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Please call me back. We’re at the hospital, and your dad is in surgery.
“Babe!” Nate yells over the sound of the water.
“Nate, I need you to get out of the shower,” I say as I scroll up before reading the very first text sent from his mom.
Mom
Your dad has had a stroke. We’re on our way to the hospital. Please call me.
“What?” Nate asks, but my words are stuck in my throat.
My heart is pounding behind my rib cage, and it’s hard to breathe.
Is his dad going to die? Will Nate lose him like I lost my mom?
No.
My mom was sick and weak, and the stroke was the end. But Nate’s dad is strong, and he’ll get through this. He has to get through this.
Nate turns off the water and gets out. “Paige, what’s going on?”
I take a deep breath, reminding myself that this isn’t about me. I need to be strong for Nate. It’s his dad who had the stroke, and me freaking out isn’t going to help him.
“Your dad had a stroke,” I tell him, keeping my voice level. “They’re at the hospital now.”
Nate’s face pales, and he rushes to grab his phone out of my hand.
He’s dripping wet, getting water all over the floor, so I get him a towel and wrap it around his waist while he reads through the texts and then calls his mom back while he quickly gets dressed.
While he talks to her, I get dressed as well and pack a bag because we need to get to Dallas.
Damn it!We’re going to have to fly because we don’t live close by. Or maybe we’ll have to drive? I don’t know where his plane is.
I hear Nate talking to his mom, or maybe it’s one of his brothers—I don’t know. But I can’t hear what’s being said. I grab Nate’s luggage from the doorway where he left it when he got home and dump it out so I can pack it with new clothes.
When he comes into the room, he looks at me with glassy eyes, and my heart clenches in my chest as I pray that his dad is okay.
“There was brain bleeding, and he’s in surgery,” he says, his voice filled with raw emotion. “I…I need to get to…”
“I packed our bags,” I tell him. “Do you want to fly or drive?”
“Fly,” he says. “Dustin said the jet is waiting for me.”
“For us,” I tell him, walking over and wrappingmy arms around him. “I’m going with you. It’s going to be okay.”
My thoughts go back to Nate showing up in the hospital when I fell. He said those same words to me. Now, I have to hope mine ring true the same way his did.
I drive us to the airport since Nate is in no condition to drive, and the flight is quiet. Nate texts with his family, but there’s no news yet. Either that or they don’t want to give him bad news through a text message.
The car I ordered takes us to the hospital, and once we’re there, we find his family in the waiting room. I hug his mom, telling her I love her while she sobs in my arms, and then Nate and I give each family member a hug. I’ve been missing them since they left from visiting for the baby shower, and I was hoping to see them soon, but not under these circumstances.
Once the greetings are over, Nate asks for an update.
“They haven’t given us any news yet,” Carmine says, his eyes bloodshot. “They took him back to handle the brain bleed, but that’s all we know.”
“They said he was stable,” Dustin adds. “So, that’s a good thing.”
I nod, trying to push away my negative thoughts, not daring to mention that when my mom had her stroke, she slipped into a coma and never woke up.