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Chapter 135
Fear
David
That idiot Max Ferguson! I had warned my boss. Told him that he shouldn't leave him in charge of the project alone. Or at least entrust a team with it at the same time. But no! Ferguson was a babbler who overestimated himself but was able to persuade everyone. He talked his way out of his mistakes. He talked his way out of his bad work. he talked his way out of his missed appointments. Now it was over. My boss had finally, FINALLY, fired him. Without notice! And who had to pay for his mess? Me. Ferguson had had three months so far to fulfill the customer's order. And he basically had nothing to show for it. A tool to better compare collected data and have it displayed on a corresponding map. And what had Ferguson achieved? Various maps with different scales had been imported and the tool had a name. Fergu 1.0! No interface to import data. No link to the cards. Basically it was nothing! Now I didn't even have a month to smooth out his shit. Fortunately, I had a good team under me. Nevertheless, I would probably have to work more than sleep for the next few weeks.
Since the team meeting this morning, I had been able to forget my private situation a bit.
A bit. I knew what awaited me at home. If I still had a home. Yes, I had made the biggest mess of my life. I had been in bed with Bella! In the meantime, it had become clear to me that - if Edward could not give her a child - really only I came into question as a producer. He had to hate my guts. Just as Bella had to hate me, because I had very probably taken advantage of her alcoholic situation. And even more Sonya. The question of why had become unimportant. I had done it and would have to live with the consequences. Not remembering that night was no excuse. If it were Sonya who had betrayed me, I would hardly be able to forgive her. Yet I fervently hoped that she would.
"You go to work just for the maintenance of your children, I guess!" Naresh had said over a beer last night.
Not quite his seriousness, but the truth that resonated in it made me thoughtful.
Bella and I never wanted to be together. As a real couple. Even if Sonya would not take me back, I was not willing to do so. Bella certainly wasn't either, but I would still stand by her. After all, it was my child. Whether Bells just needed a friend or was in need of money, I would give her everything I could. That I accepted the child as mine and that I would be its father went without saying. I didn't even have to think about that. On the other hand, if Edward would forgive her, if he would return to Bella's side, if they would love each other again as before, I would let him go first. I already had four children and the fifth was on its way. And Edward would certainly make a good father. Certainly better than me. To him, there would be no such serious mistakes as accidentally jumping into bed with his best friend.
The plane landed in Portland, the nervous man next to me finally was quiet and I quickly went to baggage claim. I paid for the 'two day' parking ticket and drove to Saco.
Whenever I came back from a business trip, I brought Sonya flowers. So also now.
However, this time the gesture was limited to a single long-stemmed blood-red baccarat rose.
Sometimes less is more.
Right next to the flower store was a confectionery. They also had flowers. However made out of chocolate. Also I took one of them with me.
Sonya's sweet tooth phase should not be too long in coming. Besides, I had wanted to bring something for the kids from there anyway.
Our house lay peacefully on the side of the road.
Did I seriously expect anything else? After all, my two bullies were still in school.
I got out, took my things out of the trunk, and headed for the front door.
I was nervous, my hands were sweating, and I was shaking inside.
I had no idea what would happen in the next few minutes. I would have liked to imagine that Sonya would run into my arms. As usual. But I actually prepared myself for the opposite.
Awkwardly, I slid the key into the lock.
It still fit!
The unlocking of the lock echoed warningly inside me, and I pushed the door open a little. I heard voices and music. I walked a few steps, put my things down by the dresser and continued into the living room.
A smile appeared on my face by itself.
There they lay. The most important women in my life.
Sonya and Emma sat on the sofa while the TV presented the selection menu for the movie 'Frozen' and played it as an endless loop. Sometimes I had the impression that the movie was playing here every day. My princess as well as my own queen were asleep. On a normal day I would have kissed Sonya awake, but today I didn't dare. Not even to get too close to her.
I sat down on the high backrest.
"Sonya," I whispered, putting a hand to her cheek.
Her eyes twitched a little, just escaping her nap, before she looked at me.
Everything was meaningless.
We smiled tentatively at each other. I gently caressed over her cheek, her hand covered mine.
All was well. At the moment ...
Emma woke up. She saw me and immediately became frantic. She jumped over the backrest into my arms and was already starting to tell me all sorts of things I had missed in the past forty-eight hours. Deacon had taken away her teddy, she had colored with Mommy this morning, won a game of Memory against Edward, and - most importantly - her Advent calendar gifts. Yesterday a kerchief and today a marzipan snowman. Of course, the last one was already eaten.
Sweets did not last very long in this house.
She also asked quite nervously about my presents from Santa, but I postponed the statement until later. I also wanted to hear from the others what they had received and what I had generally missed. But I went into the hallway with Emma in my arms to give her the souvenir intended for her.
A chocolate star with her name on it.
My smooch ball thanked me with a big smack and a sweet dimpled smile.
"Can you read this?" I asked her.
"E ... e ... em ... em ... Emma!" she exclaimed.
That was more guess than read! But I was still proud. Of the little tomboy, who already recognized her own name and of her mother, who had taught her that.
Emma wanted to unwrap the star directly and nibble on it.
"After dinner and only if Mommy doesn't mind!" I immediately determined.
She peeked heartbreakingly offended.
There was my parenting problem again. But Emma couldn't always win, after all!
To distract her from the chocolate, to stick to my educational resolutions, I asked Emma to show me the kerchief. She hurriedly ran up the stairs and I still urged caution after her. However, she slowed down only a little.
I took the rose and went back to Sonya, who had been watching us over the sofa back. She smiled slightly. On the way to her, however, her expression became expressionless.
"I'm sorry, Sonya! Please forgive me!" I begged her as I knelt in front of her.
"Do you really think I could forgive you THAT easily and we could go on as if nothing had happened?" she asked.
"No! But I will never stop apologizing for it!" I replied. "I love you, Sonya! You are not only my wife and the mother of our children. You are the most important person I have in this world. I don't want to lose you and I will do whatever it takes to earn your trust back!"
"What if I demand that you end your friendship with Bella, and we move away from here?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
Something broke inside me and I let my head hang guiltily.
I was ready for anything. But not to this.
Sonya understood my hesitation.
"So not!" she stated, abandoning me in front of the sofa.
"Sonya, please," I went after her. "I'd be willing to do it in a heartbeat, but I'm not going to leave one of my children without a father. Not again!"
"That means, if Bella wasn't pregnant ..." Sonya pondered, studying my reaction carefully.
"Then I'd start looking for a new house for us right away. In Philly or someplace you'd like. And I would call Bella right now and tell her that our friendship was over. But you can't ask me to abandon my child!"
She eyed me.
Checking whether I was telling the truth. But I was! It would be difficult for me to end my connection with Bella, but for Sonya I would do it. And Bella would understand it and stick to it. Bella was just like that. But not with a child of mine!
It worked in Sonya before she took the rose from me, looking me in the eyes while doing so.
I gently took her hand in mine.
"I wouldn't ask it," she murmured, eyes lowered to the rose.
"I know," I merely whispered and continued to hold her hand, running my thumb over the back of it and pulling her hand to my lips for a kiss.
She smiled tentatively.
Emma separated us and showed me the kerchief, of course, but also the picture she had painted.
I bristled a little.
An oil painting on a little canvas. So to speak. Abstract art.
While my angel continued to tell me all kinds of things and I to her, I involuntarily watched Sonya walking through the rooms. Cleared away something here, put something down there, nibbled something from a bowl there. Again and again, as if by chance, our gazes met.
"Emma, will you please put on your shoes. We have to pick up your brothers," Sonya interrupted us after a while.
I suggested to take it from there. Or at least go along for the ride, when she shook her head.
"No, don't bother. I still have to go to the supermarket and I'm sure you want to take a shower and change," she rejected my offer. "... And check on Bella," she added in a whisper.
She smiled slightly.
"What did I do to deserve you?" I asked. After the missteps, I really asked myself that.
She shrugged her shoulders ignorantly and tried to suppress a smirk. To get to the hallway where Emma was looking for her booties, she had to pass me.
I blocked her way and put my hands to her cheeks.
"I love you, Sonya!", I said with all the love I could muster.
She sighed.
Frustrated?
"And I missed you more than my head would allow," she replied evasively, trying to worm her way past me.
I did not let her escape.
That was a declaration of love, even if it didn't suit Sonya's plans.
I smiled, pulled her into my arms and she let it happen. Not only did she not resist, her arms wrapped around me and pulled me towards her.
I was at home!
I actually had a few tears of relief.
This mood let me become brave.
I detached myself slightly, lifted my head from her shoulder and let my fingertips glide gently over her cheek. I looked gratefully into my wife's eyes, which glittered a little at the outer corners. I did not think about it, but put my lips on hers with feeling. And Sonya let that happen, too. But our kiss was unfortunately all too quickly interrupted by a sugary sweet giggle.
"Nevertheless, you're going to sleep in the guest room tonight!" determined Sonya snappishly and left the house together with Emma in a hurry.
I loved these mood swings and laughed. For luck. I was far from forgiven, but the first step had been taken.
The chocolate gifts I laid in the kitchen, picked up my bag and went upstairs.
Halfway to the bedroom, however, I took another turn.
In Sonya's painting room. If Emma presented me with a canvas, it meant that Sonya had also painted. And Sonya could paint. Some of her work was hanging in this house that I hadn't hung up - okay, I let them be hung up - because they were from my wife. They were really worth seeing.
Curious, I walked around the easel.
Yes, my wife continued to love me and would not chase me out of the house. The canvas showed two hands that playfully held each other. It wasn't finished yet, but I clearly recognized our wedding rings. I could easily make them out as our own, because they were special rings. Two rings each, which were wedged into each other by their curvature. With me, the inner one was white gold and the outer one was yellow gold. With Sonya it was the other way around, as she didn't like gold jewelry on herself in general.
I took a shower, put on some comfortable clothes, grabbed my keys and cell phone, and headed to Bella's.
I was really worried about her. Especially after Jake yelled at me on the phone last night. How did that affect Bella in her state. Now yes. As a father of soon to be five to six children, I knew that being pregnant didn't mean being sick. Bella was no more a porcelain doll than Sonya. And they were both intolerant to anyone who tried to treat them as such. Bella would endure these months gracefully and without complaint, no matter how she really felt.
I rang the bell, but nothing happened.
By now dusk was setting in, but there was no light to be seen.
Maybe she was not there. As I said, she was not sick.
It was starting to drizzle a bit, so I stopped on the porch while I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed.
Bella didn't answer, but I heard the ring.
I rang the doorbell again.
Nothing.
I became nervous.
She never left the house without her cell phone in case something happened with the twins. I still had a house key on my key ring. I constantly forgot to take it off of it. I didn't need it anymore. A spare key was with us anyway.
"Bella?" I called directly from the door.
Nothing again.
I went into the living room and turned on the light.
Oh God!
My heart stopped for a moment.
Bella was lying on the floor next to the dining table. All kinds of stuff around her. She must have tipped over sideways with the chair - in which her legs had wrapped awkwardly - taking the stuff with her. She had one arm outstretched.
Panicked, I rushed toward her.
"Bella!", I said again.
"David," she murmured incredibly softly that I barely understood it.
She was still consciousness. But for how much longer? She was chalky white in the face, including her otherwise natural red lips. Deep shadows lay under the eyes, which held themselves open only with difficulty and hardly moved. Her cheeks were sunken. Her eyes red. Her hands were cold. Overall, she looked almost skinny, although she was usually quite gracile already. How long had she been lying there?
"Don't worry, Bells. I'm here," I said, lifting her carefully from the floor and laying her gently on the sofa. "I'll call for help," I said more mechanically, already holding my cell phone in my hand.
A cold white hand seemingly forced itself onto my display and stopped me from typing the emergency number.
"No," Bella mumbled, shaking her head more poorly than well refusingly.
She wanted to say something, but she was so quiet.
I leaned toward her, holding my ear right over her mouth.
"No hospital ... Edward ... It's ... Edward's ... baby ... It's ... sucking me dry ..." she whispered.
Edward's baby? What did that mean?
As if answering my unspoken question, she raised a hand.
"... cut ... no blood ..." I understood between their indistinct murmurs and looked closer.
A deep cut on her fingertip. But no blood.
On impulse, I pulled her sweatshirt up a bit.
Bewildered, I recoiled against the living room table, which I almost knocked over with it.
Her belly. It had grown! Considerably! That was a clear pregnancy! Sonya hadn't even looked like this when we moved here. There she had been in the twelfth week.
My breathing was getting anxiously frantic, I was running my hands through my hair, trying to get a clear thought while just staring at her belly.
That was impossible!
I tried to calm myself down.
It took a while.
Bella was right. She couldn't see a regular doctor. She needed Edward.
I leaned to her again, talking to her so she wouldn't lose consciousness after all, and at the same time looking up Edward's number in my cell phone.
I dialed, but it immediately went to voicemail. Again and again.
Her arm was hanging off the side of me and her hand was probably looking for some support on my back as I leaned in and kept talking to her. I didn't let the phone stand still for a moment, but Edward's cell phone was probably off.
I didn't know what to do.
I was afraid. Bella needed help! Urgently!
"Mom!" I heard a multi-voiced exclamation from somewhere behind me, but I didn't get to turn around.
Something grabbed me from behind. I was pulled to my feet, staggered a bit because my legs had fallen asleep, felt warm hands on me, and I flew in a high arc over Bella's dining table. The impact was hard. I had dragged along two chairs, on whose backrests I slammed with my chest. I coughed and there was a terrible draft in my lungs. I lifted my head.
There the twins stood with bright red heads in front of me, quivering.
"Jake," I coughed tensely, holding tight my ribs.
"Haven't you caused enough trouble already?" he yelled at me.
I raised one arm defensively in the air while he pushed the table aside as if it were made of cardboard or Styrofoam or something.
He helped me up, which irritated me quite a bit.
Okay, I was not irritated for long. He only helped so that I was at a comfortable punching height of his fist.
My head seemed to explode as I staggered back against the glass cabinet. Something inside clanked. Blood poured from my nose as I fell to my knees and the kids came at me threateningly.
"Find ... Edward!" I stammered.
The children stopped. Silently.
"Look at her!" I prompted them both, pointing in Bella's direction while still hanging on the floor, trying to somehow get to my feet.
I lifted my gaze and stumbled laboriously toward the couch.
Bella was half hanging on the floor. Probably due to the attempt to interfere.
"Mom?" exclaimed Leah meanwhile startled, and she was with her mother.
Carefully she bedded her again on the cushion.
Jake was also considerably faster than me.
I saw Bella's lips move, but I heard nothing.
"It's Edward's baby. Only he can help her!" I explained, because I didn't know what Bella might have told her kids.
"I'm sorry, Mom!" pleaded Jake to his mother.
I finally got to Bella and put a partially bloodied hand on each of Jake and Leah's shoulders. They looked at me.
Ashamed and completely scared.
"There will be time for apologies later. You must find your father as soon as possible!" I implored the two.
They nodded and rushed toward the patio door so fast they almost ran me down.
I stretched myself a bit, something inside me cracked, and I sat down at Bella's side.
Incessantly I talked to Bella and kept trying to reach Edward, but his phone stayed off. I even tried Carlisle.
Even if he was in Alaska, maybe he would know what to do.
But his phone also appeared to be turned off.
After Bella got calmer and calmer, I started asking her questions so she wouldn't slip into unconsciousness after all.
I had absolutely no idea about medicine, but didn't one often see such situations on television? That one tried to keep someone sane until the emergency services arrived?
I asked her how she had come to think that Edward was the father and her answers, even as I understood only the key words that she was mumbling together, erased the last of my misgivings.
It made sense. After all, we had already established together that only one night was an option, and this one hadn't even been a week ago. I was right. She wouldn't know anything about being pregnant with a child of mine yet. Or at best get a headache, because it was in the middle of puberty.
She smiled as she clarified this then now.
"You smell good," Bella mumbled.
"I'm bleeding!" I returned only played nastily.
The corners of her mouth hinted at a smile.
What a small growing bloodthirsty vampire did to its dear mommy! It made her completely forget that she actually should be sick and dizzy. Its daddy would probably be proud of it! ... At least for now. What if this inner sucking - what Bella believed - was not all that this child was capable of? If Bella didn't have so much blood in her that the baby got enough? If it was as strong as its father? If it fought back against the mother's womb, which was only human?
"They will bring Edward here and he will know what to do!" I spoke, realizing myself how threatening it must have sounded.
"What ... do you mean?" she inquired, naturally.
Mentally, my hand clapped against my forehead.
Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut either. But I couldn't lie to her either. She would notice. Even now, when she was so weak that she was almost dead. And with the knowledge that I was lying to her, I would only upset her unnecessarily.
"If he sees the baby as a danger to you, he will do something before it can hurt you!"
"No!" she suddenly said absolutely clearly and looked at me. "I want this child!" she looked me firmly in the eyes.
"It could kill you!" I tried to clarify.
"It doesn't matter!"
If I thought she was close to death just now, she looked all the more determined now. Her hands flailed in front of my face until I took one hand and pressed a kiss on her fingers.
"What is wrong with you two that you ignore all the warnings?" I asked sarcastically.
"We are ... mothers!" whispered Bella.
I nodded affirmatively.
Yes, that's you.
"You will ... protect ... the child!" she still demanded, and in doing so fell back into the weakness.
"I promise!" I said honestly, but with an inner reservation.
She smiled weakly and dropped her fighting stance altogether.
A noise, which somehow caught me completely off guard, startled me.
Bella's cell phone rang.
I looked for it and found it on the floor, almost slipped under a cabinet.
No wonder. It looked like a battlefield here right now. My heart gave a little jump of relief when I read the caller on the display. Just a very small one. The fact that he was calling didn't mean he was around.
"Carlisle!" I answered immediately.
"David? Actually, I was going to speak Bel ..." he started to say, but I interrupted him.
"Carlisle. Where are you? Bella is not well!" I asked frantically.
"What do you mean not good? Edward has something on his mind, but he hasn't said a word. Alice sees him, so he has not been with Bella for a long time. Bella is not well. What's going on with you?" he sounded very attentive. And confused.
"Too long a story. Where are you?" I repeated my question.
"Call an ambulance if she's that bad!" prompted Carlisle.
"Can't. Too long a story."
"I landed in Boston earlier and am on my way home on foot," he surrendered to my terse information.
"When will you be home?"
"I'm guessing about forty-six minutes."
"I'll bring Bella to your house," I said quickly.
"Stop!", I heard, when I was already about to hang up. "It will be faster if I go Bella's than you come to our house!" objected Carlisle.
"But what she needs is not here!", I replied.
"What?"
"Blood!", I said and hung up.
I quickly ran to the dresser and looked for Bella's key so I could get through the gate over there. Then I wrapped Bella in a blanket and carried her to my car.
My lungs burned under Bella's weight.
I usually had no problems with this, but the flight over the dining table had apparently not passed me by without a trace. The legacy of Jake's hook to the chin could certainly be seen from afar. Sonya was not yet back so that I could have informed her.
I sped through the streets. I turned the rearview mirror so that I could see Bella.
The idea of calling Sonya crossed my mind during the long drive, but I had left my cell phone with Bella.
I continued talking to Bella until I finally arrived at the wooded area. I concentrated.
I had not yet driven here alone and in the dark very often. There! There was the path. As far as one could call that a path.
It felt like eternities passed, and I already thought I had gotten completely lost when the gate finally appeared in front of me and also swung open as if by a ghostly hand. Behind it, I stepped on the gas again until I recognized the house. The light was on.
So Carlisle was already there. Lucky.
I honked once before pulling Bella off the back seat and into my arms. I wasn't even five feet away from my car when Carlisle stood in front of me as if from nowhere.
"Bella, can you hear me?" Carlisle wanted to know. His face looked dismayed as Bella barely stirred. "What's going on with her?" he asked me.
"She needs blood!" was all I said.
Carlisle took her from me and disappeared with her into the house in a flash.
I let myself fall to my knees and held my hands against my upper body.
Everything in me was on fire.
I ran the back of my hand under my nose.
It had stopped bleeding.
I struggled to my feet and went upstairs to the examination room, which I knew from Sonya's regular visits here. By the time I walked through the door, Bella was already receiving a blood transfusion in her arm and various devices were running to check her vitals.
A steady beeping sound.
Carlisle wiped the blood from her neck, cheeks, and hands. He looked confused when he found no injuries underneath.
Of course not. After all, that was my blood.
"She's not hurt?" he asked, confused.
"She's pregnant," I explained, continuing to drag myself toward Bella.
"That statement creates more new questions, rather than answering any!" Carlisle now stated with suspicion.
He was probably thinking the same thing that had gone through Edward's mind as his first reaction.
"David," I heard Bella say frailly behind him.
A call for help. I felt it.
Arriving at Bella, she looked at me powerlessly as I put a hand to her cheek again reassuringly.
"You're with Carlisle. Everything will be all right!" I said, but her eyes were still sparkling combatively.
"He must not ... you ..." she tried to say, but I had already understood her.
"I'll take care of you two!" I promised my best friend.
She nodded weakly, holding onto my hand a little, and her eyes closed.
I breathed deeply.
Damn, how that pulled in my chest.
"Edward is not with her because he thinks the child is mine. Which is probably what you mean also right now," I began.
He nodded briefly, decidedly suspicious.
The corner of my mouth twitched a little.
Vampires! All of them have the same quick perception!
I searched for the finger with the incision.
"That's what we were afraid of, too. When I came back from Philly today, I found Bella lying on the floor like this at home. And she handed me this as an explanation," I continued, holding the finger out to him.
He took the hand and examined the wound.
If you could call it that.
"That's a pretty deep cut," the doctor stated matter-of-factly.
"But no blood. From that and other little things, she deduces that it's Edward's baby that's sucking her dry from the inside."
"That's why she's so weak," Carlisle mused more to himself. "The other little things?" he now prompted me again - still suspicious.
"We're not having an affair!" I clarified straightforwardly at first.
I could see by his face that this alone did not convince him.
Out of this I could not make any reproach to him. I had assumed for the past few days that it was my child.
Therefore, I reported that there was only one night when we could have had something together.
Could! "If I were the father, she'd be just a week pregnant. But her belly says otherwise," I continued, pulling Bella's t-shirt up a bit so Carlisle could see her incredible belly.
Well. Bella wasn't fat, but the bulge was just too noticeable for her usual petite figure. Especially for a week of pregnancy and the bulge, moreover, was not there in this form just two days ago.
I also explained what Bella vaguely told me earlier. That the whole process would be somehow too fast and especially that Edward already heard the heart beating.
Carlisle's eyes widened as it all seemed to become clear to him now.
So that really made sense to him as a vampiric doctor. That somehow reassured me.
Faster than I could really see, he brought the ultrasound machine closer to the stretcher and turned it on. I pushed Bella's t-shirt up the sides, so it stayed up and pulled the hem of her sweatpants down a bit, so Carlisle had enough room.
Impatiently, we both looked at the monitor.
My heart was beating up to my throat when I realized that we wouldn't be able to see anything. I knew the pictures of Sonya, so I knew what something like this usually looked like, but here there was nothing to see. It was as if the fetus was enclosed in an opaque shell.
Carlisle wiped the gel off Bella's belly, frantically pushed the ultrasound cart out of the way and began to palpate her abdomen.
"There it is," he said and continued to concentrate. Many seconds passed. "We've got to get this thing out of her!" he suddenly turned away and retrieved various materials from the cabinets, which he arranged on a rolling cart.
In addition to some gynecological utensils, I recognized, among other things, a scalpel.
Quickly I placed myself between Carlisle and the cart.
"No!" I stated categorically.
Carlisle paused in his preternaturally fast movements and looked at me in irritation.
"Bella wants this child!" I now passed on her wishes. And I would do everything to fulfill them. For the time being!
"It can kill her!"
"She knows that!"
Carlisle slumped a little sullenly.
"Why would she want to risk her life for something that could kill her?"
"She is a mother!" I also passed on Bella's reasoning. Not that I could really understand that ... I already couldn't fully with Sonya.
I turned back to Bella and scolded her in my mind.
Why are you so stubborn? Why do you want to risk your life? If she really wanted another child, there were better options. Among other things, me. Of course, not in that she went to bed with me. Rather, I thought of artificial insemination. But I recognized the answer all at once.
"I think she wants to have this child for Edward. You have always thought it impossible. A point of view he clarified vividly. By believing me to be the father and leaving Bella. But now this miracle has happened. His baby. She is ready for any sacrifice to give Edward this child!" I considered. Somewhat delayed now slowly the sand of the realization trickled into my brain. If it was Edward's baby, I was innocent! And Bella too!
I smiled weakly. I turned back to Carlisle, who had stepped to Bella's other side.
"If you want to kill this child, you have to deal with the father! And until he is here, I will stop you with all means at my disposal!" I stated and looked him resolutely in the eyes.
A strange expression slid across Carlisle's face.
Calculating. Weighing. Giving up.
He nodded.
"When is Edward coming?" he now asked in a sympathetic tone.
"I don't know. I sent the twins to find him. I have no idea where he is. His cell phone is off," I said, propping myself up on the stretcher with my hands.
Carlisle nodded and put away everything he had brought out. Instead, he took blood from Bella to examine it.
I was glad that Carlisle surrendered to Bella's pleas for the time being. I had no more strength to fight him - even if only with words. My apparently somehow damaged lungs made me a little dizzy.
"Will the blood help her?" I inquired.
"It looks like it. Her vitals have already improved," he replied, pointing to the devices as if it were obvious. They beeped happily to themselves. "Let's take care of you then," he almost smiled at me. "What happened to you?"
"Jake," I coughed a little, seemingly confusing Carlisle once again. "For the past two days, everyone assumed that Bella and I have been sleeping together. That's what Jake thought about that!" I said, pointing to my nose while holding my chest.
"Jake is even more impulsive and temperamental than Leah. Except that these traits only come out when he can't handle something any other way," Carlisle mused, pushing me into the adjacent room where an X-ray machine stood.
While he waited for the pictures, I washed up.
My sweatshirt was ruined. It was full of blood stains.
My nose was broken, which Carlisle determined even without an X-ray. However, the bones were apparently still in the right places, which is why he only stuck a little metal brace over it. He repositioned some vertebrae that had apparently been pressing against my lungs. He also re-set my jaw. Two ribs were bruised, against which he applied a tight bandage.
In the meantime, he had hung another blood bag for Bella, which was already through after my treatment. He carefully carried Bella into the neighboring guest room and first wanted to see how she took these two transfusions.
In my opinion, she already looked better. The color returned to her face and the shadows under her eyes diminished.
Carlisle told me, as we stood in his bedroom and he handed me a T-shirt and a sweater of his, that because of a medical emergency he was back here earlier today. Therefore, he would have to go to the hospital. In addition, he only had one more bag with Bella's blood type here.
So Carlisle drove and I laid down with Bella.
I positioned a crumpled pillow under my chest so that it didn't hurt and slid a hand under the blanket onto her abdomen.
With Sonya, I usually missed the little movements that the baby was already making, but with Bella, I now had time to witness this miracle of life. A fantastic feeling.
But still, my eyes quickly fell shut.
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