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Skylar chewed the skin around her thumbnail. “The doctors said everything is still okay with the baby.”
“But Miri? Is she okay?”
Gabe shook his head, his face pale. “No. We have a birthing suite at a private hospital. This isn’t supposed to be happening yet. I need to speak to whoever is in charge. It’s too soon. This isn’t good enough.”
Skylar took Gabe by the arm. “Miri is okay. It’s okay. Calm down. I’ll take you to her.”
I made to follow.
Skylar flashed me a glance. “Only one birthing partner allowed. Wait here. I’ll be back.”
Skylar shepherded a frantic-looking Gabe away. They disappeared together down the corridor. My knees buckled and I sagged into a hard green plastic chair. The din of the crowded maternity waiting room filled my ears as I tried to relax and slow my heartbeat.
“Reece?”
My heart stuttered at the familiar voice. I looked up to see a petite blonde woman in blue scrubs. For a moment, I could only stare at her. Her pale yellow hair flowed from a center part down to her rounded chin—a much shorter style than when I’d last seen her.
Megan.
I blurted the first thing that came to mind. “What are you doing here?”
“Maternity secondment.” Her intelligent eyes met mine from behind her delicate glasses, and she hitched a blue folder under her elbow. “I thought you left the hospital?”
“I have. I’m here with Miri. She’s in labor.”
Megan’s high arched brow soared upward. “I didn’t know she was pregnant. Congratulations.”
No. You wouldn’t know… or care.
My stomach felt like it was being scratched with sandpaper. “It’s early. She wasn’t due for another month…”
This hospital held nothing but pain and trauma: all the times we’d been in and out with Dad as kids, the horrible time after Mum’s stroke, coming to work day in and day out trying to help so many wounded people. I’d been drowning. Now, all those horrible memories flooded back. I’d thought I could help my patients, but I’d been flailing and stressed for so long. For the sake of my mental health, I never wanted to come back here. It had taken time away to realize that.
Megan flashed a tentative smile and dropped down next to me. “Miri and the baby will be fine. It’s a great team here. They’ll take care of her. Women have been giving birth since the dawn of time.”
The chatter of the waiting room filled the silence. I gazed at the ambulance bay outside. Heaviness centered in my stomach. I couldn’t stand being back here. I’d hated it at the end. Really fucking hated it.
I felt Megan’s eyes burning into the side of my head. “How have you been?” she asked softly. “I heard you’ve been working at a football club?”
She wrinkled her nose and her smile relaxed into a grin of amusement. Was that funny to her? I supposed it was. Megan had always been focused on a career in medicine and climbing the greasy pole. She’d never see any appeal in changing direction and trying something new. Whenever I’d talked to her about my garden or the book I’d always wanted to write, her eyes had glazed over. She saw me as a failure. Maybe she was right. I’d hardly made a success of my career. The hospital had been too much and then I’d trampled all over my own ethics.
I kept my smile bland. “Not so bad. How have you been?”
A neat row of ambulances sat in the bay outside. People darted around the fountains outside under a rain-choked sky. I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to look at Megan. The sudden onslaught of emotion from being back at the hospital, being back with the woman that I’d loved and that had let me down, overwhelmed me.
Megan cleared her throat and she darted a glance at me. “I bumped into Frankie the other day. She said you’d met someone…”
I sighed. “That was Frankie being Frankie. You should know better than to listen to my siblings.”
She chewed her lip and observed me through lowered lashes. “So, you haven’t met anyone?”
Skylar flashed through my mind. Where was she now? Why were they taking so long? Thank God she’d been with Miri and got her here safely.
Megan smoothed her scrubs over her thighs. “Do you want to get a coffee? I was about to go on a break. We could talk?”
Talk about what? We’d spent months and months talking. We had nothing left to say to each other. “I’d better stay here. In case there’s news.”
“When Frankie told me you’d moved on, I realized… Well…” Awkwardly, she cleared her throat. “I’ve been meaning to call. I miss you. I’ve been wondering if maybe… if there was any chance we could give it another try…”
