“Calm down,” Keela said and placed her hands on my shoulders. “We can go to the Coombe now and find out if everythin’ is okay. The emergency room never closes, I heard Branna say it before.”

I gasped when I thought of Branna.

“What if Branna sees us?”

“She works in the delivery suite, not the emergency room—we’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure. Let’s go.”

I swallowed. “Just the two of us?”

Keela nodded. “Just you and I.”

The melody of “Just The Two of Us” flowed through my mind and it caused me to lightly chuckle and shake my head.

“Okay, let’s go before I change me mind,” I said and stood up.

Keela jumped to her feet and grabbed her phone and keys. “I’m textin’ Alec and tellin’ him we’re goin’ to get petrol and some sweets and that we might be awhile. He won’t suspect a thing.”

Uh-oh.

I winced. “Do you think lyin’ to him is a good idea? Especially after everythin’ that happened between you both on movin’ day. That’s all still very fresh; it was only nine days ago after all.”

Keela hesitated as she pressed on her phone then shook her head and gave the screen one final tap. “It’s not a good idea, but he will understand why I’m doin’ it. Kane should know about the baby before his brothers.”

I huffed. “When he does find out he is goin’ to rip me a new one for tellin’ you before him.”

Keela rolled her eyes. “Please, you can barely stand him, and I’m your best friend. If he has anythin’ to say, I’ll kindly tell him to kiss me arse.”

I laughed. It felt good—for a moment I was calm and relaxed, then I remembered the situation I was in and where I was about to go.

“You look like you’re about to be sick.”

I gripped onto my stomach. “I feel like I’m about to be sick.”

Keela gasped and gripped my arm. “Not on the new floor, it’s only just been polished and buffed!”

I didn’t get the chance to say I didn’t literally mean get sick because Keela proceeded to pull me out of her sitting room, down her hallway, and out of her house. The fast movements and quick turns upset my already unsettled stomach. I bent forward and vomited on her pathway.

“That was close,” she breathed when I was finished. “Are you okay?”

I growled as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I was good until you started swingin’ me around. What the hell was that about?”

“You said you felt like you were goin’ to be sick!”

“Because I’m in a fucked up situation.”

Keela gnawed on her lower lip. “I thought you meant physically sick.”

I glanced down at the puddle of vomit and shook my head. “I can see that.”

Keela gave me an apologetic smile then ran back into her house only to emerge a minute later with a pot full of water. She poured it over the area where I vomited and cleared it away.

“I’ll clean it properly with bleach and boiled water when we get back.”

I placed my hands on my stomach. “Let’s just go.”

Keela returned the pot to her kitchen and emerged with a cold bottle of water for me. I gargled some water and spat it out before taking several gulps.

When I was ready, we headed down the pathway and got into my car that was parked outside the Slater’s house. Keela, even though she wasn’t insured on my car, got into the driver’s seat and buckled up. I got into the passenger side, buckled my seat belt and leaned my head back against the headrest.

“I’m so nervous.”

Keela patted my leg. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see.”

When we drove off, Keela began to talk, but I couldn’t begin to comprehend what she was saying. My mind was elsewhere.

Ma, please let the baby be okay.

I prayed to my mother and to God, that I wouldn’t receive bad news when I arrived at the hospital. I prayed that everything would be okay for the baby’s sake. It worried me how scared I was about someone who an hour ago I didn’t know existed inside of me.

When my thoughts combined with my worry, I shook my head clear and glanced at Keela. She was still talking. I barely paid attention to her and let her do the majority of the talking during the drive to the Coombe Hospital. If I had to, I couldn’t guess what we were conversing about because my mind was elsewhere the entire time.

“Aideen, we’re here.”

I blinked my eyes and looked at my right. “We are?”

Keela nodded her head. “You were pretty out of it on the way here.”

I sighed, “Sorry, just doin’ some thinkin’.”

Keela smiled. “I understand. Are you ready?”

Was I?

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Let’s do this.”

Keela parked the car close to the hospital entrance then we exited my vehicle and headed for the hospital.

“Hi, erm, where is the emergency room?” Keela asked the man sitting at the reception desk when we entered the hospital.

He looked bored as hell.

I couldn’t look him in the eye. I didn’t know why, but I felt like I was somehow in trouble for being pregnant even though I was far from being a teenager with parents to disappoint.

“To your right,” the man replied to Keela and gestured with his hand. “Knock on the red door, take a seat, and wait for a nurse to see to you.”

Keela and I thanked the man then followed his instructions and walked to the right. I spotted the red door he mentioned and the rows of chairs in front of it.

“Sit down,” Keela said to me and walked towards the red door.

I sat down in the third row and watched as she reached the door and knocked three times. She turned then and walked back to me, taking the vacant seat to my right. I didn’t know how long we were seated before the red door opened and out stepped an Asian nurse in black trousers, and a white hospital shirt with a pocket watch hanging from the shirt pocket.

“Which one of you ladies wants to check into the emergency room?” she asked in an accent I had never heard before.

I couldn’t reply to her so I just raised my hand like one of my students did in class when I asked them a question.

The nurse smiled at me. “Follow me, please. Your friend can come along too.”

“Like she could stop me,” Keela murmured.

I didn’t laugh, but I breathed a little harder through my noise to show I thought what she said was funny.

Keela and I walked after the nurse into the emergency room. I stood idly by the red door Keela closed until the nurse gestured me to take a seat in front of her desk. Her desk was off to the right of the room. On the left was a hospital bed, a bunch of monitors and other hospital equipment. I sat down and breathed easy when I felt Keela’s presence behind me.

“Name, please?” the nurse asked me.

I cleared my throat. “Aideen Collins.”

The nurse got out a pink folder, and clipped freshly printed out forms into the folder. She clicked her pen and began writing. She asked for my home address and wrote it down when I called it out to her.

“Date of birth?”

I licked my lips. “February 5th, 1987.”

“Is this your first pregnancy?”

I blinked. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Planned?”

Was that really a required question?

“Well, no,” I answered, honestly.

The nurse looked up at me and smiled. “Sorry, standard questions.”

Why?

“It’s fine.”

The nurse nodded her head and looked back down at the pink folder. “Any known allergies to medication or food?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

She went on to ask a bunch of questions about the medical history of my family and myself. I froze up when she asked if there have ever been pregnancy complications with the women in my family.

“Not durin’ pregnancy, but me mother died while givin’ birth to me brother. She lost a lot of blood and didn’t receive a blood transfusion in time.”

“Sorry for your loss.”

I swallowed. “Thank you.”

After a moment, the nurse launched back into the questions she needed to ask and I was grateful because I really didn’t want to think about my mother dying during childbirth when I was in an emergency room for a pregnancy I just found out about.