Author: Cassia Leo

“Why? I already saw you yesterday and that was only because your mom insisted. It’s a broken leg, Chris. You’re not going to die. I have to study.”

“Not for me.”

Nurse Fran gives me a pointed look through her swooped black bangs. She ordered me to get some rest since this is my last night in the hospital, and here I am on the phone again. She already jokingly threatened to toss my phone out the window earlier today.

“It’s not for me, Claire,” I continue. “It’s Abigail. She’s here. That’s what the meeting was about. She’s having surgery tonight at eight and Abigail’s—” I hesitate to refer to this woman as Abigail’s mother, though she was nice enough to offer us a chance to see Abigail tonight. “Abigail’s mother is letting us see her tonight before she goes into surgery. You have to get down here.”

Claire is silent and I wish I could be there to give her this information in person instead of lying in this fucking bed. I wish I could have picked her up in my own car and held her hand as I delivered this news, but time is running out. This might be our only chance to see our daughter.

“Claire?” A soft sob comes through the speaker and it feels like a fucking knife in my chest. “Claire, can you get Senia to bring you?”

“I’ll be there.”

I hang up the phone and Fran glances at my chest and I’m pretty sure she’s just putting together my conversation with Claire and the tattoo over my heart. “You need a wheelchair?”

“Yes, please.”

As soon as she leaves the room, the aching in my chest spreads through my throat, choking me, until it reaches my face, stinging my eyes. I clear the thickness in my throat and try to compose myself before Fran returns. Then I hear the click of someone’s heels in the corridor and I know who’s coming.

Tasha enters my room wearing a cleavage-popping green dress that makes her red hair look even redder. The navy-blue cardigan she wears buttoned at the waist does nothing to hide the soft, round flesh bulging out of her neckline. A blue sweater, green dress, and cherry-red heels… somehow she pulls it off. It’s the sexy red-framed glasses and red lipstick that pulls it all together.

“Is she coming?” she asks as she walks right up to my bedside and stares at my bare chest.

I swallow the lump in my throat before I answer. “She’s on her way. You didn’t have to come here.”

The last thing I need right now is for Claire to feel intimidated by Tasha, if that’s even possible. I’m pretty certain Claire knows she has me wrapped around her finger.

“I know I didn’t have to come, but I have to be here in case they try to make a verbal agreement,” Tasha replies as she peels her gaze away from my chest and takes a seat in a chair. “You have virtually no rights here, Chris. I’m just protecting your best interests.”

“Yeah, you’ve told me that before.”

Fran walks in with the wheelchair and I grit my teeth as I attempt to sit up. “Hold on there, bad boy. I’ll lift you up.”

“I don’t need you to lift me,” I say as she reaches for the button on the side of the bed to lift the head of the mattress, but she’s too late. I’m already sitting up and reaching for my leg in the splint.

“You can’t move your leg. I’ll do it.” I attempt to lift my leg out of the splint and the pain stops me cold. “Just hold your horses and I’ll do it for you. For crying out loud, eight o’clock isn’t for another ninety minutes. You’ve got time. Do you want something for the pain?”

“No. I want to go in there with a clear head.”

She nods and I try not to grimace too much as she slowly helps me into the wheelchair and props my leg up.

“I looked up the information for Abigail and I can take you straight to her as soon as your friend arrives,” Fran adds as she moves toward the door. “You may want to put a shirt on.”

She leaves and I look down at the jeans that Fran allowed me to put on earlier today. The right pant leg is cut off below the knee.

Tasha and I make small talk for a while as we wait for Claire. I want to ask her if Abigail’s mother told her how serious Abigail’s condition is, but I almost don’t want to know.

“Can you hand me that shirt you’re sitting on?” I ask Tasha.

She quickly stands and hands me the black NOFX shirt that is now nice and warm from her ass. It’s already hot as fuck in this hospital room so I wait a minute before I pull it on. Claire and Senia walk in as I’m shaking out the T-shirt and Claire instantly looks away from my chest. She hasn’t seen the new tat yet. I know this isn’t the right place or time to show her so I quickly pull my shirt over my head to cover it up.

I lean back a little and hit the nurse call button.

“Claire, Senia, this is Tasha Singer,” I say, nodding toward Tasha who’s standing on my left.

Senia ogles Tasha’s cleavage for a moment, before they shake hands. “Nice to meet you,” Tasha says before she turns to Claire.

Claire doesn’t seem to be in the mood for introductions, but she holds out her hand. “Nice meeting you.”

Fran arrives and immediately starts pushing me out of the room. No one speaks as we travel through the cold hospital corridors. Fran takes us down to the first floor, past the gift shop, and to the children’s hospital. We pass straight through the lobby and to another corridor toward the Heart Center.

I’m afraid of what we’ll find when we finally see her. I don’t want this to be the first and last time I ever see my daughter. I look to my left and Claire’s face is twisted with worry. I wonder if broken hearts are genetic.

Chapter Nineteen

Claire

THE SQUEAK OF THE NURSE’S Crocs on the shiny floor is making me even more nervous. I already feel as if I might collapse at any moment. My thoughts keep rewinding to the day I gave birth and I can’t remember if the nurses ever said there was something wrong with my baby.

Not my baby. She’s not mine.

A burly man stands with his back to us in the corridor about forty meters ahead. He’s speaking to a doctor who stares at us as we approach. There are too many of us. I wonder if we look intimidating to them. The burly man turns around and the worry in his eyes turns to annoyance.

We’re not welcome here. We’re just the stupid kids who gave Abigail up and now we’re crashing motorcycles and trying to ruin their lives.

I stop in the middle of the corridor and Senia stops next to me.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

The burly man with the dark hair and four days worth of scruff on his jaw watches me. Senia catches me around the waist as my knees begin to buckle under the weight of his glare.

“He hates us,” I whisper, my shoulders weakening as the resolve drains from my body.

The nurse pushing Chris stops and turns back to look at me. She sees Senia holding me and immediately switches into “nurse-mode.” She comes back to help Senia as they attempt to hold me steady.

“Do you feel like you’re going to pass out? Do you feel cold or dizzy?”

Chris looks over his shoulder at me and immediately turns his wheelchair around.

“I’m fine,” I say as I push away the nurse and I finally see her nametag: Francesca. Chris attempts to push himself up from the wheelchair and I throw my hand out to stop him. “I’m fine. Sit down. Please.”

He grimaces with pain as he sets himself down in the wheelchair. “Claire, come here.”

“I am here.”

He shakes his head. “No, come here,” he says, beckoning me with his finger.

Senia and Francesca let me go and Tasha watches me as I step forward. He beckons me closer so he can whisper something in my ear. I lean forward and his fingers hint against my skin as he pulls my ear closer to his mouth.

“I need this. I need you to be strong like you were the day I met you and the day you broke up with me. You’re not that broken girl your mom left in the trailer. You made the right choice giving her up, but I need you to be strong right now because I fucking need this. It’s just you and me, babe. Okay?”

I nod as I blink furiously to staunch the tears. “Okay.” Francesca comes to turn the wheelchair around and I stop her. “I’ll do it. You guys can stay here.”

I turn the wheelchair around and Tasha falls in step with me.

Chris turns to her and shakes his head. “We’re going in there alone.”

“This is a bad idea,” she warns him and I try not to glare at her burgeoning cleavage.

“Tasha, this isn’t about the adoption,” Chris says, then I push him toward the doctor and the burly man.

My feet seem to sink into the hard floor as I walk, holding me still, yet somehow I keep getting closer. Help, I want to cry out. Please help me get through this.

The doctor holds out his hand to Chris. “I’m Doctor Buchik. I’ll be handling the surgery today.” Buchik holds his hand out to me and I shake it. His hand is dry and warm and, as stupid as it is, this gives me comfort.

The burly man looks conflicted, like he’s not sure he wants to meet us. Maybe he can deny our existence just a moment longer.

Chris pushes himself up from the wheelchair and I hold the chair steady as he offers the man his hand while standing on one leg. “I’m Chris.”

The man looks a bit annoyed by this gesture, but he takes Chris’s hand. “Brian.”

It seems both of them want to introduce themselves as Abigail’s father and I want to run away and never show my face again for what I’ve done to them.

I take a deep breath as I try to compose myself. I have to control the guilt. I have to get through this, for Chris.

I hold out my hand to Brian and he takes my hand. “I’m Claire… Nixon.”

Somehow, I feel as if saying my last name will establish a modicum of trust between us. I know Chris didn’t introduce himself as Chris Knight because he didn’t want to remind Brian of the reason they backed out of the meeting two weeks ago. I blame myself 100% for getting pregnant and having to give Abigail up. But, though I’d never tell Chris this, I do blame Chris Knight for that failed meeting.

“Lynette is in the room with Abigail,” Brian mutters as he nods toward the open door on his left.

Doctor Buchik smiles at me. “I’ll take you in.”

Buchik has thin lips and short gray hair, but I can’t decide if his gray eyes are filled with pity or skepticism. He knows this will not end well.

The room is small and a woman with light-blonde hair, lighter than mine, is hunched over the bed. Her pink cardigan hangs loosely on her shoulders and arms as if she’s lost weight recently.

I didn’t want to meet the adoptive parents when I decided on a couple to adopt Abigail. I didn’t want to know their names or even see a picture of them. I wanted to know nothing other than their stats. I didn’t want to be tempted to look them up.

“Mrs. Jensen?” Buchik whispers.

Lynette Jensen. Brian Jensen.

Abigail Jensen.

The woman turns around and she appears frightened at the sight of Chris. “Oh, my God!”

She claps her hand over her mouth and glances over her shoulder at the bed, probably to make sure she didn’t wake Abigail with this outburst. She turns back toward us and I can’t help but notice the striking similarities between Lynette Jensen and me: the blonde hair and blue eyes, the small frame, the pouty upper lip, the exhaustion. She’s at least ten years older than I, but she’s actually quite beautiful—much classier than Tasha Singer.

She turns back to us and I can see now that she’s star struck. “Chris Knight?” she whispers as she moves toward us. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe this.”

It’s as if I don’t exist.

She takes his hand in both her hands to shake it and I’m almost waiting for her to kiss his pinky, but she eventually lets go. Chris bows his head a little as he gives her a humble smile.