Free Wildflowers from Winter by Katie Ganshert

let out a whoop, grab his cell phone, and start calling everybody he knew. The Micah she knew wouldn’t leave her to deal with a pregnancy on her own.
    Something violent burst inside her, snapping all reason. She balled her fists and hit his chest. When he didn’t respond, she pounded all the harder. She cursed Micah’s name. She screamed for him to wake up until her throat burned.
    When her rage was spent, she crumpled in a ball at Micah’s side andsurrendered to the tears. Surrendered to the pain of lost dreams, an empty future, and a child who would never know its father. And after that, when there was nothing left but her hollowed-out soul, she stood from Micah’s bed. She brushed her wet lips against his cheek. She pressed her palms against her swollen eyes. She smoothed her rumpled clothes. She walked down the hall. And she signed the papers.

    Bethany stood in the hallway, trying to close her ears to Robin’s lament, but it was as if she were twelve years old all over again, overhearing Pastor Fenton and Mom talking about her father. As much as she wanted to plug her ears, she couldn’t.
    Frustration and helplessness swirled inside her. How was her being here helping anything? Robin had Micah’s family. And God. She did not need Bethany.
    She stepped closer to the wall.
    The waiting room, filled with Evan’s family and a white-haired man who called himself Pastor Gray, blocked her exit. Evan sat with his head in his hands while his father wrapped his arm around Loraine. Evan’s oldest brother, Bryan, paced the room. His wife, Amy, clutched her purse in her lap. Evan’s youngest brother—whose name Bethany had forgotten—mimicked Evan’s posture, except that his shoulders shook, and Amanda wiped at a steady stream of tears leaking from her eyes.
    The scene unfolding in front of Bethany brought her back to a time when it had been her family waiting for news, her father the one tied to life by a fragile set of tubes, her mother the one weeping. Bethany pushed the memories away and took a tentative step toward the elevator just as Robin emerged from Micah’s room and drifted down the hall toward the place where the organ procurement coordinator had explained everything.
    Within moments, the waiting area emptied. Some followed Robin, and the others disappeared into Micah’s room. Only Evan remained, his head still buried in his hands.
    The elevator ding ed.
    Now was her chance. She’d done her duty. She’d comforted Robin. And as far as Dan—well, keeping him inside and quiet was a practice in futility. Her job in Peaks was over. It would be pointless to stay another few days. The elevator doors slid open, and two men dressed in scrubs stepped out.
    She needed to move toward them, but Evan’s deflated posture pulled at something in her chest, and her feet took on a mind of their own. She walked toward Evan instead, her mind screaming its protest as she eased onto the edge of a nearby seat. Bethany reached out, her hand hovering above his shoulder blade, and stared at the cotton shirt outlining Evan’s muscles.
    She was not his mother. Rubbing his back would do little to offer comfort and much to add to her already frazzled nerves. So she moved her hands under her knees and pressed them against the chair.
    Evan turned toward her, his upper body bent over his knees, his hazel eyes shadowed and strained. “How did you get through it?”
    The scratchy whispered question raised goose flesh on her arms. “Through what?”
    “Losing your father.”
    What did Evan know about her father? How much had Dan told him? Did he think their losses somehow united them? That she would let the pain of losing a beloved family member gather them beneath the same umbrella of grief? She’d forced herself out from under that umbrella a long time ago. She had no connection to Evan. He was just a farmhand on her grandpa’s farm.
    But his eyes … They begged for an answer. They begged for comfort.
    She touched his forearm.