Summer's Last Breath

Part 45

Sometime during the night the cramps woke me.

I bolted up in bed, biting my lip against the cry that wanted to escape. The room was dark and I reached for the lamp as another pain shot through my abdomen.

"Noah!" My heart pounded and sweat prickled my forehead.

No. This couldn't be happening. It was too soon.

"Noah!"

He burst through the bedroom door, hair rumpled and dressed only in his boxers.

"Jesus, Erin. What—" He took one look at me and the garish stain on the sheets and his eyes widened in terror.

"Noah, something's wrong. Oh God." I clutched at my writhing stomach. The blood had soaked right through my shorts, puddling on the bed underneath me. So much of it. My hands shook. Blood trailed down my fingers. I was sure my water had broken. Why else would the sheets be this wet? Hot tears streaked my cheeks.

Noah scooped me from the bed, bedspread, sheets, and all, heedless of the blood and mess and carried me down the hallway.

"Mom! Get the keys!" he yelled.

"Noah, what's going on?" Mrs. Jacobs ran from the other side of the house, pulling a shirt over her head, her face paling when she got a look at me. I turned my face into Noah's chest and squeezed my eyes closed. Maybe if I didn't look this wouldn't be happening. Any second I would wake up.

Wake up.

"Keys. Now." Noah kicked the door leading into the garage open. One arm reached out and he pulled open the door to the Bronco.

"Don't let go," I begged when he made to set me down in the back seat.

"I won't." His grip tightened and he climbed into the back seat, cradling me on his lap. "Mom. Drive."

I pressed my head into Noah's shoulder, clenching his arms as another pain ripped through me.

"Shh..." he whispered through my whimper, his arms holding tight.

"C... call my mom and dad." I wanted my mother.

"I will, honey," Mrs. Jacobs said from behind the wheel. Her voice droned into the phone she held to her ear.

I wanted Jamie, but he wasn't here. Noah was here and I clung to him, feeling his lips in my hair, his soothing voice in my ear as Mrs. Jacobs sped us to the hospital.

Somehow I registered that Noah was still only in boxers, but he didn't seem to care. He sprang from the Bronco after his mom pulled under the overhang to the entrance of the emergency room. I thought he might burst through the doors as he waited for them to open, me still clutched in his arms, his voice booming in the waiting area, yelling for help.

"Don't leave me," I said again, knowing I was asking too much. He shouldn't even be in the hospital, but I couldn't bear for him to leave me, at least until my parents arrived.

"I won't leave you. This will be all right," he said when the nurse rushed forward with a wheelchair, and he was forced to set me down.

I wanted to believe him, but it was hard to believe anything. Nothing had been all right since the day my dad had told me Jamie wasn't coming back.