Never Leave My Side (A Teen Pregnancy story)

Never Leave My Side

There was no such thing as 'good luck' with the Evermores. And if it did exist in that rare moment of time, it was only for a split second and for a rogue and possibly benign reason.

An ambulance picked up Gabry to take her to a civilian hospital, I called her parents, and now we were just waiting on the doctor to come in and explain what the hell had happened. Gabry was in and out of consciousness, but she wasn't delirious. At one point, she told me she was just in pain and very tired. Not that that made me feel any better.

"Storm... did you tell Darry what happened?" She asked, during one bout of alertness.

I squeezed her hand and nodded. "I did. I stopped in before I left to follow you over here."

"Did you tell him I'm sorry?"

I frowned at that. "What do you mean?" My thumb was gently stroking against the back of her hand as I listened to her.

"I didn't mean for this to happen... we were supposed to visit him... nothing was supposed to go wrong." She whispered, her voice cracking on the last word.

I was out of my chair and standing by her side in an instant. "Gabe..." I started softly. "None of this is your fault. He understands."

She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "...But if something happens to the twins it is - "

"Gabry, you listen to me." I said gently, but firmly. "None of this is in your hands. You can't control what's happening. This is just some freak illness. You and the twins will be okay." I brushed the bangs out of her face.

She nodded slowly and then swallowed before wiping away the tears again. She closed her eyes and drifted back off to sleep. I sighed and then sat back down in my chair.

It felt like minutes were dragging into hours. I dozed off for a few minutes around the same time she'd done so. It had only been a couple hours since the seizure, but after the adrenaline started to wear off and I found myself feeling increasingly exhausted. Nurses were in and out of the room. At one point, there was an ultrasound technician in there to check on the twins. She had frowned and left the room quickly, but she didn't say anything to me or Gabry before doing so.

"Storm... Storm... Jason!"

I snapped awake. "Huh? What?" I asked, immediately sitting up straighter and looking at Gabry. She pointed to the corner of the room.

It was the doc.

"Oh. Hi..." The look on his face prevented me from wanting to ask anything. It didn't like anything we were going to be told was going to be good.

He nodded in acknowledgment to me. "Mr. Storm." He paused and then looked back to Gabry. "I'm afraid... I have some unfortunate news for you, Gabriel."

If my heart stopped momentarily, I could only imagine what was going through Gabry's mind.

Her voice was weak as she tried to tell him to continue. "G-go on..."

"It appears that you have a condition called eclampsia, normally diagnosed a little later in the third trimester. You are exhibiting some severe symptoms of this: high blood pressure, abdominal pain, vision loss, and seizure." He paused, waiting for a sign from Gabry that he could keep going. She did. "The ultrasound you had earlier showed signs of trauma to the babies. It's possible that some of the damage came from when you had the seizure. Other possibilities of trauma are from the eclampsia itself - it, at this point, is life threatening to Miss Evermore and the twins she is carrying."

"So what do we do?" I spoke up this time, Gabry had looked away from the doctor and didn't appear to be able to talk. Her shoulders were shaking violently and I was standing by her side in seconds.