“What are you doing down here?” He didn’t mean to sound angry, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He had to hold on to his anger and grief, or he would wind up pulling her into his arms and holding her.
“Would you mind calling the driver?” she asked, her voice sounding small and strained.
“What for?”
“I need to go to the hospital.” She stepped into his office, and as she drew nearer, into the lamplight, he could see her skin was pale and her forehead damp with perspiration.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. I’m in labor.”
“You can’t be, you’re not due for another week.” He realized how dumb that sounded the second the words left his mouth.
“I thought so, too,” she said. “Apparently the baby is ready now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Incredibly sure.”
He just stood there. He couldn’t seem to make his feet move. He knew this day was going to come. But why did it have to be today? He wasn’t ready for this. Though he didn’t think standing here like an idiot was going to stop it.
She clutched her belly. “Unless you want to deliver this baby yourself, I would call now.”
“How close together are your contractions?”
“Every three or four minutes.”
That got his attention. “Three minutes? How long have you been in labor?”
“I guess since this morning.”
“This morning?” She couldn’t be serious.
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“It was all in my back, but I’ve had a backache for weeks. I didn’t actually figure out that it was labor, until about ten minutes ago when my water broke.”
His stomach dropped out. “Jesus, your water broke, too?”
“Would you please stop yelling at me!” she shouted, then her eyes went wide and she gasped a breath, clutching the edge of his desk. “Oh boy, here comes another one.”
Anna gritted her teeth and tried to remember to breathe as the contraction hit her with the force and velocity of an express train. The pain just kept building and building until she didn’t think she could stand it anymore, until tears were leaking out of her eyes. They said it would hurt, but never in her worst nightmare had she dreamed it would be this painful.
After what felt like hours, the pain finally began to ease. This was so not fun. This kid could just forget about natural birth.
She wanted drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. She looked up and saw that Cedric was just standing there. His baffled expression might have been amusing in any other situation, but right now all she wanted to do was reach inside him, yank his spine out, stomp on it a couple million times and then set it on fire. Maybe then he would have at least a clue how damned much this hurt.
“I really need you to call,” she said through gritted teeth.
“We don’t need the driver. Where is your bag?”
“By the stairs.”
“I’ll help you to the car.”
He probably thought she did this on purpose, so he would have to drive her.
“I’m okay with the driver.”
“No, you’re not.” He led her to the garage, grabbing her bag as they passed the stairs. “I’m sorry.” He said as they went,
“Sorry for what?” she asked.
“That you have to do this.”
She didn’t answer, but she knew that he was sorry, and that he meant it. He got her into the car just as the next contraction hit. They were coming even closer now, and she was beginning to feel pressure where the baby’s head was coming down.
“Drive fast,” she told him as he climbed in.
He started his car, peeled out of the garage and roared through the gates to the street. This was not the way she’d imagined this happening. She was supposed to have more time. His Aunt was supposed to be here. Suddenly she couldn’t remember a single thing she’d learned in class. She felt so useless. Her body was doing all these off-the-wall things and she had no control. What if something went wrong? What if something happened to the baby? She needed someone to tell her what to do.
“I can’t do this,” she told Cedric. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to have a baby.”
“I think it’s a little late for that, sweetheart.”
“I’m scared.”
He took her hand and squeezed it. “Everything is going to be okay.” He said, just like Diana had done, and her heart broke. She turned away, and let the tears fall.
__________
The drive to the hospital was nothing but a blur of pain. Every bump they hit in the road, every turn he took, rocked through her body like a catastrophic earthquake. Her entire midsection, front to back, felt like a gigantic exposed nerve. It was so all-encompassing that she couldn’t even determine the point of origin anymore. It just hurt, sharp and stinging, and it hurt everywhere.
Her only comfort was the reassuring squeeze of Cedric’s hand. He drove way too fast, with only one hand on the wheel, and she was pretty sure he ran two or three red lights. Thank God it was the middle of the night and no one was on the road, and the hospital was only ten minutes away.
“You can just drop me off here,” she told him when they pulled up to the emergency room doors. An orderly met them at the car with a wheelchair. She had just managed to slide into it when another contraction hit swift and intense. Every time she thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, it somehow managed to.
She could hear people talking around her, but through a haze of pain she couldn’t focus on the words. She thought this one was just going to last forever, but it finally began to ease when they reached the elevator. Only then did it register that someone was holding her hand, and she looked up to see Cedric standing beside her. “You’re still here?”
Was she crazy? Cedric thought. Did she really think he was going to leave her? Instead he said, “I’m still here.”
And he wasn’t leaving. Cedric had no idea what he was doing, he only knew that he wasn’t enough of a bastard to make her do this alone. He didn’t let himself think about anything else.
All he knew was that he loved her too much to leave her.