Page 117 of Skating the Blue Line
“I vote hospital. I’ll drive you there if you want. I don’t think I can deliver a baby at a hockey game,”Hunter lets out.
“Who said anything about you delivering the baby?” His girlfriend, Selena asks giving him a ‘you’re crazy’ look.
“Who else is going to do it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, how about one of the many EMTs or medical professionals that are in the stadium?”
Selena tells him and I mean I’m on her side. I don’t want or need a football player between my legs.
Another sharp pain hits me and I have a feeling that if they get any closer, I’m going to pass out.
The moms are right. It’s time to go to the hospital.
“Okay. Let’s go. Let’s go to the hospital.” I pant out, trying to remember those breathing exercises I learned. “Someone has to call the team doctor so they can tell Liam as soon as the game is over.”
“I’ll call on the way there,” Hunter says, as he walks over and both him and my dad help me up and walk me out to the car.
The hospital better have a tv because no way am I going to miss Liam and the Knights winning the game.
* * *
Apparently you can be five centimeters dilated and not even know it.
When we got here and the nurses brought me back, I thought that they were going to say that I wasn’t dilated enough and that they were going to send me home.
Wrong.
By the time that I got to the hospital I was already five centimeters and had to be admitted.
Meaning? I was going to miss the last period of the game. Sure I can check the score on my phone but it’s not the same in person.
But I still have my dad bring it up on his phone and start it up right where the game was when we left.
Given the cheering I heard from the nurses station a bit ago, I know the outcome, but I want to see it with my own eyes. I want to see it for the first time and support Liam in every way possible.
Because that’s what you do for the man that you love.
The fact that I’m able to even think the words is jaw dropping, but it’s how I fucking feel. And it’s not the baby hormones talking.
My parents and I settle my room, and as nurses come to hook me up to machines and take samples for whatever test they are conducting, I watch the game.
Who knew that one night with a hockey player can make you into an obsessive fan.
As the game continues, I bite my nails the whole time in anticipation of whatever is going to happen. Turns out that Florida ended up tying the game right before we left so the majority of the third period it’s a tie game.
When the clock on the screen gets under a minute, that is when things start going from exciting to nerve wrecking.
My eyes follow the number twenty-one all over the screen and when he gets the puck in the last twelve seconds I let out a scream.
I watch as Liam brings back his stick and slaps the puck across the ice and somehow makes it go into the net, right past the goalkeeper's left shoulder.
He scored the winning goal. Instead of letting out another scream, I start to silently cry.
They did it. They won. They won it all.
I hate that I couldn’t be there in person.
My eyes stay on the screen and I continue to cry tears of happiness for the man that has given me so much these last few months that I almost miss the door opening.
