Chasing Forever (13 page)

Chapter 18

Toby

Yes, I had most certainly been proven wrong in thinking that saying my private, final goodbye to Amelia was the toughest thing I had ever done. Tough barely grasped what I tried to conjure in my head and the actuality of what and how it was going to be. I had an idea, but nothing came close, not a bloody thing.

Because the instant the glass doors in the neonatal intensive care unit of the hospital welcomed me in, the very moment where I stepped in
to the stillness of the room with no sound other than the peeping noise of the machine and that tiny, domed glass sitting right in the middle of the room with lights above it that were directed at one particular thing.

The thing
—my
thing
—
was fighting for her life to survive. Her right for life.

I felt like someone had punched me
in the gut, chewed my heart out and spat it back out, poured gasoline on it and took a torch to alight it on fire.

My knees
wobbled as I grew nearer, never taking my eyes off the tiny kiss of life.

Someone came from the side, appearing out of nowhere as she started to progress forward with a friendly smile. “Mr. Watson, I’m Dr. Letty Barrera.”

Barely nodding, my eyes diverted back to the baby. “How is she doing?”

Her face crumpled. “She’s…
hanging in there. Her weight is consistent with her growth, weighing around ten ounces.”

Ten ounces?
Fuck.

“We need you to sign some papers regarding her blood work. We need to see how her liver is functioning and
how her other organs are doing. Her oxygen intake—it will basically tell us what we need to know.”

“I’ll sign them
right now,” I rasped out before signing the papers that she gave me.

She was writing something on her chart, speaking to me at the same time
. “The nurses will be checking in every thirty minutes. I will be back again to check on her in an hour. The blood results won’t be in until tomorrow morning. If you need anything—let us know straight away; we’ll try to accommodate it the best we can.”

“All right.”

“Mr. Watson?” she called out before walking out.

“Yes?” I
turned around to face her.

She hesitated a moment before opening her mouth to speak. “My work deals with facts, and every now and then, we get miracles.
Your baby’s at twenty-one weeks. The survivability ratio is less than three to five percent. Some would argue and say zero, but I believe in trying.” She was practically telling me not to get my hopes up in the kindest possible way, though she was also reassuring me that she wouldn’t give up until there was nothing left to be done.

“I appreciate that a lot. Thanks for believing.”

A half smile and a second later, she went out the door. She exited as quietly as possible, leaving me alone with the baby for the first time.

It only took a few
little steps, and I was right there next to her. She looked so tiny… so fragile. She was red-pinkish, her skin appeared to be shiny, as if it was made of plastic, and was practically wrapped around her bones with no fat at all. Tiny hands with miniscule fingernails. Cute button nose. Her eyes were covered with linen-like patches. Tubes covered her mouth, helping her lung function and the others in her body were for feeding and to monitor her stability.

“Don’t give up on me yet, princess,” I whispered into the room, silently vowing to do whatever possible to keep her alive.

Making special arrangements for the baby to be moved into a different room across the hall that had a private sitting area wasn’t a hardship. It served both the baby and I better because I could be right next to her. And with the sitting room adjacent, it was convenient for me without having the need to find a hotel room to sleep for the night. In the eventuality that something was to happen, she could be immediately well taken care of by the nurses that were stationed right outside so that at least eased some of my worries.

The difficult part was the staff asking me if I was considering cremation
for Amelia, the funeral arrangements and so forth drew me speechless. With a quick call to Amelia’s parents’ home, I was notified that they departed for Turks and Caicos earlier this morning, leaving me to deal solely with the decisions.

I had none. I wasn’t sure if there was some religious ritual that the Catholics did when one died. I had not a goddamn clue.

Shoving my phone away in my pocket, I finally sat down and took a deep breath. My body had been knotted all day from what happened. I felt exhaustion seep in to me immediately, weighing me down for a nap.

+++

I was awakened by hushed voices murmuring in the background. I continued to be in my dream state, yet my body was alert. In the back recesses of my mind I thought this was a part of a dream, that I was here, alone and hearing voices was only pure hallucination, or maybe my exhaustion was playing tricks with me.

As the seconds ticked, my brain started to
rouse. A flashback of the horrid events from yesterday—the goodbye; Amelia’s lifeless, cold body; the hospital; the double doors; seeing the baby in the incubator for the first time; and all the while hearing the nurse’s voice boom in the background. Rewind and fast-forward, it went on one more time before I heard Amelia’s voice saying,
Until we meet again, Toby Watson.
Then everything went blank, fully waking me out of my dream.

I immediately sat upright, dizzy and groggy as I pressed on the base of my nose
between my eyes, hoping that applying small pressure would help me with the massive headache that threatened to split my head open.

“He’s up,” someone whispered in a voice that sounded like Chad
’s.

My eyes cracked open, searching from left then to right,
finding Sienna, Chad and Blake standing against the glass wall that divided the new room for the baby and the sitting area. They had probably been gazing at the baby all the while thinking how unfortunate she was to be in there, and I hated the fact that she was. Even though nothing was for certain that she was my own flesh and blood, I felt some kind of kinship with her, as if she was mine already.

It was Sienna who came towards me first, followed by Chad
; Blake stayed in his spot, assessing like he always did. I just knew the man too well. We had, after all, grown up together.

“So sorry you’re going through this. It seriously breaks my heart—she’s so tiny.” Sienna sat next to me, hugging me first before she started sobbing. It somehow ended up with me consoling her.

She was a tough woman—could endure the toughest mental breakdowns a woman could ever experience. The tears in her eyes brought immediate wretchedness as I recalled what the nurse had told me yesterday.

Chad did the same, teary-eyed and all
, however he kept his distance, possibly trying to compose himself because he didn’t want to end up like Sienna.

Lucy
… she didn’t come. I knew we had a lot of differences, but this was something rather vital. Her being here would’ve at least showed that she cared. I supposed things were truly done with us now. Not even friendship… or the mere idea of it anyway.

“Have you had anything to eat?” Blake questioned, making me dart my gaze towards him.

He didn’t offer any words of comfort, not even trying to empathize on the sad situation, which was troubling me more than anything. After all, he and I went beyond years and decades of friendship—we were brothers—so his standoffish demeanor only baffled me further.

Clearing my throat, I reached out to the half-drunk bottle
d water on the coffee table, shaking my head in response before twisting the cap open and finishing the rest.

“I don’t know about you
, but I’m famished. There’s a café next door that serves strong coffee and a light breakfast,” he said in a serious manner. “Chad and Sienna can take over watching the baby.”

“Yeah, I suppose I could do with a bit coffee.” I got
up and walked right next to him, glancing towards the baby inside the glass room.

There was a nurse
within the room, writing on her chart as her eyes diverted back and forth from the screen, the baby and her chart. Everything remained the same, I noted, as I concentrated on the tiny baby inside attached with tubes, its barely developed body and its dependency on the machine to keep her alive.

“I’ll be right outside the door when you’re ready.”

Blake wanted to give me a moment, they all did, as I comprehended the situation and the challenge ahead of me. It wasn’t a question about my own capacity, if I could or couldn’t. It was merely an inevitable decision that I would fight alongside for this little baby’s battle of survival, that I would do everything in me to keep on fighting until the very end.

Spinning around, Sienna and Chad were holding each other, mute and still
, as they brought each other comfort, just as they’d done last year when both of them had gone through a tough period.

Each and
every one of us had our own battles to get through; some harder than others, some much more draining. Sienna and Chad already had gone through with theirs. Now, sadly, it was my turn.

Chapter 19

Toby

Just as he’d stated, Blake was waiting outside the door, browsing through his phone before looking up and giving me a curt nod. Side by side we walked outside the hospital and were greeted by the rays of the early morning sun as we headed towards the café.

Two black coffee
s. No sugar. Two croissants.

Just like I
had said before, we were brothers. We had grown up together liking mostly the same things—the only exception was women. Thank the gods. Well—all but one really.

“Amelia’s dead,” I said it in a matter of fact tone as I pulled the ends of my croissant and took a bite. It felt and tasted like dust on my tongue, but I ate it anyway. If I wanted to take care of the baby
as I had promised to be there for her, I had to keep up my energy. So I had no choice except to swallow the vile tasting food in my mouth, though eating was the last thing I felt like doing.

Blake took a long sip of his scalding hot coffee, as if it was nothing. Sure
, he was half Italian and thrived on cappuccinos and espressos, however even Italians had sensitive tongues. Blake’s most likely was immune to it—it was an amusing thought, but I had always wondered each and every time we’d had coffee together. Through the years of being friends and working alongside him, the same bloody thought appeared, yet I never really uttered a word about it.

“Doesn’t your tongue have any h
eat sensory system?”

That made him put his cup back down on the barrel-like table, considering me like
my question was the strangest thing someone had ever asked him. Well, maybe it was.

It was then I saw him crack his usual
, arrogant smirk before it became a full smile. “Why waste time in waiting for it to get cooler? Sometimes it’s best to take things the way they are—like they were supposed to be.” He shrugged. “Why waste time changing it? Besides, it isn’t that bad once you get used to it, like everything in life.”

He made sense
; I couldn’t argue about that. He’d always had a way with things. How he looked at life, full of wisdom and knowledge. I was sure him being on his own since he was ten-years-old after his parents’ accident had played a vital role in shaping the man that he was today. He never wasted time, opportunities, priorities or his women. He would jump in and go all out, consequences be damned. I admired him for that, wishing that someday I could be just as cautious and reckless at the same time.

“I took the liberty of tracking down her parents so they could be informed. Apparently
, the cell phone signals were lacking, so tracking them down was difficult, but I took care of it. They were informed that their daughter was in an accident, nothing more. And if everything went according to plan, they should be on their way back as we speak.”

God
, her parents. They would be completely devastated with the news. Amelia had been their world.

“
I appreciate it, mate. Thanks.”

“I also had someone look into the accident
.” He paused, weighing my reaction before continuing. “It seems like Amelia committed suicide.”

Shaking my head, I didn’t want to believe him.

“She apparently didn’t wear a seatbelt before driving off a cliff.”

He sounded so insensitive, as if he was detached from this disaster that he
’d taken part in creating, that I simply blew a gasket. “She wouldn’t—that’s absurd! She was pregnant for fuck’s sake.
Where the bloody fuck did you get this inaccurate information?
It looks like your sources aren’t doing their jobs!”

“I saw the driver himself this morning. Juan Carlos was the one who called me last night, letting me know what had happened after
the cops swarmed the house and started interviewing everyone. How did you think I found out?”

I hadn’t even thought about it. When it came to Knightly and his vast minions and sources all over the globe, I
hadn’t been a bit surprised that he was there when I woke this morning.

“What did he say?”

“After leaving your hotel last night, she asked him to drive her to a church that she frequented once or twice a week, attending a mass or doing a confession around seven in the morning.” He paused, gauging my face. “She begged her priest for a confession”

“Did you happen to know what she told the priest?”

“He wouldn’t disclose anything of use, says that he is a man of God who has vowed not to break confidence with his people. Including the ones who are dead.”

It wasn’t a doubt any longer because Blake
had just confirmed what I’d feared most. There had been inkling, but I had brushed it aside yesterday.

It greatly sadden
ed me to know that she had been aware of was doing before she’d even said goodbye to me the night prior. No wonder she had chosen her farewell words carefully. Those words were forever ingrained in my head—my memory. It would haunt me eternally, knowing that the clues had been there, staring blatantly at me, and yet, I somehow had been too naïve and too much in denial to see her full intentions.

No wonder her demeanor
had immediately changed… she was already plotting the whole time… even when we had gone to that ultrasound appointment. But if she wanted to end her life, why bother going to the doctors anyway?

She
had done it for the baby…

There was a possibility that the baby might survive and she
had wanted to cover every angle by letting me be attached to it by some sense of familiarity before she’d progressed and executed her plan of demise.

“She loved you,” I murmured. “Until her last breath.”

The man across me fell silent.

We
had both caused her pain. It was truly beyond unfortunate how she’d decided to end her life. I believed that, given time, she could’ve found happiness. Perhaps she even would have found another guy that she could fall madly in love with, and Blake Knightly would have just vanished from her heart. Sadly, she hadn’t believed in that.

“Amelia loved me in a different way
,” he broke his silence, frowning at the table with great concentration. “She loved the idea of me—the man in control, the guy sitting at the ahead of the boardroom table, the man in charge.”

She had beaten herself emotionally at first
then mentally before succumbing to the physical, ending it once and for all. The image of her dead with bruises, cuts and the deep lacerations in her arms

“She suffered living. I hope she’s suffering no longer.”

“Indeed. I pray that she doesn’t,” Blake murmured much to himself.

Most women chased him for that very reason. Maybe Amelia’s
had been the same in a sense, but hers just had gone a little deeper than the rest, Camilla Clayworth and Ivanna aside.

In my own way, I sort of understood her and why she
’d chosen the way to end things as she had. I didn’t agree with it, however I understood where she had been coming from. When you were suffering from unrequited love, you worked on trying to kill that feeling. You could attempt to bury it for a time, but when something triggered you and it sets off your emotions, there would be no escaping.

Because
, when it chose to remain, all you could try to do was hide it, lock it somewhere where no one could feel it other than you. You’d still sense it in every second the time ticked away. You’d feel it when you heard the birds chirping out in the garden, when you sipped your coffee in the morning, or when you drove your car. It was there.
In you.
Bonding with you, seeping into your system, wounding you until you were interlaced with it and it eventually dictated your ultimate purpose.

I
had been suffering along with Amelia. The only difference with me was I had chosen to accept the fact that my love for Lucy could never be buried or tamed. Accepting that unlucky fate that I would never be with her again was the wisest thing I had done. It hurt more than words could ever describe, but loving her was all I had known, therefore I would keep on loving her until there was nothing left of me except flakes and ashes on the ground.

Denial could wreck a person. It obliterate
d any sense of reasoning, defeating your purpose and goals. It fed off your rejection, your bitterness and anger. It was emotionally cruel and the worst kind of mental torture to go through. Just like what had happened to Amelia, believing things that were made up from her obsession and fascination of the man she’d loved.

By accepting the bare truth, you ad
apted with it and lived the rest of your life trying to fill the void that sat heavily in your chest. You learned how to breathe again, one breath at a time.

You carr
ied on with pride, believing that the greatest pain of all was to love and to be aware that the love was in vain.