Regrets

Waiting

Part 9: Waiting

As Abel sat in the private waiting room he'd been escorted into, his mind kept replaying Selena's face when she'd cried out in pain. She'd been crying, tears streaming down her face as she gripped his hand, and he couldn't do anything. He was just...powerless.

He clenched his jaw shut when he felt the tears sliding down his cheeks. His entire body felt like a live wire as fear raced in his veins. The way Selena clutched at her stomach left him terrified that they were going to lose their baby before they even got a chance to meet her.

He would have called his mother for some advice or comfort at the least but in the panic of seeing the paramedics load Selena into the ambulance and him riding with her, he'd forgotten his phone in their suite. He could have left the room and asked to use the phone at the nurses station but he didn't want to take a chance on missing it if the doctors came in with any news.

He glanced at the clock again, his fingers tapping on the arm of his seat. It had already been forty minutes.

Just then, the door to the room opened and he stood, hoping for some good news, but his shoulders dropped disappointedly when he saw it was just Rick with Selena's stepmom and cousin. He tried to discreetly dry his tears as he cleared his throat and walked over to greet them.

"Ricardo," Abel said, reaching out to shake the man's hand before he was suddenly pulled into a hug.

"Abel," Ricardo said tightly, releasing the young man and placing one hand on his shoulder in a gesture of comfort when he saw the remains of his tears. "What happened? The only thing the nurse would tell us over the phone was that Selena had been brought to the hospital and that we should be here, and the one who brought us back here didn't know anything but that the doctors were still with her," he said.

Abel swallowed. "Selena - " He has to pause. "She was in a lot of pain, so I called for an ambulance to bring her to the hospital from the hotel. We've been here for about forty minutes now, but no one's come in to tell me how she is yet," he explained, grateful for the older man's presence.

He'd never really had a father but he knew how important Ricardo was to Selena, so he was glad he was able to be there. Still, he could hardly bring himself to look the man in the eye. Not even twenty-four hours ago, he'd promised to take care of Selena and the baby, and Selena had already had to be rushed to the hospital...

"Okay." Ricardo took a deep breath and let the information sink in. "Okay, thank you, son," he said, thinking absentmindedly that he could get used to the idea of Abel as a son-in-law. Seeing how distraught Abel was really showed how much the younger man loved his daughter.

He patted Abel's shoulder and walking over to sit down next to Sara and Priscilla. The rest of the family was at home with the kids, who didn't know yet that Selena was in the hospital.

"Wait, I thought you two were going over to have dinner with Mandy, why were you at the hotel?" Priscilla asked slowly as Abel sat down across from the three of them. She couldn't understand it. Selena had seemed perfectly fine when they'd had lunch...

Abel frowned before sighing tiredly. "Selena and Mandy had a fight, so we went back to the hotel and just after we got back upstairs, she started having a lot of pain in her stomach," he explained quietly.

Sara inhaled sharply. "Oh, Abel, you don't think..." She gripped her husband's hand tightly, feeling the way his fingers twitched worriedly. She knew it would break her stepdaughter's heart if she lost her baby.