Page 88 of Expecting an Argument
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” Ashley asked.
I opened my mouth to try to answer her, but I couldn’t. I had no air left as pain reverberated through my body like a church bell.
Suddenly I was wet,muchtoo wet, between my legs. I shoved myself off the credenza and turned. Tyson tried to help me, but I brushed past him as I made a beeline for the bathroom beneath the stairs.
I barely had enough time to flick on the light and slam the door shut behind me before I collapsed onto the toilet. My vision blurred. Cold sweat ran down the side of my temple as pain roiled through my abdomen.
Did my water break? Were the twins coming?
Only when the pain waned for a short reprieve did I dare look down. I stared at my underwear stretched between my knees as all the warmth drained from my face.
“Ashley,” I called. “ASHLEY!”
The weathered brass doorknob turned and Ashley entered the bathroom. Her eyes widened as she looked down at my underwear—stained with blood.
Ashley’s eyes then locked with mine and her face hardened. “Don’t move. I’m calling Beau.”
I stared at the larks on the wallpaper in the bathroom as Tyson guided my breathing. Ashley had run upstairs to get me a change of clothes and provided some maxi pads to catch the blood slowly trickling out of me, but I still sat on a folded towel just in case. My head felt lighter as the seconds ticked on. The wallpaper blurred just before I could blink, so I listened to Tyson’s deep voice as he tried to help me through whatever was happening to my body.
In, out, in, out—those were Tyson’s instructions, but I couldn’t focus on my breathing when Ashley was on the phone with Beau just outside the open bathroom door.
“No! Are you insane?” Ashley shouted into her phone. “She needs to go to the emergency roomnow.”
Beau’s voice, stressed and hurried, echoed through Ashley’s speaker, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Still, a wave of calm washed over me the instant I had heard him.
Beau would know what to do, he always did.
“No—no! I am not taking her to the manor!” Ashley argued. “I’m driving her to Parkland hospital whether you like it or—”
“I WILL NOT LOSE HER TOO!” Beau shouted, loud and clear.
Something cracked within me at the panic in his voice. I had watched Beau take brutal hits on the football field and still spring up, unshaken and eager for the next play. He had stoically dissected a frog, took a kickball to the face without flinching, and didn’t even blink when going against the nastiest opponents during debate competitions, but the idea of me suffering the same fate as his grandfather made his voice break.
And I refused to let him break.
Tyson looked over his shoulder at Ashley and she glanced back at him. Then, Tyson’s brown eyes and Ashley’s green ones simultaneously found me.
“Take me to the manor,” I said calmly.
Tyson placed a firm yet gentle hand on my shoulder. “Liv, you need to go to the hospital. Beau is a nice guy and all, but he might not be in his right mind.”
Ashley hit the mute button on her phone.“Mightnot be? He threw a tantrum at your baby shower and just proposed with a ‘check yes if you like me’ note. You shouldn’t let a man who is acting like athird gradermake emergency medical decisions!”
My hands stretched around my belly, feeling the tiniest movements from both Annie and Brady. My babies were OK, but they needed to stay that way.
I had to get them to their dad.
“If Beau wants me at the manor, he has a good reason,” I said softly. “I trust him to take care of us.”
Ashley’s mouth tightened as she looked down at me.
“Ashley? ASHLEY!” Beau shouted through the phone. “Answer me in the next three seconds, or I’m getting back in the truck and taking her myself!”
Ashley unmuted her phone with a scowl. “Keep your overpriced pants on! We’re coming!”
Tyson helped me off the floor and I leaned on his strong arm as I shuffled through their house.
“My mom,” I gasped through a contraction as I walked out the front door. “I can’t…leave Mom behind.”
