Chapter 10: Noah Stops Breathing
Chapter 10: Noah Stops Breathing
At two in the morning, alarms sounded around Noah’s incubator.
Nurses rushed in.
I stood too quickly from my wheelchair and nearly collapsed.
“What happened?”
A nurse blocked my path.
“His oxygen level dropped.”
“Is he breathing?”
The doctor did not answer immediately.
That silence nearly killed me.
They worked on him behind the glass.
One minute passed.
Then two.
I pressed both palms against the window.
“Noah,” I whispered. “You stay.”
The world had already taken too much from him.
He had entered it frightened and bleeding because the man who should have protected him had chosen cruelty.
I could not let that be the beginning and end of his story.
Dr. Park arrived and stood beside me.
“They’re stabilizing him.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“He has an infection. Premature babies can decline quickly.”
“Can you save him?”
“We’re doing everything.”
For the next six hours, I remained beside his bed.
I forgot the lawsuits.
The reporters.
The firm.
The headlines.
None of it mattered.
At sunrise, Noah’s oxygen levels began to improve.
His tiny fingers curled around mine through the opening in the incubator.
I lowered my forehead to the plastic wall and cried.
Not the quiet tears I had hidden from Adrian.
These were different.
They were not tears of defeat.
They were the release of every emotion I had buried to survive him.
The nurse rested a hand on my shoulder.
“He’s stubborn.”
“So is his mother.”
For the first time, I understood that survival was not the absence of fear.
It was choosing to stay present while fear tried to hollow you out.
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Noah had chosen to stay.
So had I.
