across the waiting room. Ignoring the receptionist, he met her in the middle of the waiting room.
"Where is she? Is she okay? Why won't anyone tell me anything?"
"I can't tell you what I don't know," Zac said, coming up behind him.
"She's fine," her mother said to him calmly. How could she be so calm? Why did everyone keep saying she's fine? "Come here, let's sit down."
He was too restless to sit and he wasn't having any of it. Fidgeting endlessly and nearly losing his mind, he shook his head, his eyes darting around the hospital. "No. I'm not sitting, I want to see her. What's wrong with her? Let me see her."
"Taylor, look at me," Susan said firmly. She placed her hands on either side of his face to keep him in focus. "Sweetie, listen to me. Okay? I need you to focus. Mel had a miscarriage. But she's fine. She's okay."
Tears sprang to his eyes and he shifted his weight in nervous restlessness. He was so heartbroken he could
barely hold himself up. "She had a--a--she was pregnant?" His voice abnormally rose, trying to escape through the tears he fought to hold back.
Susan rubbed his arms with her hands in an attempt to calm him. "She had no idea she was even pregnant,"
she assured him. "Not even a clue."
"How far along was she?"
She shook her head solemnly. "We don't have any more information, sweetheart. They gave her something for pain and now the doctor is talking to her. We should know more soon."
Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around her and sobbed onto her shoulder. His sobs were infectious and he
could hear Susan sniffling in his ear, as well. He didn't care who saw him cry. His pride didn't even matter to him. She stroked the back of his head gently as his voice muffled into her shoulder. "It's my fault. I did it. I made it happen."
"Shh, no. It wasn't anyone's fault. These things happen."
"We fought. It was bad. I upset her and got her so worked up and--and it's my fault. All of it."
"Come on," she said gently. "Let's go sit down."
Tay let Mel's mother lead him to a row of chairs where she sat beside him and Zac sat on the other side of
him, squeezing his shoulder for support. Her father sat across from him, his hands in his lap. Everyone was quiet for a few minutes before his deep voice rang out suddenly. "You're gonna have to be strong for her, son."
Taylor lifted his head and looked up at his future father-in-law. He simply nodded in agreement.
"I mean it," he continued sternly. "I don't ever want to see my daughter show up at my doorstep again in the state she was in today. She loves you, and so do her mother and I. I'm damn proud of you. But I'm telling you now, you better get your act together and get it together fast or next time you'll be dealing with me. You don't want to deal with me."
Tay straightened up in his seat and cleared his throat, heeding Paul's warning. He respected Paul, almost more than his own father. Paul trusted his daughter in Tay's hands and Tay was failing miserably. He knew this. But he wanted to change. He wanted to figure himself out and be a better person for himself and for Mel. And for everyone else around him. He appreciated Paul's blunt honesty.
Tay stood and approached Paul, his hand extended to him. "Yes, sir," he responded, as confidently as he
could muster, given the circumstances.
Paul stood and looked Tay in the eye. "Get that hand out of my face and come here, boy." And then Tay was pulled into a bear hug by Mel's father, signaling that he was forgiven. At least for now.
At that moment, the doctor came through the door and four pairs of expectant eyes fell on him anxiously.
Zac's hand squeezed his brother's shoulder once more for support as the doctor spoke. "Mel is going to be just fine," the doctor began. "I don't see any reason her body shouldn't recover in a timely manner, however
emotionally may be a different story, as with most cases like these. We put her on a morphine drip for the pain and gave her an ultrasound and pelvic exam to confirm the miscarriage and to examine the contents of her uterus. It appears that the miscarriage had completed itself on the way here, judging by what was found in her clothing when she arrived. She does have some tissue buildup in her uterus that will need to come out and there are a couple of ways that can be done. She could take a pill that would allow her to pass the contents naturally over a short period of time, or we can do a D&C procedure that would require anesthesia but it would be an immediate fix."
"What's a D&C?" Tay asked anxiously.
"Stands for dilation and curettage. It's a quick procedure where we dilate the cervix and scrape the lining of her uterus to clear it of any leftover pregnancy tissues, blood, etcetera. We would keep her for several hours observation afterward and then she's free to go home."
"How far along was she?" Tay asked, nearly afraid to know the answer.
"It's hard to say, but based on the clot, per se, that she passed, we estimate four weeks. Maybe three at
minimum. Miscarrying at this early of a stage in the pregnancy is actually more common than most people realize. Most miscarriages don't even make it as far as Mel's did tonight. Every woman's body is different in
how it handles things of this nature. In Mel's case, it seemed like her body was just ready to get it over with and it unfortunately caused her some great discomfort. But like I said before, once this is over, she will be
perfectly fine and then she can start trying to conceive again whenever she's ready."
Try to conceive again? Hell, Taylor wasn't even aware they'd been "trying" to conceive in the first place, but he decided not to waste his breath on the correction. Right now, he just wanted his questions answered and he wanted to see his fiancée in one piece. "So...what caused it? What happened?" Tay dreaded the answer. He almost didn't ask. He just knew that the next words out of the doctor's mouth would be how Tay was a horrible, good-for-nothing person who did nothing but cause her grief and upset her and stress her to the point where her body couldn't handle it and caused her to lose their unborn child. He waited for the doctor to point blank tell him that he was single-handedly responsible for killing their baby.
"In most miscarriages that happen this early, it's typically a chromosomal abnormality. There's usually a shortage in chromosomes in either the egg or the sperm--it's rarely ever genetic, just merely by chance that this unfortunate event occurs. I believe that was the reason for Mel's situation. She's an otherwise very
healthy woman."
Tay was relieved that he didn't get the answer he expected but he still wasn't totally convinced that he didn't
play at least some small part in it. "When can we see her?" he asked the doctor.
"Oh, you can go ahead and see her now. She's resting but I'll be in shortly to discuss the next step in clearing the uterus."
Tay glanced over at Mel's mother, who nodded her head toward him. "You go ahead. She'll be glad to see you."
-------------------
Taylor stepped through the doorway to Mel's room and his heart broke all over again. When he saw her, he prayed that he could take her place and take away her pain and make it his own. She lay there on her back, expressionless, her head facing the wall opposite the door. An IV was hooked to her arm and her wrist was adorned with hospital bracelets. She was in a gown that was much too big for her and the room itself was cruel to her. The harsh fluorescent lights made it difficult for anyone to relax in there.
Upon seeing her, his first instinct was to lift her out of the bed and carry her straight out the hospital door. Instead, he pulled a chair next to the bed and took her hand in his, placing a long kiss on her knuckles. He then rubbed her hand between his two. "Your hands are like ice," he said quietly.
She didn't move her head. Her voice, in startling monotone rasp, responded, "I didn't even know."
"Well they are."
"About the baby."
He interlaced his fingers with hers and rubbed the top of her hand. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "About this. About everything. I know sorry will never be enough, but--Mel, I'm an asshole. I'm a hopeless asshole. And you were right today, about everything. I treated you like shit and--and now you're here and--and I couldn't even be there to comfort you through it because of my own selfish pigheadedness."
She finally turned her head to face him, her face still expressionless. "I'm over it. Really. We both said things...we both...I mean, it's water under the bridge now. I killed our baby. I'm pretty sure I win the asshole-of-the-year trophy for the rest of our lives."
"No. You didn't kill anything."
"I did. All the drinking, all the stress over work--I realized that I haven't relaxed in over ten years. All I do is drink and worry about work. Had I just put the bottle down and taken a chill pill, it probably would have lived."
"The doctor says this is common. That it was merely a chromosomal abnormality--there was nothing that could have prevented it."
"What kind of a woman am I if I can't even carry a child? That's what women are supposed to do. Our purpose is to bear children. And I can't even do that. It's like I'm putting you back in the same position you were in ten years ago."
"You are an amazing woman, Mel. And you will make a fantastic mother someday. But now--well maybe now just wasn't our time. Okay? Everything happens for a reason."
"How could I not even know I was pregnant? How do I not even know my own body? How many more ways
can I fail at life? I mean, the count's getting up there. I can't--I apparently fail at making you feel secure with me, in our relationship--"
"Mel--"
"I can't keep my electronics in working order--I can't even do pregnancy right. I mean, my own baby didn't
even want to stay with me. I literally fail. At life."
"If it makes you feel any better, my phone is in a million pieces at the bottom of the stairs."
He saw the corners of her mouth turn up slightly. She was amused. That was a step in the right direction.
The doctor, then, walked in the room, interrupting their conversation. "How are you, Miss Banks?" he asked.
"As well as to be expected, I guess. I'm kinda loving this morphine. I told the nurse to keep it coming, but she's kind of a stingy bitch."
Tay's eyes widened in embarrassment. "Mel--"
The doctor waved him off. "It's fine, he said knowingly. "It's the medicine. Filters seem to disappear right along with the pain." Then he raised his voice so Mel could hear him. "Uh, so. We need to go ahead and move on to the next step. We need to cleanse your uterus of any excess blood and tissue left behind. We recommend the pill that lets the excess naturally pass, but if you really want the D&C, we can go ahead and schedule the procedure."
"What's a D&C?" Mel asked.
"Dilation and curettage, it's a small surgical procedure where we dilate your cervix and scrape the lining of
your uterus to rid it of excess tissues and blood--"
"You had me at 'rid.' Will there be anesthesia involved?"
"Yes."
"Do it."
"What?" Taylor turned around and asked her. "Are you sure you don't want to discuss it first?"
"No. Get it out. All of it. I just want this to be over. I don't want to be sitting around the house just waiting for it to run its course. Not when I have an option to do it all at once. Where do I sign?"
Tay looked back at the doctor. "Uh, well, I guess there's your answer."
"Very well, then. I'll have the nurse get your paperwork ready and we should be able to get started in the next hour or two."
Taylor returned to his seat next to Mel and took her hand again. "Is there anything you want me to do for you? Anything at all?"
"I'm pretty sure I'll need fresh clothes when I leave here. My pants and underwear look like the zombie apocalypse had a party down there and I'm sure they're in the garbage by now. But it looks like I'll be here for a few more hours yet, so no rush."
"Okay," he agreed. Then he cleared his throat. "Do, um, do you want me to call Jason for you?"
Mel smiled weakly, her eyes heavy with exhaustion and morphine. "No," she said quietly, squeezing his hand. "It's not necessary for him to know about this."
"I didn't mean anything I said today. I didn't mean any of it, I swear to you. I know it's going to take a lot to earn your trust and your respect back, but I want you to know, I'm not gonna be that guy. He's your best friend and I respect that. I respect you and I love you Mel. I love you more than you'll ever know."
She smiled again, her eyes getting heavier. "Am I allowed to take a nap?" she muttered listlessly.
"Um--" The truth was, Tay had no idea.
"It's okay. I'm just gonna nap until they tell me I'm not allowed. You wanna lay with me?"
Tay smiled. "I don't want to crowd you. I'll stay right here, I'm not going anywhere."
"No. I want you to lay with me." She patted the bed next to her. "Come on."
"I think your mom wants to see you--"
"Just lay with me," she muttered.
Choosing not to argue any further, he climbed in the hospital bed beside her, on his side. He kissed her cheek and took her hand in his again. He wasn't sure if this was even allowed, but it was a risk he was willing to take. He probably should have made her stay awake to sign the paperwork for her procedure, but he figured
they'd cross that bridge when they got there. He knew it was the morphine and her lack of sleep that couldn't keep her awake and he was uncomfortable as hell but, in that moment, there was no other place he wanted to be.
.