Page 107 of Together

Realization dawns and Ashley cries out in a contraction. “Accident.”

“Yes. I helped you at the car accident. Good to see you still have that strong determination we saw from you then.”

“You ready to go to the hospital, babe?” she asks, breathing heavy with her eyes practically bugging straight out of her head. It’s kind of a scary look on her, I gotta admit.

“Maybe we can try something different?” I suggest, looking to Sarah for backup. Luckily, the other medic, this one a man, steps in.

“Ashley, do you remember me?”

“Cart-er.”

The young medic grins. “Yeah. That’s me. I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”

Ashley nods rapidly, her lips puckered when she says, “Mm hmm.”

“Remember how I told you my girlfriend was having a baby, too? She was a little ahead of you.”

She nods and groans long and deep when another contraction hits.

“I was with her in the delivery room, Ashley, and I’ve gotta say, you’re where she was when she started pushing. Would you mind letting us help you out a little bit?”

Once she gets through the contraction, she finally nods, agreeing to their help. We quickly get her undressed from the bottom down. There’s no sense in delaying that any longer at this point and Sarah quickly slides a towel out of our bathroom under her butt.

I sit back, letting Ashley use my body to brace herself against while allowing Carter and Sarah to do their jobs just as I hear more sirens.

“Liberty Police Department!” a man yells, entering my house.

“We’re back here!” I call to him.

Two men in uniform step into the room just in time to see Ashley bear down with a contraction that has to feel like it’s ripping her in two. She’s lying against my knees, my arms stretched out beside her so she can grip my hands tightly. And is it ever tight.

Her lips are pursed and she has sweat pouring out of her. I have no idea how this happened, her about to give birth in our home, but considering that the entire time we’ve known each other has been out of the ordinary, it kind of makes sense.

“Holy crap!” one of them shouts.

The other stands by the door looking a little white before shaking his head and snapping out of it. “So, uh, what do you need from me?”

Sarah rattles off a few things like towels and blankets but the rest of the items she has in her bag. Firemen show up, and all I can think is my house isn’t big enough for this many people. I have no idea why firemen are here, though, in emergency situations, I assume the more the merrier is a general rule of thumb to go by. In this case, I feel a great sense of relief knowing that we have extra hands here to help should anything go south.

Though, I’m not sure how much farther south we can go than having an unplanned home birth.

A contraction starts and she grunts and groans, curling her body into a C and gritting her teeth.

“Good. Okay, Sarah is going to need to check you to see how far you’re dilated.”

“Not to be a smartass, but it looks to me like that’s not necessary,” one of the policeman says, pointing to in between Ashley’s legs.

“We see a head,” Sarah announces.

“What the fuck!” I yell. “The head? Like a baby’s head?”

“Welcome to the party, asshole!” Ashley groans. “I think this is the part where I say this is all your fault.”

Carter and Sarah bark orders at all of us. Who needs to be positioned where, who needs to hold what, who’s supposed to push and count to ten — that job, at least the pushing — belongs to Ashley, of course. But when I count to ten for Ashley and encourage her to push, I find myself holding my breath and doing the same.

After what feels like hours, a million curse words from every single person in the room, blood and bodily fluids I never expected to see in my bedroom, and a lot of shouting, the only sound we hear is…

“It’s a boy!” followed by the absolute sweetest, most perfect sound in the entire world.

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