Page 31 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

Merc took advantage of the fact that neither of the men were around and stayed more often at the clubhouse. He still came around on Mondays to drop money off, but that was it. My father was due back today, after promising me that he would be in town the week before my due date just in case.

Last I heard from him, he was still on the road, and that was a tough pill to swallow because my water broke, and he wasn’t answering the phone that he took with him. A contraction slammed into me as I attempted to remember the number for the club where Boone was staying. They had given it to me a few days earlier, just in case of an emergency. Unfortunately, I had written it down on a little chalkboard beside the phone in the kitchen and must have brushed against it at some point. The last four numbers were barely visible, and yet not visible enough because I got two wrong numbers while trying to breath through the pain in my lower abdomen.

Finally, I gave up trying to figure the number out and called the number that Boone had given me for the sat phone Merc had. The only reason I put my pride aside to make that call was because I desperately needed a ride to the hospital and didn’t want to add an ambulance bill to the mix.

“Hello?” A familiar woman’s voice answered. I couldn’t place the sound though because pain tore through me.

“I need to…” I groaned through a contraction before I could form words again. “Merc. Need Merc,” I yelled into the phone then.

“He’s busy!” She snapped and then hung up.

I called back.

“Hello?”

“I need Merc now, it’s an-”

She hung up again, but as she did so I could hear laughter in the background.

“Son of a bitch!” I screamed into the lonely confines of my house. I only had one other option, beyond dialing 9-1-1 a that point. I called my best friend, the one who was getting ready to jet off to college in a few months, and luckily, she answered right away.

“Hey preggo, what’s shakin’?” Stacey teased.

“Help!” Was all I could manage as another contraction not only hit but doubled me over with the strength of the pain that whipped from my back to my front.

“Oh my God! Where are you!” Stacey screamed into the phone.

“Home. Labor. Please, hurry.” I panted the words out in a burst.

“We’ll be right there.”

She hung up the phone, but at least this time I knew someone who cared would be on the way to help me. I managed to drag my hospital bag over to the door, unlock it, and throw it open by the time they got to my house. Luckily, Stacey didn’t live that far away.

“Oh, you poor thing!” Shannon called out as she threw the car door open and came to my side to help me. “Stace, grab her bag. Make sure you get her keys and lock up while I get her into the car.”

Stacey moved past me as her mom managed to get me into the backseat. “I think I’m leaking,” I told her.

“Hush now. Don’t even worry about it.”

By the time we got to the hospital, I was sweating buckets, in so much pain I wanted to chew my own belly off, and there was a pressure between my legs that had me cupping my hands over myself just in case my baby fell out. I didn’t think that was a thing that could actually happen, but I’d heard one too many horror stories about prom night babies falling into toilets to not be traumatized.

Thank you to all the high school bullies who thought it was fun to scare the pregnant chick with that bullshit!

The minute they put me in a wheelchair, I leaned forward and screamed, but a nurse slammed me back up. “None of that. You can’t push yet.”

“Oh my God, I can feel it…” I started to scream. “It burns so bad!” That stopped the nurse cold in her tracks. She bent down right in front of me, careful of my modesty, she slid the nightgown I’d been wearing up, and my soaked panties aside, then I watched as her eyes bugged out.

“We’re going to need a doctor over here right now and a gurney!” She proceeded to yank my underwear off me, no longer concerned about what anyone might accidentally see.

Shannon had brought me to the emergency room entrance rather than trying to get me through the front of the hospital and up to where labor and delivery was located.

“Okay, sweetheart, we’re going to lift you up and place you on the gurney. I need for you to try to stay still and not panic.”

Shannon scoffed. “You’re telling a 16-year-old girl who is in active labor not to panic as people try to lift her?”

“Not helping, ma’am.”

Shannon rolled her eyes. I needed to push again and to hell with the nurse who tried to tell me I couldn’t. I bared down and screamed through the pain.

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