Chapter 5 - The Midnight Vigil
The storm outside St. Jude Memorial turned violent by two in the morning. Rain lashed against the high glass windows of the emergency department, and the wind howled down the empty corridors.
My shift officially ended at 7:00 a.m., but sleep was an impossible luxury.
Every time I closed my eyes in the doctors' call room, I saw Elias's face when he realized the truth. I saw the terror, the anger, and the raw vulnerability in his eyes—a look I had never seen on him in the two years we were together.
At 3:00 a.m., I walked down to the staff lounge to pour myself a cup of decaf tea.
Nurse Sarah was sitting at the table, scrolling through her phone while eating a sandwich.
"You look exhausted, Addie," she said, looking up with a sympathetic smile. "You really should sit down. Being thirty-one weeks pregnant on an ER night shift is no joke."
"I'm fine, Sarah," I said, leaning against the counter as the hot water filled my mug. "Just a long night."
Sarah looked around the empty lounge, then lowered her voice. "That guy tonight... Sophie's father. Elias Hart."
My hand paused on the teabag. "What about him?"
"He's still downstairs," Sarah said quietly.
I turned around, staring at her. "What?"
"He carried Sophie out to his car about two hours ago," Sarah explained. "His sister met him in the parking lot and took Sophie home so she could sleep in a real bed. But Elias didn't leave."
"Where is he?"
"He's sitting in his car in the visitor lot," Sarah said, pointing a finger toward the front glass bay. "He's been sitting there in the rain for three hours, Addie. Just staring up at the ER entrance."
My heart did a strange, painful twist in my chest.
"Why would he do that?" I muttered, more to myself than to Sarah.
"I don't know," Sarah said softly, watching my face carefully. "But when he was signing the discharge forms, I saw the way he looked at you. Addie... is he...?"
"Don't ask, Sarah," I whispered, holding my warm mug with both hands. "Please."
Sarah nodded gently, respecting my boundary. "Okay. But if you need someone to escort you to your car at seven, let me know."
I left the lounge and walked down the long corridor toward the front lobby. The reception desk was quiet, the night clerk nodding off over her computer screen.
I walked up to the floor-to-ceiling glass doors that looked out over the parking lot.
The rain was pouring down in heavy sheets, blurring the streetlights into golden smears against the dark pavement. Parked in the second row, right under the dim glow of a light pole, was Elias's black sedan.
Through the rain-streaked windshield, I could see the silhouette of a man sitting in the driver's seat.
He wasn't on his phone. He wasn't reading papers. He was simply sitting there in the dark, staring through the storm at the hospital doors.
I rested my palm against the cool glass of the window, my baby moving gently inside me.
Six months ago, I would have given anything for Elias to fight for me like this. I would have given anything for him to show up, to stand in the rain, to refuse to leave until he heard my voice.
But he was six months too late.
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He wasn't sitting out there because he loved me. He was sitting out there because his structured, controlled world had just been shattered by a secret he couldn't control.
"You had your chance, Elias," I whispered to the empty lobby. "You had two years."
