coffee on lexington avenue | phillipa soo

eighteen

Evie keeps an arm around me the whole time as we enter the hospital.

She has to let go of me, albeit hesitantly, to talk to the doctor attending to me. To make up for it, she helps Olivia up onto the hospital bed they'd put me in, letting the sweet little girl cuddle up close to comfort me in her absence, both of us sitting up on the bed, pressed close to each other.

Meanwhile, Evie answers every question the doctor has, tells him everything that happened to me tonight in a rushed, panicked voice.

Just when he starts asking even more questions, she appears to have finally reached her absolute last straw, and she finally snaps at him.

"Oh, for the love of god— I've told you she's been feeling cramps in her stomach. What the hell else could be more important than giving her a damn ultrasound right now?" She shouts, the room practically shaking with the intensity of the anger in her voice. "What, you need to ask me five hundred more questions just for you to get it through your thick skull that you need to check on her baby? You've got to be fucking kidding me!"

I feel my blood grow cold with fear, my heart racing with anxiety— every raised voice tonight was hard for me to bear, it was so reminiscent of Steve and his anger. One hand subconsciously drifts to the little bump on my belly, my chest aching with desperation. Please, please be okay in there. 

Olivia looks up at me worriedly. "Pippa? Are you okay?" She presses herself closer to me, as if to protect me from the shouting. She knew, more than anyone, how painful it was to have to hear yelling like this when all you want is a bit of peace. "Mom gets scary protective like this sometimes. But it's just cause she cares so much. Please don't be scared. She's going to make sure everything's okay, I promise. Mom always does."

I can't speak, my entire body frozen with fear as we listen to Evie argue with the doctor some more. I tried to believe her— but Im channeling every bit of my energy into trying not to cry, my head still pounding, my vision blurry, the occasional cramping in my stomach a stark reminder of what I might have lost today.

I keep repeating the words quietly in my head, almost like a desperate prayer: please be okay please be okay please be okay

I tried to understand it— I knew Evie's anger at Steve was just taking full rein with her now— that and her visible worry and frustration. She's throwing all this blistering rage at anybody who dared come close, not knowing where else to put it. But I didn't want to have to hear it anymore, not when her anger reminded me so much of him, not when her panic only made mine increase tenfold.

The doctor quickly orders an ultrasound from a nurse nearby, Evie listening in with a raised eyebrow. The nurse goes off to do as she's told, but just as the doctor himself is about to leave, Evie gets pissed off all over again.

"Excuse me, but is that it? I explicitly mentioned that she hit her head against the wall so forcefully she was struggling to walk straight, didn't I?" She snaps, so angry that her chest heaves with heavy breaths. "Does that not ring any alarms for severe head trauma? Frankly, I find it baffling that a CT scan for a thorough assessment of her head hasn't been considered for her case. What if there's internal bleeding? If you—"

"Mom, stop it." Olivia says loudly, trying to calm her mother down, mindful of how I had cowered in my place now at the sound of Evie's raised voice. "Come on. Come here. Please."

Evie softens only for a moment to return to us. The doctor even looks scared. He takes this moment without Evie's close attention to leave. I didn't doubt that he was off to order everything Evie had just gone on about.