A Gift or A Curse

Chapter 37 - Final Chapter

She fluttered her eyes open, faint sounds of people chattering were slowly reaching her ears until one voice that she missed so much woke her up fully by calling out her name.

"Val, Val. Can you hear me?"

Her eyelids finally opened and saw a blurry sight of her husband, smiling before her. His face drew closer as he planted a kiss on her forehead.

"Matt.."

"Yes, honey?"

"I'm..I was..I saw.."

"Shh..you shouldn't move too much now. Your anesthesia just worn off. The doctor said you have to stay still or your wound will open again."

She took a deep breath and nodded. She smiled to him eventually and he caught her smile with his lips. Later on she realized that Brian, Michelle, Zacky, Johnny and Arin were there too. The whole gang.

"Hey guys." She called gently and they murmured a greeting back. "Oh, where's River?"

They exchanged glances with each other.

"Who's River?"

Valerie gazed back at Matthew, his hand still didn't let go of hers as he placed them on his scruffy cheek.

"Our son."

He raised his eyebrow. "His name is River?"

"Yeah. Blue like a river."

Matthew furrowed his brows and staggered, how did she know that-

At that exact moment, a nurse walked in the room strolling an incubator and everybody was cooing at it. Matthew got up and said thanks to the nurse before she walked away from the room. He picked up the small bundle of joy and kissed his small forehead.

"Hello, sonny." He said, with adorable dimples showed on both of his cheeks. He went closer to Valerie and passed the bundle to her.

"He has blue eyes. Neither of us have it. How do you know?"

Valerie was shocked and surprised, River's eyes looked definitely like Jimmy. Only his irises weren't really visible yet since he closed his eyelids most of the time.

"A dear friend told me." She looked up to Matthew and smiled. "He looks exactly like you, Matt."

"I know. Look at his cheeks. That's definitely you though."

"Are you saying that I'm chubby?"

"Well, I dunno. Since you got pregnant you've been eating nonstop, so."

Matthew laughed and she was about to protest when suddenly the nurse earlier came in again.

"Excuse me, could you please register the baby's name and family detail at the pediatric floor?"

Matthew looked reluctant to let his wife and son go. He glanced at Valerie and back to the nurse. But then out of nowhere, Zacky volunteered to go.

"I'll go. So his name is River Sanders?"

"Yeah."

"Got it."

"Thanks Zacky! I owe you one, man!"

Zacky followed the nurse to the pediatric station until he arrived at the nurse counter where he had to fill in the forms that he didn't even know how. He hadn't filled out any forms ever since he graduated high school.

"So the full name is..River...Zachary..Sanders." he stifled an evil laugh to himself while writing down the form. But just when he was about to write the middle name down, the pen ran out of ink. He knocked on it a few times but still nothing came out of it.