Page 155 of Stupid Matchmaking Love

He goes to the nurses’ station, and with a heavy sigh, I head to the waiting room.

The room is too quiet, even with the distant sound of nurses talking, carts rolling, beeping machines. All hospitals smell the same—antiseptic, sterile, safe.

Except I didn’t feel safe last time. Last time, my throat was raw from being intubated and Rhett was pulling away. My parents were by my side, and the ghosts of Glen and Faith hovered in the background.

Glen’s words about Rhett blaming him for my attack drift into my thoughts. Rhett understood the reason for my attack. He knew Glen was the problem.

I pull out my phone, stare at his name in my contacts. My thumb hovers over it.

What if he was wrong? What if we’re both suffering more apart than we ever would together? And what if maybe the quilt didn’t have to be right—we just had to decide to choose each other?

But before I get up the nerve to text him, the waiting room door opens and Rowe’s family floods in.

Her mom with her new husband, Bill. Then Coco and Stone appear. Several other people arrive, but not Rhett. Everyone but him.

I keep expecting him to show up any second. All I need is one minute alone—just one—to tell him what I think.

But he doesn’t come.

It’s a couple of hours later when Pane appears, dressed in scrubs, to tell us that Rowe had the baby. It’s a girl. We all cheer, and Pane says we’ll be able to visit in a few minutes, just hang tight.

I ease back onto the chair and shake my head. What a day. It started out ordinary but quickly changed into something new, something wonderful—a new life has entered the world, a clean slate, ready to be filled with love and joy.

My chest swells with happiness for my friend and her husband.

It takes a while for Pane to call us in, and when he does, we try not to crowd Rowe. She looks good but tired. Her hair is drenched in sweat, and she’s got a happy but exhausted smile on her face.

“Come and meet little Georgia,” she says.

Georgia. A perfect name—perfect because this is the state Rowe and Pane met in, and it’s the state they’ll be raising her in.

Like I said: Perfect.

The grandparents hold baby Georgia first, then Stone and Coco, and then finally me. She’s so tiny, with her eyes closed and a little knit cap on her head. She’s bundled in the token blue-and-pink-striped hospital blanket that newborns receive.

Looking down at her face, I see all the potential in the world, her life a series of endless possibilities and wonders.

Tears come to my eyes, and I have to swallow a sob for what was and what could have been. Let me be clear—for me, not for her.