That Thing Between Eli & Gwen

Of course. Of fucking course! Heading out of the room, I pulled out my phone and dialed. It felt like the phone rang forever before I got her voicemail.

“Pick up, Guinevere. Pick up,” I said, dialing again, and this time I went straight to her voicemail. Fuck. This was insane. Nothing made sense. I thought back to all the times I'd seen Hannah up to this point. She hadn’t looked any different to me. She should have at least been early in her second trimester when I’d seen her last. She should have been showing.

“Dr. Davenport.”

I looked up to find that I was in the maternity ward, and an intern in pink came up to me.

“Dr. Michaels is in room 617. Dr. Milroy said she may need a C-section, but she is still holding off. Please let us know if you need anything.” He nodded to me and walked around, heading back down the hall.

I didn’t want to see her, but I needed to hear her say it. I needed her to explain. When I slid open the door for 617, I spotted Hannah laying back, her hand on her head.

She looked to me, and then back to the ceiling.

After walking up to her, I took a seat beside her bed.

“It is yours,” she said. “I have proof. I showed it to your mother. The baby is yours. I don’t need money, or—”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I tried my best to speak calmly while staring at her stomach. “You were here for how long? You could have said something Hannah!”

She snickered and her jaw cracked to the side. “Why? So you’d tell me you don’t love me anymore? That I should get rid of it so you could run off into the sunset with some other woman? Sorry but no. I was going to hide and wait and avoid you until I gave birth, and then I was going to show her to you. I was going to put her in your face so you couldn’t walk away, not without completely rejecting us. I know you. Eli Davenport, reject his family? Never. This is our chance, Eli. We can have a second chance. Me, you, and our daughter. Just think, this is what would have happened if—”

“If you hadn’t run off with another man? If we had gotten married? But you did and we didn’t. So there is no second chance and using a baby as a way to make me stay with you is low, Hannah. There are a lot of things I could call you, but I never thought manipulative was one of them—”

“What can I do!” she yelled at me, her blue eyes angrily trying to brush away tears. “I made a mistake. A mistake I will regret every day of my life. I wake up and I’m so angry at myself. I love you, Eli. This is a good thing. We were a good thing! I’m sure we can get that back.”

“Hannah—”

“So because of her, that woman, you’re going to abandon us? Have you even seen our daughter?”

“That woman is my girlfriend—”

“And I’m the mother of your child.”

“Wow,” I whispered in disgust. Talking to her was useless and honestly scared me a little. Had I really been so blinded by her before that I hadn’t realized the type of person she was? She only cared about herself. She wanted everything and she wanted it on her terms.

Once again, I found myself staring at Hannah, wondering, How the hell did this happen?

“I won’t abandon her,” I said after taking a deep breath. “No matter who her mother is, I’d never abandon my own daughter. But you Hannah...I could do with not seeing you ever again.”

With that, I left the room, but not before hearing a sob from behind me. Running my hands through my hair, I tried to breathe. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to be harsh, but she didn’t seem to understand.

This is a mess. FUCK! Less than twenty-four hours before I had been certain my life was back on track, and then this happened. And Guinevere…

I reached for my phone in my pocket when I heard someone come up beside me.

“Dr. Davenport, congratulations. Do you want to see your daughter?” A nurse smiled happily at me.

Gripping on to the phone tightly, I put it back into my pocket and nodded without saying a word.

Guinevere

I knocked on the door.

Nathaniel opened it, his hair slicked back as always and his reading glasses low on his nose.

“Gwen?”

“Stevie told me to visit the Hamptons, so surprise, here I am! Nice house. It's very…white.”