“You’re not taking an Uber to the damn hospital to have my baby! What if something happened?”
“What’s the difference if Ricky takes us?”
“He’s a paid professional!”
“Yeah, and I pay an Uber driver. Same difference,” I shouted back.
His jaw snapped shut and he shook his head. “I’m not fighting with you about this. You’re staying here. We’re going to the hospital together when it’s time.”
He walked toward the archway of the library, which was the only stupid room in his whole house we ever occupied besides his bedroom and the kitchen.
“Fine, but I don’t want you in the delivery room!” I shouted at his back.
That hurt him. I could see it in the way his shoulders jerked. Slowly, he turned back to me.
“Why not?” he asked, in a low voice.
“Because you don’t love me,” I said, looking down at my feet which he’d been rubbing just a few minutes ago. “You’re not my husband. It’s not a place for you to be. And I’m moving back to my old room tonight.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get this. We were perfectly happy, like, twenty minutes ago and now everything is shit! What. Is. Wrong?”
“Weweren’t perfectly happy,” I said, basically rolling myself off the couch because it was the only way I could get to my feet. “Youwere happy. I’m scared about labor, scared about being a mother, scared about everything. And I’m massive andeverything hurts all the time. And I’m stuck in this house with a person who doesn’t love me, and right now I’m just sick of it. Sick of all of it!”
His head dropped forward until his chin almost touched his chest. He waited a beat, then looked at me.
“Is that what this is about? You’re scared?”
I nodded and stood my ground.
Cautiously, he approached me. “You could have just told me. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you, Flowers. I promise.”
“You can’t control that. You can’t control any of it.”
“You know I care about you. You’re not in this alone.”
He was speaking to me like I was a child. Moving closer, but slowly, like he was sneaking up on his prey.
“I’m going to be there with you the whole time,” he said, even as he wrapped his arms around me. I let him because it was the only thing in my world that felt good, even though I didn’t hug him back. “I’m going to let you squeeze my hand really hard and call me bad names. I’m going to feed you ice chips and rub your back. We’re going to do this thing and it’s going to be epic.”
And that’s when I felt it. A sudden whoosh between my legs. And I was wet. Down there.
Had I peed myself? It didn’t feel like it. It felt like a water ballon had burst between my legs.
“Holy shit,” E.G. snapped. “Your water just broke! Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. What the fuck do we do now?”
I glared at him. “What happened to nothing bad is going to happen? And everything is going to be okay?”
“That was before your water broke!”
Oh my God. “Are you losing your shit right now?”
“Fuck! We need to go. Now. Do you have your bag packed?”
“No! I’m two weeks early. This isn’t supposed to be happening now! I’ll go pack now.”
“No time,” he barked. “We have to get to the hospital.”
“But there was a whole list of things,” I whined. “From that baby book.”
