Page 89 of Chasing Never
“You have to push,” says Malia.
I bite my lip and frown and let out a feral groan that sounds nothing like me.
And all of a sudden, I feel my son slip out of me.
An instant relief takes its place.
It’s as if the pain has been vacuumed up, whisked into a black hole, forgotten—almost as if it never existed to begin with.
I go to spin around, to glimpse my son, but Malia keeps one hand on my back.
“If you turn around, your leg will become wrapped up in the cord. Give him a little time to get the last few pulses of blood.”
I don’t know what that means or why it’s important. All I know is that I want nothing more than to hold my baby.
“Why isn’t he crying?” I say—all the worst-case scenarios bombarding my head. Fear that he’s gone. That I failed him already.
“Your son is crying,” says Malia.
I blink, confused.
The sound in the room comes back on, as if someone had stuffed a sock into a phonograph and has just now removed it. I hear that cry, and it’s the most beautifully heartbreaking sound that’s ever reached my ears.
I crane my neck to look. From this angle, I can’t see my son, but I watch as Malia secures a band around the umbilical cord, then takes a blade to the segment beneath the tie.
I barely notice because my baby is screaming. My baby.
A flood of emotions encompasses me.
Once the umbilical cord is cut and I’m free to twist around, I do, taking in the sight of my child for the first time.
He seems so small. Like something must be wrong with him. Like it couldn’t possibly be natural for a living human to be that small and survive.
But he’s crying, his little chest heaving up and down. He’s covered in a white, sticky material that Malia is rubbing into his skin.
A head of dark black hair, just like his father’s. The smallest of fingers, grasping at the air. Grasping for me. And before I know what I’m doing, my hands are reaching for him.
Malia stands abruptly. She turns away from me, her hips swaying back and forth as she rocks my baby in her arms.
His screams pierce my ears.
“Please, just let me hold him.”
Malia says nothing. And for a moment, I wonder if she can’t hear me.
I watch her back as she takes her hand to her shoulder. At first, I think she’s massaging it, but then she slips the tunic down over her shoulder, leaving it bare. I frown, confused.
Quiet fills the cave, stifling the echoes of my son’s screams.
And then a sound that sends chills beyond my spine—suckling noises, and a gentle click in between my baby’s labored breaths.
“What… what are you doing?” I ask.
The unease dragging my belly toward the floor tells me I already know. My blood runs cold as a memory assaults me—a whisper from the past in the form of a serpent’s voice.You may enter the library, should you forfeit the possibility of nursing your firstborn at your breasts.
“Please, Nolan’s not here yet,” I say. “What harm can it do? Just let me… just let me hold him.”
Malia doesn’t answer.
