Page 138 of What if It's Us

He can’t have his phone while he’s in there.

Okay. Try not to panic, try not to panic, try not to panic.

The inhale-exhale mantra I’ve read about a thousand times floats through my head on repeat.

In. Out. I am an ocean.

Out. In. But the ocean is on fucking fire!

I let the phone ring four more times knowing he will get the missed calls, and he’ll freak out, and we’ll laugh about it later, before hittingEnd.

With nobody near my office at the moment, I half-shuffle, half-waddle my way to the locker room in hopes of finding one of the guys. Clutching the wall like it’s the edge of a mountain I’m about to tumble off, I push through the locker room door. The world is quiet in the way it only is when a place built for chaos is suddenly empty. The collective musk of sweat and soap, the echo of a towel snapped in some former moment, the ghosts of last night’s playlist skipping around. The Zamboni’s furious hum is gone, replaced by distant voices from the ice and a coach barking at someone.

Yes!

They’re still practicing.

Ledger really fought with himself over skipping practice today in order to meet with his father at the prison, but Coach Hicks and the team assured him they would be okay without him for one practice. They all knew this was something Ledger needed to do.

But now I need him and he’s not here.

He’s not within easy reach.

And that feeling of helplessness is beginning to overtake my everything. Trying to catch my breath and remain as calm as humanly possible for a woman who might shoot three babies from her vagina at any moment, my instincts win out, and I poke my head into the rink anyway.

The team is doing suicides on the ice. I assume nobody will notice me but then Harrison sees me the second I step up the tunnel to the ice. His hand lifts in a wave, his smile as bright and easy as a summer day until he sees me gripping my stomach.

“Marlee?”

He skids to a stop, confusion playing across his face before horror sets in. Then, in a single fluid movement, the other guys spot me too, and the mood in the rink shifts from the usual practiced chaos to a stunned, silent suspense. Even Coach Hicks, usually a human bullhorn, is rendered speechless.

“Uhh, Darius,” Harrison calls, voice unsteady, “I think you should come here.”

Darius, the team’s trainer who, to be clear, is not an idiot, but has little to no experience in childbirth of one baby let alone three, takes in my situation and immediately adopts the seriousness of a field medic.

“Hey, Marlee.” He smooths his hand down his face and approaches me slowly as if I’m a wild animal about to attack him if he tries to touch me. “Okay, we got you, we got you, just breathe, just—” He’s forgotten how to breathe himself, his face matching the white of the boards.

Someone shouts for towels, and someone else for a car, and suddenly nine highly trained athletes are skating around with all the strategic focus of startled ducklings.

I want to laugh but my abdomen threatens mutiny.

Trying to act casual, like the lower half of me isn’t actively being claimed by aliens, I give a thumbs-up, then thumbs-down, then a wobbly, indecisive, both-thumbs-alternating gesture. “I’m fine! I’m gooo—ooh!” I croak, but the effect is ruined by the little moan I let slip when another contraction throws a punch right under my ribs.

Coach skates over, his old knees creaking with each stride. “Ledger!” he shouts into the herding panic of twenty men converging toward me. “Somebody find Ledger!”

“He’s with his father, Coach,” Griffin reminds him so I don’t have to speak actual words.

“I’m sure the prison has a fucking phone!” Coach barks. “Someone call him. Now!”

A tornado of towels surrounds me as if the unholy trinity in my uterus could be safely delivered onto a nest of team-logo terrycloth. The guys crowd protectively around me like offensive linemen blocking a quarterback.

And here I thought they were professional hockey players.

I bring a towel to my lower half, dabbing at the spreading wet with mortification while Harrison—sweet, terrified Harrison—offers his arm for me to lean on.

“You’re going to be okay, Marlee,” he coos as if telling me that everything will be fine will keep the three crotch goblins clawing their way out of me inside just a little while longer. He swipes some of the sweat-soaked hair off of my forehead. “I promise you. Everything is going to be okay.”

“We gotta get her to the hospital,” Darius instructs. “Like, now. Right fucking now. I could possibly deliver a baby, but three?” His horrified expression when he locks eyes with Harrison is not lost on me. “That comes with all kinds of…” He doesn’t finish his thought, but he doesn’t have to. I already know.

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