Page 3 of The Sweetest Surrender

“I know it, but I didn’t want to miss this.”

Samiyah moved, and everyone moved with her as if waiting for her to need their help. She paused and looked at them all while swiping her fallen bangs out of her face.

“You guys, I promise I won’t break.”

The ladies all glanced at each other. They weren’t so sure.

“We just want to walk you and Selena to the car,” Eden chimed.

“Yeah,” their sister Jasmine added.

Samiyah pursed her lips. “Really?”

“Come on,” Selena said, slipping her arm around Samiyah’s waist.

“Selena, I walked in here just fine, I’ll be all r—”

Samiyah’s words dispersed as a rampant pain pounded in her cervix. Samiyah’s eyes bulged, and she grabbed her stomach.

“Oh God,” she said.

Alarmed, the girls all gripped her at once.

“What’s wrong?” Selena asked with an elevated voice.

Samiyah held still with her teeth locked as the pounding faded off and disappeared. She took a deep breath then calmed as her racing heart tapered into its normal rhythm.

“Nothing,” Samiyah said. “False alarm.”

The girls all exhaled a deep breath.

“Okay, let’s start over,” Selena said.

“Okay, Aaaah!” Another round of pounding pain knocked around Samiyah’s core, and this time it increased ten-fold. “Oh my God!” Samiyah yelled as she bit back on her teeth. A headache instantly took root. A gushing of warm liquid slipped down her legs, and when it splattered to the floor, everyone in the vicinity froze for a split second before Claudia yelled, “Her water just broke!”

Everyone scattered and spoke at the same time.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” the owner shouted.

“I’ll get the car!” Eden quipped.

“I’ll call Martha Jean!” Claudia said, knowing Samiyah’s mother would be devastated to be the last to find out.

“Wait! Wait!” Samiyah said. They all turned to her. “Can someone call my husband!?”

“Of course—, Yeah—, Give me your phone,” they said, continuing to talk around each other.

“The ambulance will be here in five minutes,” the owner said.

“That’ll take too long,” Selena said. “We have to get her to the emergency room now!”

The girls dispersed quickly, moving so fast that they ran out the door with Phoebe still in the wedding dress.

“Ma’am!” the owner yelled. “Ma’am!”

But the women kept going in a rush to Mercy B Hospital.

---