Braxton

"Mom." Just saying the word is incredibly hard.

"What's wrong Braxton? You don't sound right."

"It's Emily and Cora, and the plum." I can't believe I might not get to find out whether or not it's a girl or boy. I might not ever get to meet him or her. I might not ever get to sleep next to Emily or see her brown eyes the first thing in the morning.

I just need to focus on getting to them.

"They were in an accident." My mom gasps and calls for my dad.

"Son, what happened?"

"They were in an accident and Cora is okay, but Em was care flighted." My voice breaks at the end and I'm just lucky if I don't get pulled over at this point.

"Where can we go? Where is Emily?" I hear my mom asking what's going on in the background, but I focus on driving and choking the words out.

"Cora is at Altus with her parents and Em is at Baylor Scott & White. I checked on Cora and she is mostly okay, just a concussion, but they said Em is in critical condition." My words turn into a whisper.

"Son."

"I can't lose her and the baby. I can't. I can't do it."

I won't survive. I won't be able to function, let alone take care of Cora.

"Take a deep breath, you don't know what will happen and you need to get to her safely. Your mom and I are on our way to Cora, we will make sure she's okay and when you give us the green light we can come to Emily, okay? Just focus on getting to her."

"Okay. Okay. I'm almost there." It was supposed to take 2 hours or so to get there, but I'm on track to get there after only an hour and a half.

I hang up and pull into the parking lot. When did it get dark outside?

After parking my car in one of the lots, hopefully the visitor lot, but I don't really give a shit at this point, I run inside to the desk.

"Emily Shaw? I was told she was care flighted here. I'm her fiancé." The woman gives me a sad smile and types on her computer. We may have not been engaged yet, but it was coming and I'm pretty confident she would have said yes.

Just when I'm about to ask if I need to find someone that can get me some goddamn answers, she looks back up at me.

"She is currently in surgery, but I can ask for an update."

"Please." She types some more before calling someone and letting them know that family is here for her. She directs me to the waiting room and I call Leo.

"Hey, are you there yet?"

"Yeah, I got here a little while ago, but they said she is in surgery and I haven't gotten an update. How's Cora?"

"She's doing pretty good, tired, but otherwise fine. She is scared though, and worried about Emily." No kid should ever have to go through something like this. Hell I'm 30 and I can't even handle it.

"How's Jo, holding up?"

"She's doing okay, we are all just going a little crazy wondering."

"Tell me about it. Sorry, I just can't lose her." Once again my eyes fill with tears.

A doctor walks into the waiting area.

"A doctor just walked in so, let me call you back." I hang up on Leo.

"The family of Emily Shaw?" I stand up and rush over to him.

"I'm her fiancé and the baby's dad."

"Emily sustained critical injuries in the crash. We recently learned that she was hit by a drunk driver that veered into her lane. Her car was hit on the driver's side and spun several times. A CT before surgery revealed that she had a brain injury. We are watching this, but the main concern was internal bleeding." He pauses for a moment and I can tell there is more, but how can it get worse. The love of my life and my baby are in critical condition.

"She has internal bleeding around her heart, which they are repairing in surgery. She also ruptured her spleen, we have taken it out and she should recover from that. She also broke her right arm in three places. The baby is currently okay, but the next 24 hours are crucial. We will continue to watch the brain injury and after surgery we will put her in a medically induced coma. This will allow her brain time to heal, but there are some risks. Some patients do not wake up after we reverse the coma, this is because the brain has had too much trauma." I blink at him, unsure if I'm dreaming. How could this happen? The baby is okay for now, but Em? Brain injury, internal bleeding, broken arm. How much worse can things get?

"Thank you. How long will surgery take? When can I see her? If she doesn't wake up how will that affect the baby?" My words sound foreign to my own ears. I can't process this. They have to be okay. They have to.

"She should be out of surgery soon and then into recovery, I would guess you could see her in about an hour. If she doesn't wake up then we do a few checks for brain activity. If no brain activity is found she would be declared brain dead. We could keep her heart pumping blood and keep her on oxygen until we could deliver the baby by C-section. At that time, it would be her next of kin's choice to take her off the ventilator." I nod and he walks away.

I fall into a chair and try to process everything. I don't know how long I sit there, but my phone starts ringing and I pick up without looking at who called me.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Leo. Sorry you hung up a while ago and never called back, so we got worried."

"Sorry, you should probably sit down." I hate how broken I sound.

"No. Don't tell me..." I catch his trail of thought and hope that it never gets that far.

"No, but it's not good. Are you alone? I don't want Cora to hear this." I don't want to say it, but it's his daughter and I know he's in pain too.

"Okay I am."

"She is still in surgery, they were hit by a fucking drunk driver. She is in critical condition and has a brain injury. She also has internal bleeding by her heart and they had to take out her spleen. She broke her arm in two places and the baby..." My voice keeps breaking, but when I get to the baby I can't even say it.

"The baby is okay for now, but they said the next 24 hours are really important. They are going to put her in an induced coma. But she might not wake up." Tears are dripping down my cheeks as I speak.

"If she doesn't then she might be able to carry the baby to term, but after the baby is born she would need to be taken off life support."

The silence between us is endless, what do you even say?

There is nothing to say. She might not make it and I can't live with that.

"How are you holding up?" His voice is shaking a little too.

"I'm not. She has to be okay, they all do." It's the truth. I can't survive without them.