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I’m still working on my first breath when a flash of pain travels up my body. A scream rips its way from my throat and sends me keeling over from this new throbbing agony I’ve never experienced before.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…” I groan obsessively as I stare at my useless phone. When the pain finally releases its clamp on me, I shove myself back upright. “Fuck it! I’ll get myself to the hospital.”
I start to limp to the elevators and smash the button to summon a ride down.
Except…
Nothing happens. I pause at the access code pad, realizing with horror that I have no idea what code actually opens the steely silver doors. I start guessing. But again and again, the red light flashes and the beep scolds me for daring to try.
Access Denied.
Access Denied.
Access Denied.
I’m sweating now. Dripping under my arms, between my thighs, down my back. It’s like the pain is melting me from the inside out. Another contraction scours through my body and I bite my tongue until it throbs, place my hands on the elevator, and try once again to breathe through it.
“What am I going to do?” I whisper feverishly to the empty penthouse. “What am I going to do…?”
I twist around and, with my back on those silver doors, I sink down onto the carpeted foyer floor. I can’t even pull my feet up to my chest because my stomach’s in the way. Instead, I sit there, legs sprawled on either side, my fingers clinging to the short-haired rug as I do my best to think of a way out of this.
But thinking is a joke. I’m useless right now in just about every way. I feel like I’m back in that carnival machine with Rose when we were little girls, trying to snatch dollar bills from the air as a wind tunnel blew a hurricane around us. I reach to seize something but it’s gone before my fingers close.
Another contraction.
More pain.
More sweat.
Heaps more panic.
I close my eyes and pray.
“Rose… Bee… help me…”
An old memory flutters at the periphery of my mind. This one lingers long enough for me to grab hold of it.
“Rose!” I gasped when I saw her lying in her bathtub, submerged in bloody water. “Oh my God, oh my?—”
“I’m okay.”
I stopped short, terrified and unable to process. Rose turned her gaze on me and, true to her word, she seemed okay. Her eyes were alert; she looked to be in control of her faculties. But then—she was sitting in a tub of bloody water, so “okay” was a stretch at best.
She must’ve read my mind, because she raised her wrists to show me they were whole and unharmed. “I didn’t try to end it, if that’s what you’re guessing.”
“Then why the fuck is your bath water red?!” I demanded. “Why does it smell like blood and death in here?”
She closed her eyes and two huge tears squeezed out. “Because I’m losing another one.”
I dropped to my knees beside the tub. Her bathroom was made up of dreary yellow tile and a clerestory window too narrow to let in more than a brief snatch of light.
“You’re pregnant?”
“Not anymore. I’m losing the baby.” She dragged her eyes up to mine. “This is the furthest along I’ve ever gotten. Next week would have been three months.”
“Rose, why don’t we get you out of?—”
“No!” she’d shouted with so much force that I stumbled backwards and fell on my ass. “No. I want to stay here with my baby for a little while longer.”
