The CEO’s New Baby

She couldn’t remember the last time she had been admitted to the hospital. In fact, she doubted she had ever set foot in one except for time when she gave birth to her daughter. Shaking her head, she tried to banish all those negative thoughts.

There was no need to be so dramatic. She was simply doing some tests. It wasn’t as if she was dying. Right? She hoped not.

Kayla felt Ryan’s hand on her back, his thumb tracing circles up and down her spine. He knew that gesture relaxed her, her body seemed to respond to it in the worst of situations. Sighing, she looked at Ryan from beneath her lashes, her hand coming on top of his as she smiled. She was going to be strong, she was more than sure nothing could go wrong.

Looking at the doctor as he interpreted the results felt like an eternity. Her entire body was trembling, her sweaty palms becoming numb as she pressed her nails deeper into her palm. She tried to use the pain as a distraction, something to keep her attention away from the emotionless face of the doctor.

Ryan was beside her, his foot tapping against the marble floor again and again. The sound was a murmur at the back of her head, a mere noise caught in the hurricane of thoughts that seemed to wreck her entire being from core.

The images found on the screen in front of them were incomprehensible to both Ryan and Kayla. Neither of them had even the vaguest idea or knowledge of the black reflections the scan had revealed. They knew they were sections of her brain, shadows casted by the rays.

During those few minutes, Kayla seemed to notice every fiber in the doctor’s face. The way his brows moved whenever he nodded his head or the way his jaw tensed as he looked closer at a certain point on the computer. Finally, his back slumped against the back of the black desk chair, right before he turned to them, his fingers massaging the bridge of his nose.

He opened his mouth as if to say something right before closing it again, a fact that only made Kayla even more anxious. She felt as if she was at the bridge of crying, she couldn’t take the tension anymore. It was strangling her, taking away every bit of energy that was still left in her fragile petite body.

“Doctor, please! Could you just tell us what’s wrong?” She really hoped, though, that nothing was wrong. She wished that the doctor would just dismiss them both, wishing them good luck. But by the look on his face, Kayla knew by now that that option was out the window.

“Mrs.-

“Kayla, please.”

“Kayla. I-I don’t know how to put this, but unfortunately, you have a brain tumor. Judging by its size, it hasn’t been there long. So chemotherapy may help. But we would have to get to it right away, otherwise it may advance and your state may become critical.”

Kayla gasped, it was as if someone had suddenly dropped a heavy weight over her chest. She couldn’t breathe anymore. The room was getting smaller and smaller. Her ears were buzzing, the sound of the doctor being nothing but a mere whisper trying to fight its way through the walls that suddenly arose in the back of her mind.

A tumor. Chemotherapy. Critical.

They were the only words that passed through the filter that suddenly found residence inside her brain. She felt something moist run down her check, but she didn’t bother to wipe it, her hands were too numb to answer to such commands.

“Chemotherapy, but that would mean-” It was Ryan who spoke that time around. She thanked the lucky stars that he was there with her. Otherwise, she would have forgotten the doctor, or anyone else, was there.

“That would mean abortion, unfortunately. The rays used in chemotherapy, along with the many chemicals, are too dangerous for the baby especially in its first trimester.”

Everything was too much. She was living a crazy circle where sickness followed her everywhere. First her mother and now her. She wasn’t sure if she could take it again, if she was strong enough to fight it the way her mother did. But, even if she was, what use was it? The only chance she had was gone now. She would never put her unborn child in danger for her own health.

She could see the road she once saw ahead get dimmer. The lights that had been brightly shining above it were flickering, giving their last breath just as her hope. There was no way out of the pit into which she had walked. The cards were turned now, and she knew exactly what her future held.

Death.

Her brain was suddenly realizing things she wished she was oblivious to, like the fact that she may never come to see Emily’s graduation or even first prom date. The fact that she may not even live to see her unborn baby’s first birthday. Such somber thoughts floated on the surface of her thoughts like ghosts, casting shadows over her soul, making her heart contract.