The waves roll into shore along with the sunrise. Every morning in California is the idyllic lifestyle with waking up to the birds chirping, the ocean waving hello, and the sun high in the sky. Not so perfectly, Jade rolls out of bed using her arms to give her a boost. After six months of her pregnancy she figures that she must be building some serious arm muscle. Jade runs through her list of things to do in her head, with getting coffee being at the top. As she slides her feet into her slippers, a memory of the person who gifted the slippers to her runs through her mind. She slightly smiles at the passing memory, but it was quickly washed away by the reality that he left her once he found out she was pregnant. The coffee pot gurgled and spit out her morning brew as Jade sat at the kitchen counter and gazed out to the ocean. She just recently moved into a modern apartment building that bordered the beach. The space essentially consisted of two sleek stools, a gray couch, and her bed. With her baby and a new job just beginning, there hasn’t been much time to consider the little things in life like furnishing her apartment. The ding of the coffee pot wakes her from her daydream, so she continues to pick herself up, fill her mug and start the day. She would normally go for the formal pantsuit outfit or at least throw on a sweater but since she was starting her day with a doctor’s appointment, she opts for leggings and her biggest sweatshirt. She grabs her tote bag equipped with essentials for the day like raspberry dark chocolate to satisfy any cravings as well as a massive bottle of water. Jade opted to not take any pregnancy classes but instead read any book she could find. A constant through all of the readings was to stay hydrated and since it seemed like the easiest part, she vowed to follow this tip. After checking that she had these necessities, she headed for the door.

As Jade begins her day so does Darren, who in similar fashion to Jade struggled to get out of bed, but mainly because of sleep deprivation and not because of a pregnancy. His extremely irregular sleep schedule of late nights and early mornings is caused by a past that he rarely cracks open. With the crucial aid of black coffee, Darren is able to make it through his day. His first move after getting out of bed is to open the curtains and call out to his Bluetooth system to turn on some Christmas music. Darren grew up in New York State so the Christmas spirit began in early October when snow began to blanket the beautiful green landscape. Since moving to Los Angeles it takes a little more to get himself in the spirit of the holidays, but nonetheless he’s at least is putting in the effort. He throws on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, another irregularity from life back in New York, and pours some cereal into a bowl. Even though it is his personal day at work, he convinced himself last night that he might as well just go in to check up on his patients or else he would be worrying about them all day. As he passes his closest, Darren gets a glimpse of his old life through the suits and ties. Once upon a time he was the Chief of Surgery at the top hospital in Los Angeles, but about 8 months ago he was forced to resign as chief and return to his prior position as the head of general surgery. Although a hard adjustment at the time, he actually now enjoys getting back into the operating room and being able to connect with patients. He grabs his wallet and keys and treks downstairs to go down to the main level of the apartment building.

The revolving doors of the office building are packed full of rushed employees, surgeons and nurses alike, attempting to get into work on time. Jade waits patiently on the outskirts of the big group of people not wanting her protruding stomach to knock anyone out of the way. Darren easily slips in through the doors from the entrance on the opposite side of the building.

“Hey Darren! How did you sleep last night?” Darren plays along with the on going joke with the security guards, as this is a daily encounter.

“Oh just perfectly! A solid eight hours,” As Darren walks away the security guard calls back, “You really should try sleeping sometime. I hear it’s great!” He responds with a simple wave as he makes his wave to the elevators.

Eventually, Jade wobbles her way in and heads straight for the elevators, wanting to get the appointment over as soon as possible. When the doors glide open, herds of people are corralled out and a few step in, including Jade. Over the obnoxious elevator music, her cell phone blares her ring tone causing her to receive various judging looks from the others in the elevator. Jade murmurs something about being pregnant and her mind just not being there, while simultaneously thinking to herself, did I actually just play the pregnancy card? The door reopens and Darren stands in the open doors while Jade rummages through her bag trying to find the nonstop ringing. As people shuffle out onto the corresponding floors, Darren was pushed towards the back of the elevator across from Jade. The elevator climbed to higher levels as Darren’s heart resided at the bottom of the shaft. Right when the doors opened, the mixed feelings of seeing Jade for the first time since he left came all the way back. With his feelings of love, along came the anger at himself that he had pushed so far down. The levels of the skyscraper cascaded higher as more and more people exited the elevator until it was only Darren and Jade. This whole time she was focusing on something on her phone while Darren cowers behind her questioning whether or not he should make himself known or not. The elevator music fills the awkward silence in the small space while Darren tries to concentrate on his floor coming up in three levels. Three. Two. One. Instead of the doors opening to Darren’s escape, the elevator music cut out, the lights began flickering, and the elevator seemed to swing back and forth. Catching them both off guard, Jade begins to lose her balance but not before Darren braces her fall. As Jade steadies herself she takes a double take at the man she once loved and the man she has told herself that she hated everyday since. They both stand there in continued silence with locked eyes challenging the other to make the first move.

“Hi.” Darren struggled to say anything else.

Jade continues to stand there staring him down seeming to not want to give him the satisfaction of even recognizing he had said anything. For some reason in her mind this was payback for the hell that he put her through.

“Are you okay?” His hand hovered over her shoulder not wanting to come across as too friendly.

“I’m fine. Thank you, but I can handle myself,” Jade tried to assert herself as an independent and responsible woman, but really she was breaking inside wanting to fall into his arms but still punch them at the same time.

“I know you are,” All of Darren’s words seemed to escape him. Eight months of contemplating everything he had done wrong and composing everything he wished he had said gone, out of his mind. He wished he could explain his leaving, but that’s too complicated. He wanted to act as if nothing had changed, but too much had. He needed to say that he still loved her, but he definitely knew that it wasn’t a possibility.

Jade turned her attention away from the broken elevator suspended in the air and her one true love standing across from her and instead looked back onto her phone. This distraction was useless because Jade didn’t have millions of questions on what had switched so quickly in their relationship for her phone. Her phone couldn’t help her yearning to fall back into the arms of the man that mended and broke her heart. The only person that could help her was Darren.

“So what have you been up to lately?” After long contemplation, this seemed like the only statement that couldn’t lead to Jade letting out all of her emotions. She instead followed up before he could respond with, “Are you seeing anyone?” Well never mind then, she again thought to herself.

Darren immediately snaps his head up at the sound of her voice and her recognition of his presence across from her,“Jade. Don’t do that.”

“I mean I’m just making conversation.”

Before Jade could turn away and retreat back into her mind, Darren quietly responds,

“I could never be with anyone after you,” Jade silently looks at up at Darren, her features soften as she processes the words. She opens her mouth trying to find something to say, but the elevator shakes once again as though the cords holding the elevator seem to lose another thread leaving them hovering over an impending doom. Instead of being concerned with whether or not help was on the way, Jade focuses on how to respond to Darren.

Taking it very slowly, Jade responds with, “I have been trying to wrap my head around this for six months, and I just can not figure out what changed so quickly in that short period of time?” Although it was the question Darren knew was coming sooner or later, he brushed his hand through his hair not sure how to respond. Darren, obviously uncomfortable, repositions himself against the wall as Jade awaits answer.

She impatiently opens her mouth to take back the question, but Darren cuts her off before she has the chance, “You just wouldn’t understand. I can tell you that it wasn’t about you, but I can’t explain it to you,”

“Darren, we had talked about marriage, getting engaged, having kids in our future. My apartment had been sold when you all of a sudden left,” Jade obviously struck by his answer began to channel her pent up inner anger. After taking a second, she continued, “You just left.”

Tears filled his eyes with his inability to express the single event that abolished the best thing to happen to him.

“Jade, I was having such a hard time coming to California and you were the reason I stayed. You are the reason I am still here. I wanted all of those things with you, I mean I just wanted my future to be with you–“

“Then what changed? Stop making excuses for your actions!” Jade pushed herself off the wall as a way to confront Darren.

Matching her actions he responded,
“Two months before I left, I had a patient. She came in with her husband as they had been recently married and their first child was on the way. Ever since I had gotten the position as chief of surgery, I did everything but what I was technically managing. Every day at work was practically a robotic sequence of organizing the surgeons and meetings, and dealing with all of the legal workings of the hospital. Since I had so greatly missed this interaction with my patients, I formed a really close and friendly relationship with the women and her husband. I knew better, I mean it’s practically the first thing they teach you not to do in med school. Anyway when the time came for her routine surgery, I botched it. I had fallen into the robotic movements as chief and out of what I truly wanted to do in the OR. She never woke up after the surgery and the first decision her husband got to make in the marriage was whether or not to continue life support. I haven’t been able to sleep the night through ever since,” Jade remained standing in the middle of the elevator, her arms limp at her sides processing the story of Darren’s past.

“I had no idea,” She commented quietly, but he just continued on.

“Then when you told me you were pregnant and I saw your eyes and smile glow just like the women’s once had, I couldn’t bear letting myself raise a child with the women I love when I had just ripped that opportunity away from someone else. I had held their future in my hand and then took it away.”

Through the moments of silence, Darren titled his head to his shoulder, reeling from a past that he had tried so hard to bury. Not letting him hide any longer, Jade crossed the elevator and lifted his head so that she could look into his eyes. As tears fell from both of their eyes, the elevator began to severely tremor and they both remembered the reason they were stuck in this confined space together. Grabbing onto Darren for balance, Jade realized that she might not have as much time as she thought to say what she needed to say.

“I love you Darren. I have since I saw you dancing equally as crazy as me at the concert three summers ago. I loved you when you attempted to teach me to surf or consoled me when I completely failed and made an idiot out of myself. I loved you for accepting me along with all of my flaws and making me feel as though I was perfect. I loved you as you walked out of the door and out of my life, but I still loved you when I looked up and saw you standing there like an hour ago,” The shaking intensifies, so Darren grabs her even tighter and braces them against the railing, “You may think that you don’t deserve a happy ending, but things happen for a reason Darren. Even as a surgeon you don’t get to play God and decide that this is the end for you because I am not letting you leave my life again.”

“I regretted leaving as I shut the door and walked out of the building farther and farther from you.”

The cords suspending them in the air finally give way and the elevator begins to free-fall through the skyscraper. Jade grasps at Darren and lays a hand on her stomach at any attempt to protect herself and her baby. The floors rapidly fly past and their stomachs rise into their throats, trapping their screams of terror. The movement is so fast and furious that there is no time to display any fear or even prepare themselves for the future they had planned out together to end before it had even begun. The only thing escaping are tears uncontrollably flying from their eyes. The last floors count down the last moments of their lives, all the while they remain gripped to each other never letting go. It begins to feel as though they are defying gravity due to the speed of the elevator before they are jerked upwards and they crash into each other. The elevator seems to catch itself right before colliding with the basement, and the emergency system finally turns on.

“Hello? Can you hear us?” A nervous woman calls out into the speaker.

Darren is able to respond first but with a shaky voice, “Yes, we are okay.”

“We have located which floor you are on and our emergency team is currently working on stabilizing the shaft and opening the doors. We have been trying to contact you ever since the elevator first broke, but we could never get through,”
“Thank you,” Jade leans against the wall doing deep breath exercises trying to slow her heart beat. After the shock of free falling and then the stabilization, she feels as though every bone in her body was popped out and back in again. Darren encourages her to sit down, as he is concerned for her own health as well as the baby.

“We don’t know how long it is going to take them to get the door open and you are not in the physical state to try and support yourself,” He eases her down to the wall to the floor and sits with her until the doors are finally pried open approximately 30 minutes later.

They are immediately admitted into the hospital and rapidly checked by various doctors. Thankfully Darren and Jade, plus the baby, are all okay but the doctors recommend that Jade stays overnight to monitor the baby. She willingly rests in the uncomfortable hospital bed, while Darren sits next to her bed refusing to ever leave her side. However when the nurse comes in and offers him a cot to sleep in next to Jade’s bed, he eagerly accepts and peacefully sleeps through the night for the first time in months.