Chapter 39
✉
You know that moment when your entire life flashes you by in a second? You close your eyes and suddenly you see all the memories, the good and bad times you've had with all your favourite and most hated people. It's the same second that you realise that you might be gone forever and those people will never get to see you again. It's not about you, although it is you disappearing, it's about how they will feel. How death will affect them, because at the end of the day, they are the ones who has to live with that pain.
They are the ones who will stay when you're gone.
The sirens were loud and they echoed through the roofs among the city. It never rained in Los Angeles but the sky was suddenly filled with dark clouds, setting the same mood Justin were experiencing throughout the entire neighbourhood. Nobody had said anything but everyone knew, they all saw it happen. It came as a shock, everybody was screaming for help and multiple people were calling 911 at the same time.
Everyone except for Justin.
He stared at his beautiful girlfriend, her face suddenly covered in red painting. That's how he wanted to imagine it to be, in his eyes, it wasn't blood. It couldn't be. She wasn't hurt, there was no way someone as strong as Sierra could get hurt from a car crash. He was standing by himself, not even blinking as the people surrounding him were acting chaotic. His eyes weren't crying, they were just staring. Staring into space, his body as frozen as a stone. A stranger called his name from afar, his face being well too recognised among the crowd that had been created from the horrible incident, but his mind was unreachable. His brain was emptied on all thoughts yet all he seemed to be doing was thinking.
"Sir?" Someone said again, tapping on his shoulder only to realise that Justin were not to be talked to, "The ambulance is here," the person continued anyway and she was trying to speak with a calm voice in order to not worry the man who clearly was involved with the hurt woman, "I think they'd like to talk to you."
She motioned to a car that was standing further away, Justin's eyes examined every move they made. His jaw clenched when he saw them touch Sierra, only the thought of them hurting her further was upsetting him yet he seemed to not be able to move. His feet tried to take a few steps forward but they were glued to the street underneath him. With his fists crumbled together as he began to slowly process what had happened.
The car that had hit his girlfriend had seen her on the street. It drove away from the scene just as quickly as it hit her. Justin had personally witnessed the car drive around the corner of the parking lot slowly but sped up once they saw Sierra walking on the same street. He knew that what had happened had been intentional and his mind was raging with all types of revenges. His mind made up a mission, finding the one who hurt Sierra and hurt them back.
Although his plans were interrupted by a police officer, knocking lightly on his shoulder. Justin felt a surprised reaction coming out of him at the sight of the uniform working people, the time feeling timeless to him when in reality it had already been ten minutes since the scene took place. They informed him about his girlfriend being taken away to hospital, using her full name and speaking with a sadness that made him think that she was already lost. He barely listened, those words being way more than enough for his feet to move forward and towards his car. He suddenly felt an urge to get away from the crime scene as fast as possible.
Walking past where the whole incident had happened, where a car should be standing still with a confused and horrified driver, he noticed the bloodstain on the ground. People were already trying to wipe it away, cleaning the streets as if that was supposed to make the whole thing go away.
Justin heard people call for him but nothing was really getting to him. All words cut through him like it was comedy, he wasn't able to process the words seriously. All he could think was that it was a joke, some sort of fucked up prank someone was trying to play on him. The people that had been around when the crash happened had grown and more people recognised Justin than before. He already knew that this would be written all over the media and he knew that for some reason, he would get part of the blame.
Justin barely had to try to ignore the shouts and screams that were being heard loudly from everywhere around him, his mind was already gone and he couldn't think straight of what anyone was saying. All he was imagining was the worst of all scenarios and he knew that if he wanted to be there and see her one last time, he didn't have much time to get to the hospital.
The image of Sierra being thrown on the street, pushed to the ground by the reckless driver that knew exactly what he was doing, was repeating itself in Justin's mind. He couldn't remove the sight he had taken part of, knowing that it would probably haunt him forever.
It only took him a couple of minutes to get to the hospital, his speed being more put on than usual. He had never reflected on the benefits of having a fast car until this day, causing him to believe that his choices of cars were always a priority. If he hadn't picked a luxury car that could take him from place A to place B in less than a few minutes, something that would normally take at least fifteen, he wouldn't have made it to be with his girlfriend for what he believed would be the last few minutes of her life. He didn't care about any speeding ticket that he could get and he knew that if the police caught him now, he had a great excuse to use.
"I need to see Sierra Jones," Justin spoke with a fast speed once he caught up to the front desk of the hospital's reception, "Right now, I don't have any time to waste."
"Miss Jones is currently being treated with surgery-"
"Where is she?" He cut the blonde-haired lady off, not caring about where Sierra was or what she was doing. All he needed to know was that she was okay and that he could hold her for one last time, that was all he asked for.
The middle-aged woman suddenly seemed a bit annoyed with the upset man's behaviour, kindly asking him to go sit down in the waiting room until she told him it was okay for Sierra to have visitors. Justin refused to leave, repeating the situation and how much of an emergency it was, over and over until the lady finally agreed on letting him inside a different waiting room. A waiting room that would be closer to Sierra's surgery room. She mentioned that there was no way he could go inside during surgery and although Justin was stressed about not seeing her again, he understood that part and respected the hospitals rules. He sat down exactly where the receptionist had mentioned and just... waited.
The smell of the waiting room caught Justin's interest, it was a mixture between alcohol and pure sickness. Something like the flu. He almost felt sick by just inhaling the air surrounding him. His hand went to his mouth, pressing against it gently in order to try and stop himself from inhaling the infected air. He knew it was pointless, since he did have to breathe at one point anyway but the try of holding his breath was more than just for breathing purposes. In a sick and twisted way, he wanted to try and feel what Sierra possibly could feel like right now. He wanted to try and see how long he could hold his breath for, to try and understand what his girlfriend must go through while not being able to breathe.
So, he did just that.
He held his breath until he felt like he was going to pass out, took a few breaths in-between and then did the same test again. Justin noticed that the more he tried, the less he could hold the breath in. It was like a little bit of it vanished for each time he didn't breathe. He imagined that was exactly the way Sierra was experiencing right now, trying to feel every single emotion go through his entire body and thinking it was doing the same to her. In reality, he had no idea that she was actually not fighting for her life, just for the pain.
It wasn't life threatening, even Sierra herself could feel that. She was almost breathing completely normally, the doctors surrounding her making sure that she knew they were taking care of her and that she would be fine. She only nodded to whatever someone told her, until they mentioned that they were going to anaesthetise her and she somewhat panicked. Although she complained and shook her head multiple times, saying that everything was fine and that she didn't need to go through an actual surgery, the doctors were quick to decline her requests and do whatever the opposite she said. She screamed out loud when they put the machine around her head, a scream that Justin could've sworn he heard while sitting outside and waiting for her.
. . .
Hours passed and Justin was still waiting impatiently outside the surgery room, staring intensely at the door in hope for it to open up and reveal a beautiful, healthy looking Sierra. He knew that wasn't going to happen but he still wanted to imagine it like that. He had still not gotten a single bit of information about how he was doing but he wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to know.
In the meantime, the police had been there multiple times and asked if Justin could answer some questions. He hadn't really listened, the interest of talking to them not really existing. In a way, the police men had been very understanding of his incorporation and they mentioned that they could come back later. Once they did, the same thing happened and Justin refused to answer any questions. All he picked up on was the fact that they also believed someone purposely put down the gas pedal once they got a sight of Sierra. That was all they knew and as long as they didn't have any other valuable information, Justin really didn't care.
"Sir?" A familiar voice was heard in Justin's ears and his head instantly flew up in interest as he connected the voice to belong to the woman in the front desk, he didn't know why but he could feel his heart start to beat nervously while realising he had no idea what was coming next, "Sierra's surgery is done, they have moved her to her original hospital room. They moved her from the other exit," the woman pointed to a door further down and Justin realised that he must had been staring so hard at the door in front of him that he never noticed, "She's taking visitors now."
He had never heard such words sound any better and he also knew that if the surgery was done and she was allowed to take visitors, that was something positive. It meant that the surgery must have done well. Justin barely cared for the lady when she tried to explain what room he was supposed to visit, he had no idea where he was going but for some reason, he felt like he knew exactly where she was.
Justin hurried to the room number he had been told, searching the walls until he found the exact same numbers as he remembered the woman mentioning. He could feel himself gulp, the nervous butterflies apparent in his stomach as he imagined the worst on the other side of the door. When he finally found enough courage to enter the room, he was met with a much lighter view than what he had imagined from the start.
Sierra was laying in front of him and sure did she look weak with some tiny scratches across her face but there were no blood visible and she still looked okay. It almost seemed as if the blood Justin had seen on the street didn't come from her, he couldn't find one spot on her body where it would have emptied from.
"Hey," Sierra could feel her own body wanting to slowly crumble into pieces but she held up pretty strongly as she tried to speak with a normal voice, in order to not get Justin worried. She wanted to act normal, knowing that this would take a toll on him if she didn't.
Justin stared at her for a moment, "Hey."
"I'm alive," Sierra shrugged and smiled innocently, the joke somewhat annoying Justin but since he didn't know how else to react; he ended up smiling as well.
She watched him shake his head, not understanding what was going through his mind as she tried to come up with a way to explain to him what the doctors had told her, only a few minutes before he entered the room. The words she had spoken of being alive was cutting deep holes into her, knowing that there was a truth that would end up shattering her boyfriend's heart into pieces. She didn't want to have that responsibility.
Justin could sense that there was something off about her, something different than the fact that she had risked her life in a car crash earlier the same day. He could tell that she wanted to say something, that she was holding it back. "Are you okay?" He asked, wanting the honest truth to come out yet he knew that wasn't the question to ask right now, "I mean, obviously not-" he stopped himself, looking Sierra up and down and seeing the white cast on her leg, "that was a dumb question."
"It's okay," Sierra giggled as a response, sending shivers down Justin's back. He tried to remember the last time he had seen someone this positive after almost dying but he couldn't figure out a single person. She was one of a kind, he loved her for that. "I'm not okay, though," Her words quietened down and it was now more than obvious that something was wrong, "Something happened."
Justin wrinkled his nose, trying to think of something other than the car incident that could have happened in-between that he saw the crash and drove to the hospital but no scenario appeared in his mind, "What happened?"
"The doctors-" Sierra stopped herself mid-sentence, not knowing how to phrase her words, "They informed me about something."
"Stop calling it something, tell me what's going on Sierra," Justin demanded, now sitting down at the end of her bed, grabbing her hand as if that was supposed to show support until she finally said the words and he realised that this wasn't something about her. It was something about them.
"I was pregnant."
Justin sat quietly, his eyes narrowing at the same time Sierra said the words. His mind tried to think of how the possibility of that could have happened and nothing was making sense in his brain, knowing that when he last visited the hospital; he was told he could never make anyone pregnant.
His jaw clenched as he realised what this meant, trying to not sound too harsh considering the fact that he knew Sierra had just been through something horrible, "Who did you sleep with?"
On the inside, he was raging and wanted to yell at her. He wanted to tell inform her about how much she had fucked up by cheating on him, that the possibility of him making her pregnant was a legit zero. She had been unfaithful to him, he was so certain of it. He suddenly hated the fact that she had the privilege of laying in a hospital bed right now, the car crash in her baggage, knowing that was the only thing that was keeping him from yelling down her throat. He wanted to leave yet he didn't have the heart to do that. He couldn't do something as cruel as that, despite what.
At the same time that Justin was trying to keep himself calm, a confused Sierra was staring at him with intense eyes. She could tell that he was extremely upset and she immediately blamed herself for telling him in such a stupid environment. The only reason she had told him was because she wanted him to know as fast as she did, wanting to share the pain with him. Justin's reaction was confusing to her, his question not making sense in her head. Why would she have done that?
"I don't understand?" She whispered with a low voice, "Why are you mad at me?"
"You slept with someone else!" Justin raised his voice only enough for Sierra to furrow her eyebrows together and try and sink down into her pillow behind her, wishing for nothing but to disappear through the earth, "I can't make you pregnant, you know that. That wasn't my baby."
Sierra's mind finally caught up with what he was talking about and she realised what he meant, the confusion from his side making a lot more sense to her and she almost smiled when she spoke her next words, "You can. The doctors said that there's always a possibility and that it's a miracle if it happens. We created a miracle."
It was like something clicked in Justin's head and his lips burst into a smile. His hand landed on Sierra's stomach and with excitement, he slowly traced his fingers along the hospital clothing piece that were the only thing from keeping him from touching her skin directly. He wanted to feel it, imagine the baby that grew stronger inside her for each day. His mind couldn't really understand how something like that could've happened, when he was certain that they said it would never happen, but he wasn't complaining.
That was until Sierra placed her hand on top of his and looked confusingly up to him, his excitement scaring her and once she saw his eyes meet hers, she knew that he hadn't understood what she said.
"It's not there anymore," She whispered only loud enough for him to hear, not really wanting to be the one to break all these news to him at once, "I told you, I lost it."
Sierra imagined all the emotions that Justin had been feeling only the past few minutes, all information being like a rollercoaster in itself. The event that had gone down had definitely affected Sierra but suddenly she felt like the focus was on her boyfriend instead, especially seeing the previous excitement completely die in his eyes and be replaced with rage instead. He violently stood up, surprising her with every move he made. She flinched, not being used to the sudden movement since laying still on a bed for multiple hours.
"You lost my baby?"
Sierra's jaw almost dropped when she repeated the words he had said to her, in her head, "...What?"
There was a disappointment coming through in her voice, something that only a person who really listened would be able to hear. It was hidden as if she didn't want anyone to know. Deep inside, Sierra knew that Justin's reaction shouldn't be taken personally and that this was an extremely heavy topic for him. She knew that she had to keep in mind that this was a shock to him and that his reaction was one that he hadn't truly been able to process through.
She stayed quiet, watching him curse underneath his breath as he paced back and forth in the room. His mutters weren't directed towards anyone specifically but for some reason, Sierra still felt like he was directing them towards her. She felt pretty useless in her bed, not being able to stand up in order to sooth her upset boyfriend. All she wanted to do was hug him, tell him that it would be okay and that it wasn't meant to be. They already had Jennie, she was more than enough to start with. They weren't meant to be four at once, otherwise this wouldn't have happened.
"I can't believe you-" Justin stopped himself, muttering something else underneath his breath and although Sierra couldn't hear a single word he said, she made up all sorts of endings of that phrase, "this isn't happening."
"I'm sorry," Sierra whispered out, not sure if he could hear him but once he stopped dead in his tracks, completely freezing as her words made it through his ears, he realised he was in the wrong.
Justin went back to sitting beside her, "It's not your fault."
"We'll have Jennie," Sierra reminded him, her words causing Justin to remember how he had completely forgotten about their adoptive child and suddenly he felt stupid for doing so. He knew that they didn't need more than one child per once, starting with one was more than enough and blaming Sierra for being in a car crash that he was certain was planned by someone wasn't exactly either her fault, "She's gonna be just ours."
"I know," Justin nodded at her words, the idea of creating a child was still an unbelievable feeling to him and he didn't want to let go off the pain although he knew it was for the better. He wanted to remind himself in the future how it felt to be so close but then losing it on the last string of hope. It wouldn't happen again, it was a one in a million type of chance. They wouldn't be able to do that again, "I think we should-"
"Sierra Jones?" A nurse dressed in a light blue dress entered the room and her voice was filled with worry that terrified Sierra and Justin both, "We have to remove the rest of the remaining pieces."
Sierra didn't have to ask what she meant, the stinging in her chest increasing heavily at the sound of it. She was terrified of what was going to come out of her, not knowing how they wanted to do the removal. All she could imagine was blood and human baby pieces. Sierra had a feeling it wasn't that bad, she was probably just being dramatic as usual, but she still couldn't help but imagine what it would feel like to see a lifeless body being lifted away from her.
Justin was slightly more confused, his mind filled with things from the past shaky twenty four hours that the baby thing was not being connected to his head. He watched them take Sierra's bed and roll it towards another room where the doctors were quick to mention that he wasn't allowed to be in. His annoyance grew bigger and he tried to sneak into the room when the nurses couldn't see but was quickly thrown out again by angry hospital workers.
Once again, he found himself stuck outside a waiting room.
Inside the room, Sierra and the doctors were taking things slow. They informed her what was going to happen and how they were going to do the rest of the removal. She nodded to everything they said even though she didn't really understand a word of what they were speaking. She had never understood the hospital language, she barely knew what all the parts of her body was called.
All she processed was that they had to do an ultrasound in order to find the rest of the pieces and that they then would take a tool that looked like a huge pliers and try and find where they had previously located the parts. They also mentioned that it would hurt which caused Sierra to flinch in advance.
The cold and thick cream hit Sierra's stomach and she quivered due to the coldness. It was like the nurse barely cared about her reaction as she pressed harshly against Sierra's stomach. Another nurse got the second tool, lifting up Sierra's clothing until she was laying exposed for the three nurses that was present in the room. She shifted uncomfortable as she tried to remind herself that these were professionals.
Once she felt the quite thick tool touch her bare opening, she instantly felt a strange feeling go inside her body. It was unusual to be naked in front of three strangers but it was extremely unusual to have an item inside of you in the meantime. She cursed quietly when she felt the cold tool go inside of her, Sierra could also feel that they had placed some sort of lube on top of it to make it glide in easier. She couldn't remember the last time she had been this uncomfortable.
"Can you find that?" One of the nurses pointed at something on the screen and the second nurse nodded, mentioning something about it being close and Sierra felt the item move inside her. She huffed, a little piece of her body moving upwards which only made her receive a glare from the third nurse. They wanted her to lay still, she had been told so repeatedly, "Good, take that with you as well."
Somewhere around there, Sierra faded out from their conversation and tried to think of anything but that they were removing a dead baby from her tummy. She imagined Justin waiting outside, worried like usual, and her teeth bit her lip lightly. In a way, she was feeling bad about having to be the one to have told him about the situation but it was of course better that it came from her than anyone else. She just hated to hurt him and to see him upset was one of the worst feelings in history, in her opinion.
"Oh my God! Wait!"
Everyone froze, looking at the nurse who was examining the screen closely, dragging the ultrasound object around my stomach slightly harsher. Sierra didn't understand why but she could tell that something was wrong, instantly, she imagined her body having even more flaws after the crash but once she found out what had happened, her heart started beating faster for a whole different reason.
"There's something moving in there," The nurse said, pointing at the screen and all three of them squinted their eyes in order to try and see what the nurse was talking about, "See that? That's moving-"
"It can't be-"
"Shit," the nurse cursed and suddenly, as if everything happened in the matter of two seconds, Sierra found herself in the middle of a chaos. The three nurses were running around, screaming and yelling at each other, shouting about the injured girl having to go back to surgery. They moved Sierra's bed fast and one of the nurses ran out into the hallway to try and inform a doctor of what was happening, instead, she was met with a confused and demanding Justin.
"What's happening? Is everything alright?" He had a worry in his voice that the nurse found sweet, knowing that the woman they were treating clearly meant a lot to him and that if she didn't, he wouldn't have been sitting here outside for such long time, "Why are you looking so panicked?"
"Miss Jones needs to go back to surgery," The nurse said quickly and almost ran past him, looking back to him to shout across the hallway, "...We found another baby."
And with those words, she left him alone with a shocked expression.
//
WWOOOOO, I'm back y'ALLL *cheer with me*
How did we like this chapter? It's written in a different POV (obviously) because I wanted both Sierra and Justin's reaction to the situation but I'm not very good at writing in a third perspective so *bites lip* what did you guys think? is it okay written? is it crap???? what's your opinion?
hmmmm do you guys think the second baby is going to be alive and well or??? ?what do you guys think???? I want to know EVERYTHING.
To move on from the story (lmao now probably half of you already left), I have some exciting news (very well-needed news). I will be going to Barcelona (mainly for shopping TBH) in less than TWO MONTHS !!! I will be there from June 4 to June 8. I am SO excited. I can't wait. literally, I really need that vacation so badly right now. my life's been hell this past month so I just.... UGH I CAN'T WAIT !
anyone who's been in Barcelona before? What's your best restaurants, shopping-streets, stores not to miss out on... and so on... ???? I wanna know everything !!!!
Okay, now that I'm done fangirling about that, we can go back to talking about this chapter
- IT'S 5K WORDS LONG. How do we like that??? That's almost 2K more words than I usually write so I would love to hear your thoughts on that, what you guys prefer etc. Long/shorter chapters? What's your cravings sistersssss
- UHHHHH... nope that was all my questions
Feel free to follow me on twitter and come discuss Jierra (or just life) with me: maybellinepvris
I really look forward to updating the next time BUT I am going to warn you; I actually have three finals next week (in math, nature and songwriting) so that miiiiight take up all my time, we'll see how long it'll be until the next update but just thought I'd warn you guys since this time I know IN ADVANCE I'll be extremely busy !! :)
I love you guys anyway and I hope you love me *bats eyelashes*
(also I'm totally overheating right now and feel like I'm gonna faint??? I totally think I have a fever oh my god, I'm gonna go quickly jump to bed and sleep away the fever so I can go to school.... or whatever....)
BYE