My phone is ringing. It’s too early on a Saturday morning to have to be social, so I ignore it. It rings out and I relax back into the mattress, giving Ellie’s soft, little body a small squeeze as I nuzzle her neck. She smells so good, I could wake up to this every morning and it would never get old.

I hear the vibration on my night stand first, then the ring tone of my phone begins again. Sighing heavily, I untangle myself from Ellie’s warm body and reach for my phone, pausing for a moment at the unknown number on the screen.

Hitting the answer button, I hold it to my ear. “Hello, is this Zak Tanner?” a female voice barks.

Frowning at her tone, I answer, “Yes, and this is?” I smile when Ellie rolls over in her sleep, seeking me out. She snuggles into my side and a soft snore follows her contented sigh.

“I am Officer Mallory Jenkins, you’re down as the next of kin for Miss Louisa Sanchez. I’m sorry, but I’m going to need you to come down to Mount Archer hospital. Louisa has been in a serious car accident. How soon can you be here?”

I bolt upright in the bed and Ellie comes awake with a fright. Her wild eyes find mine and I wonder if I look as devastated as I feel because Red scrambles from the sheets, pulling on her shorts and shirt from the end of the bed. I can’t move. Momentarily frozen by the words refusing to register in my brain.

“Mr Tanner?” the woman’s harsh voice snaps me out of my haze, spurring me into action.

Grabbing my cargo shorts off the floor, I tug them on. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” I pause, uncertain if I can handle the answer to what I’m about to ask. Swallowing hard, I push through the anxiety knotting my gut, “Is she okay?”

“I’m sorry, Mr Tanner, but it’s a rather complicated situation and I need you here as soon as possible.”

Why didn’t she answer the question? It’s a simple yes or no answer, right? “Is. She. Okay?” I repeat as calmly as I’m able, even though my heart is beating out of my chest and a million different possibilities are flying through my addled brain.

The officer sighs, “Please, Mr Tanner, your presence is required urgently. Miss Sanchez is not conscious at this time, and I’m unsure if she will regain it. The life of her child is currently hanging in the balance. Please, make your way to the hospital as soon as possible,” she stresses, her tone both urgent and concerned.

Her child? Lu is pregnant? She never told me, and she tells me everything. No—she used to tell me everything. But this? I’m in shock. A baby? Lu is having a baby?

“Mr Tanner, are you there?”

I clear my throat, “Yes, shit sorry. I’m on my way.” I end the call and my knees weaken as it hits me. Lu is unconscious and pregnant. My body sways and I press my hand to the wall steadying myself. Lu is pregnant.

Red is there a second later, her small hand pressing into the centre of my bare chest. “Breathe, Zak, just breathe,” she urges softly, “What’s going on?”

Blinking down at Ellie I tell her, “Lu’s been in an accident. She’s unconscious and her baby might no—” My throat tightens painfully, “Might not make it.” I shake my head. Pull yourself together, man, Lu needs you!

“I gotta go,” I press a kiss to the top of Ellie’s head. As I turn to leave, I snatch a shirt off the pile of laundry sitting on top of my dresser and pull it over my head as I walk.

Red’s tiny fingers wrap around my wrist. “I’ll drive, you’re a mess.” She snatches the keys from my hand, I don’t recall picking them up, then she leads the way out to my truck.

Ellie climbs into the cab, using the handrail and sidestep. She adjusts the seat, fastens her belt, then moves the mirrors as she cranks the engine. “Seat belt,” she instructs as she pulls out of my driveway and onto the street. “Which hospital?”

“On Main, I can’t remember what it’s called,” I tell her as my memories begin to pull me under, to the first time I met Louisa Sanchez.

She was such a scrawny thing, but tall and busty. We were twelve. She walked in like she owned the place. I thought she was a stuck up rich girl who got caught up in a custody battle or something. It took two weeks for her to even look at me, and another three after that before she spoke to me.

Turned out she wasn’t anything like I thought. It was all false bravado. Something I’d learned at a young age too. We bonded over our lack of family and our life experience in the system. We both had it bad. Not many kids in Foster care have it good, but for some of us, trouble just waited around every corner.

It was even worse for Louisa, she was a girl, but not just any girl. Lu was beautiful. Her smile lit up the room on the rare occasion she wore one. Her raven hair hung straight down her back, and her lips looked like she’d just been sucking on a lolly-pop. The other two boys in the home with us were always trying to impress her. She made everyone want to be better for her.

The problem was, it wasn’t only the other boys who took notice of Lu—our foster dad did too. She started wearing my t-shirts to try and hide her body, but it didn’t matter what she wore, she always stood out.

One night when I got up to go to the bathroom I found him leaving her room at three AM. I spent the rest of that night holding her as she cried silently into my chest. After that, I wait for everyone else to go to sleep then I’d go sleep on the floor in Lu’s room. He tried to come in again a few nights later, and I hit him in the back of the head with a baseball bat.

I wanted to rip him apart with my bare hands, but I was still growing—I couldn’t take on a grown man by myself yet. He sent me off to a new home less than a week later. Spun it that he’d found me in her room, and I’d gotten angry when he tried to make me go back to my own.

I taught Lu what I could to protect herself, and I gave her the pocket knife my father had given me not long before he and Mum died. The home I’d been moved to was in the same area, so we stayed in the same schools up until high school.

I thought we would be okay after what happened between us, but she pulled away. Our communication has been limited to texts and a few short phone calls here and there. We caught up for coffee once a few months back. Now I know why she was keeping her distance.

Before I know it, Ellie is pulling up outside the emergency department doors. “You go, I’ll find a park and sit in the waiting area until you’re done.”

Sliding out I turn to her, hesitating, unsure what to say. She points to the hospital entrance, “Go, I’ll be fine.”

“Thank you,” I whisper before slamming my door and rushing through the entrance, straight for the reception desk. “I got a call for a Louisa Sanchez,” I tell the petite nurse.

Pity fills her eyes. No, no, no, don’t look at me like that. “Where is she?” I demand, slapping my hands on the counter between us.

The nurse startles. “I’ll just get someone to take you through,” she stammers as she gets to her feet and backs away.

My fingers drum on the counter, my impatience growing by the second. Then the nurse returns with a female officer who continues to a side door. A loud buzzing sound alerts me to the door unlocking and opening, the officer on the other side ushers me through.

When the door closes behind me she extends her hand in greeting. I shake it as she continues to move rapidly down a walkway. “We spoke on the phone, Mr Tanner. I’m officer Mallory Jenkins. Miss Sanchez is in a critical condition. I’m sorry I don’t know how to soften this,” she abruptly stops in the middle of the walkway, turning to face me. Sympathy emanates from her as she says, “A decision must be made immediately.”

I blink down at her. “What decision?” I ask, trying to wrap my head around the words firing out of her mouth. Lifting my head to peer past her, through a large pane of glass I see Lu lying motionless on the other side.

My stomach drops to the floor. Her head and half her face is covered in bandages, tubes come from everywhere, cannulas pumping fluids into her body, and a machine is pumping air in and out of her lungs for her. Pushing past Officer Mallory, my hand presses against the cold glass as my throat squeezes closed.

My eyes drift down her body to the round bump protruding from her stomach, then to a doctor hovering near by. He’s recording readings from the machines that are clearly keeping Lu alive. My heart thuds so hard against my chest I feel every beat throughout my entire being, and I slump forward, resting my head against the cool glass.

“Mr Tanner, the doctors have instructed me to inform you that the window to attempt to save the baby is rapidly closing. The only reason they waited this long is because they aren’t sure if the child will survive the procedure. Not after already having been through such a severe trauma in the accident. It’s up to you what happens now,” Mallory says softly.

It’s up to me now? What does that even mean?

What the actual fuck is happening?

Rolling my head to the side so I can see her standing beside me I tell her, “You’re going to have to break it down for me because I’m not following anything you just said.”

The doctor from Lu’s room exits then comes to stand by Mallory, “Mr Tanner?”

“Call me Zak,” I say, straightening, my hand fists the hair at my nape, as I take a deep fortifying breath. I muster all my courage and ask, “Is Lu going to die?”

The doctor slides his hands into the pockets of his white coat. “Technically, she already has, son. I’m sorry.” He pauses, and excruciating pain prickles under my skin. “Miss Sanchez suffered a massive head trauma causing immediate brain-death. We can keep her in this state for only a short time before the child also dies. At this point we have about a thirty percent chance at successfully saving the baby.”

Jesus Christ. My head spins and I grip my knees for support. I’ve lost Lu. Tears sting my eyes then flood down my cheeks like never before. My throat is so tight, I can’t breathe because it hurts. Every-goddamn-thing hurts.

I’ve lost her.

Pain slices through me, my heart pounds too hard, too fast, my head spins, and nausea clutches at my insides with a death grip as I sway. I slump against the wall for support.

“Mr Tanner—Zak, I need you to breathe through this,” Mallory says, crouched down in front of me. She wraps her hands around my wrists and gets in my face. “You need to choose, Zak. Do you want them to try and save the baby, or let it go with its mother?”

I shake my head, this isn’t real. This cannot be real.

“ZAK!” Mallory snaps, and I blink at the stranger telling me to choose whether my best friend’s baby lives or dies, knowing even then the outcome isn’t certain.

Taking a deep breath, I level my eyes on her. If this is real, if this is truly happening, there is only one answer. “Save it. Save Lu’s baby. It’s what she would want.”

The doctor nods, then he licks his lips. “I must warn you, there is a very high chance Miss Sanchez will not survive the procedure. In order to save the child, the mother will likely die. In every sense of the word. If you wish to say your goodbyes, you need to do it immediately, and quite quickly.”

Squeezing my eyes and fists closed, I stifle the heart wrenching scream trying to tear its way up my throat. “Do it. Just give me two minutes with her, please.”

“Two minutes,” he agrees then turns away from me, striding down the hallway with purpose, a phone held to his ear as he fires rapid orders to whoever is on the receiving end.

Officer Mallory tugs on my arms. “Come on, Zak, you don’t want to waste what little time you have with her,” she urges, pulling harder.

Her words spur me to action and I’m on my feet, pushing through the door to Lu’s room. When I reach her bedside, hot bile rises up my throat at the site of her, bright red blood seeping through the white bandage around her head. My eyes roam over her once stunning face, now marred in blackish blue bruises. Her nose is bent out of shape, her once soft lips now split, swollen, and busted.

My knees give out, crashing to the hard linoleum floor by her side. Pressing my head into the side of her lifeless body, my warm tears wet the white sheet wrapped around her. Then something bumps the crown of my head. My eyes shoot up to the spot, and I press my hand against her stomach. Again, a soft thump hits my palm. The baby, I realise. It’s kicking me. It’s fighting.

Wrapping both hands around Lu’s, I make her a promise, “I’ll take care of your baby, Lu, I swear on my life. I’ll never let anything bad happen to it ever. You hear me, Lu?” I press a kiss to her palm and hold it against my stubbled cheek, “I’ll give it the life we should have had, Lu, no matter what it takes. I love you. God I love you.”