Page 116 of Don't Think

The images rush through my mind so fast it makes my heart race,too fast.

The alarms beside me blare, and suddenly, three nurses burst into my room, and everything’s happening so fast it makes my head spin.

One nurse rushes to the monitor beside me, another snatches the clipboard from the end of the bed, and the third hurries to my side, gripping my hand tightly.

“Everything’s okay, Allie,” she says with a soothing voice.

I look over at her as the room continues shifting around me.

“What happened? Where’s Nora?” I ask frantically, trying to push myself upright, but another sharp pain sears through my stomach, and I collapse back against the bed with a wail.

“I need you to take a deep breath and try not to move. You just had surgery—” she starts, but I cut her off.

“Surgery?” I exclaim loudly. “Where the hell is Nora?”

The nurse at the foot of the bed looks up from the clipboard and quickly moves to my side, pushing away the other nurse. She places a warm hand on my shoulder, trying to calm me.

But it’s no use. Nothing is working.

I just want to know where Nora is.

“Allie,” she says, her voice soft and soothing. “We really need you to take a deep breath. Do you need something to help calm you down?”

I force a few deep breaths, even though all I want to do is scream until someone gives me a damn answer.

“I just want to know what happened,” I say, my voice breaking on every word, my head sinking into the bed.

She sits on the edge of the bed, grabs my hand, and tilts her head. “Sweetie, you were in an accident. The doctor will be hereany minute to explain everything. We already paged him. He’s on his way.”

“Can you at least tell me if Nora’s okay?” I ask, my eyes burning with tears.

Just as she opens her mouth, there’s a soft knock at the door, and it creaks open. A tall man steps inside, wearing light-blue scrubs and a matching cap, salt-and-pepper hair peeking out underneath. He carefully shuts the door behind him.

“Hello, Allison,” he says, walking over to the wall for sanitizer. “I’m Dr. O’Neil. I performed your surgery today.”

The nurse gives me one last compassionate look before she lifts off the bed and exits quietly with the others.

I can’t tear my eyes away, I just watch him lather his hands with sanitizer, the smell already burning my nose.

He reaches my bedside in a few strides, picks up the clipboard from the foot of it, and studies it for a second.

“What happened?” I ask quietly.

“You were in a car accident,” he says softly, setting the clipboard down before pulling one of the chairs up to my bed.

He sits, and when his eyes meet mine, they’re warm, but it does nothing to calm the panic still bubbling in my chest.

“When you got here, we found pieces of the windshield had entered your abdomen. We had to rush you into surgery to get the glass out. Usually, it’s pretty straightforward. We’d put you under, take it out, stitch you up.”

He pauses, then leans in a little more. “But when we opened you up, we found one of the shards had done more damage than we expected. It didn’t just nick your fallopian tube, it severed it.”

My chest tightens. A lump rises in my throat, and my hand shoots up to cover my mouth while a sob threatens to spill its way out.

He gently places a hand on my shoulder. “Allie… there’s more.” He says gently. “We tried everything, but the damage wastoo severe. We had to remove the entire tube. You still have the other one, but it looks like there’s some scarring we believe is from endometriosis.”

A wave of nausea rolls over me. It’s like my heart’s just dropped straight into the pit of my stomach.

“Does this mean… I can’t get pregnant?” I whisper, eyebrows pulling together as I try not to fall apart.