“If you make me go down this hill, I will die,” I told him sternly.
Tyler laughed, rolling his eyes into the back of his head, “Can you not be dramatic for once?”
We stood at the top of a hill, the concrete path stretching and bending far passed where we could see. Strapped to our feet were a respective pair of black roller blades, something which I hadn’t set foot in since I was a child. At sixteen, it was less than ideal. I wobbled with the surety of a toddler.
“Come on, you buzzkill,” Tyler smirked before descending the hill with horrifying speed.
The summer air danced through my long hair, as if to nurture my apprehension. Despite my better judgement, I set off behind my friend. Unfortunately, though, I’d appropriately gauged my abilities and gained entirely too much speed.
“Tyler!” I screeched instinctively as I whizzed past him and further down the path, unable to control my movements at all.
A small branch laying innocently in the walkway caught itself between my wheels and stopped my left foot dead in its tracks. I went flying backward and onto my back in a frump. Pain coursed through my body—but not the typical pain that’s easily alleviated by laughter…no, no. This was something entirely new.
My eyes tore into the sky as the clouds blurred behind my tears. They pooled over my cheeks and dripped onto the pavement beneath me. I pulled my arms up as I heard Tyler approaching me with urgency. My entire left arm was gashed to absolute shit. The skin hung from my wrist like a chewed up dog toy. I grimaced at the sight.
“Jesus, Blair,” Tyler panicked, dropping to his knees beside me. “Are you okay?”
“My leg,” I told him through my groans. “I can’t move my leg.”
His eyes widened, “Can you move anything else?”
I rolled my eyes, “Now who’s dramatic.”
I pushed myself to sit up, gasping for air with the surge of anguish that coursed through my bruised body. He checked me over, pushing at my legs and asking if I could feel his touch. Of course I could.
“I’m not fucking paralyzed, Tyler,” I told him impatiently. “Can you take these things off my feet? I need to stand.”
Without questioning, he unstrapped the blades of death and pulled them from my feet. The relief was sweet.
He stretched his hands out to me, and I snatched them up as I had for the past decade. As he pulled me to my feet, my throat screamed from the pain. My hands discovered my hips and held it like they could somehow soothe the discomfort.
“It’s my hip,” I told Tyler through the winces.
I tried to adjust my leg but it would move only an inch; it absolutely refused to stretch any further.
“Pull your pants down,” Tyler instructed me.
With absolutely no regard for modesty, I pulled my denim jeans from my waist, exposing my battered hip that was already starting to bruise over with black. Tyler gawked at it, poking at the joint to see if I would stir. I did; loudly.
“I think it’s dislocated,” I whined, beginning to panic. “What the fuck do I do?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Tyler half-laughed, rubbing at the back of his neck.
I growled at him, “I told you I couldn’t make it down the hill! Why do you never fucking listen to me?”
“Blair, calm down,” he soothed me, locking his gaze onto mine. “Deep breaths.”
“It hurts,” I frowned.
He nodded, “I bet it does.”
The panic began to swell up again.
“Deep breaths,” Tyler reminded me, leading me into a long inhale and an even longer exhale.
He smiled fondly as I began to work myself out from the panic and let Tyler help to lower me back into the grass.
“I don’t know how to get a hip back in,” I told him.
“Me fucking either,” he laughed nervously, sliding into the grass beside me. “Maybe it’ll just…do it…itself?”
I groaned, “I fucking doubt that.”
“We need to get to a doctor or something,” Tyler thought aloud. “Can you…Can you walk?”
I shrugged my shoulders, deciding quietly that I’d have to, at least, try.
“Just let me smoke first,” I instructed him, digging through my back pocket to find my crumpled pack of cigarettes.
Several had broken from the impact. I lit a full cigarette hastily and swooned beneath its toxins.
“I should have listened to you,” Tyler said quietly. “You’re right, I never do…and you’re always right.”
“It isn’t really your fault,” I offered weakly, sucking back all the cancer I could take.
He sighed, “Yeah but…I pushed you. I’m always pushing you…It isn’t fair to you.”
“You really don’t need to make this into a thing,” I told him, annoyed. “Next time just don’t make me roll down the fucking hill.”
“I won’t,” he assured me. “I won’t put you through anything you don’t want to do.”
Like an idiot, I believed him.
I stamped out my cigarette and let Tyler aid me to my feet. And with a rapturous growl escaping my lips, and a fire in my hip, we set off.

I woke up in a panic, shooting straight up in my bed. My eyes darted around the darkened bedroom, searching for something to explain the disturbance. The house was silent, save for my accelerated breathing. An eerie sense of impending turbulence radiated through me.
And then a shock wave of agony ripped through my stomach.
“Oh,” I choked, keeling forward into the pain as my arms wrapped around my pained guts.
It relented after a minute or so, allowing me enough time to catch my breath and regain my senses. I pushed my feet from my bed and darted for the light switch. The room was less intimidating coated in light.
I tossed a pair of slippers onto my feet, because it seemed weirdly important at the time, and then darted out and down the hall.
“Lauren,” I whispered sternly into her dark bedroom. “Lauren!”
She stirred, “Huh?”
“Lauren,” I said again, louder this time. “Lauren, I think I’m in labor or some shit.”
She bolted alert and was by my side within seconds. She checked me out, panicking more than I was. It seemed odd, given that she was not the one that would have to push a melon from her lady bits—she’d already been down that rabbit hole.
I explained to her what had happened and what the pain had felt like. She wasn’t convinced but agreed to stay up with me to see if the contractions had come back. We were only five days out from the due date, which seemed an entirely reasonable time to start jumping to assumptions about the impending baby.
We sought sanctuary atop the couch cushions, Lauren watching me intently as I simply existed. After another fifteen minutes, another wave of pain came around. I dug my nails into the arm of the sofa, cursing and gritting my teeth as I suffered through.
Lauren ducked away quickly, earning horror from my party.
“I’m calling Brian,” she said without looking back.
She reappeared just as the wave crashed against the shore and rode out peacefully back into the ocean.
“She’s okay,” Lauren smiled into the phone pushed to her ear. “But we’re thinking this is it…So…”
I stared up at her impatiently as she nodded to herself.
“Yeah, hold on,” she smirked, passing her phone to my greedy hands.
“Bri?” I asked more desperately than I’d intended; I cleared my throat of the obvious fear.
“Hey, baby,” he smiled from miles away. “I hear you’re not getting any sleep tonight.”
I almost laughed, “Are you coming? Please for the love of fuck tell me you’re coming.”
“Yep,” he answered quickly. “I’m rallying the troops as we speak.”
He muffled the phone as he sounded off an actual air horn. I snapped the speaker away from my ear, afraid of becoming deafened in an instant. When I finally dared to pull the phone back, I could hear Brian urging everyone to hurry. I assumed the entire family was headed my way.
“Okay,” Brian finally acknowledged me again. “We’re coming. I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” I sighed, wishing more than anything that he were there to hold my hand.
I wasn’t typically sentimental or reliant in such a way…but something about looming dangerously close to melon time had really brought out the neediness in me.
“I love you,” Brian told me seriously. “Don’t you give birth before I get there!”
I laughed, “I will cross my fucking legs.”
“That’s all I ask,” he smirked as he hung up.
Lauren sank back onto the couch with me, offering to make me anything from tea to a full on Henry VIII feast. I denied everything, settling instead on the sheer panic working its way up my bones.
“I’m going to call Marge,” she told me.
We’d worked out a plan to have Marge and Tom on stand by for the entire month leading up to the expected baby arrival. Marge would come with Lauren and I to the hospital, and Tom would hang back with Owen. He’d grown a real soft spot for the blue eyed baby and was honored to be tasked with the job.
Despite the midnight hour, Marge answered on the second ring. Lauren laughed into the phone, giving me a reassuring smile every so often.
“They’re coming,” Lo told me as she hung up and tossed the phone onto the cushion next to her.
I nodded absently.
“Lo?”
She perked up, “Yeah?”
“I’m really fucking scared.”
“I haven’t heard you say that in…so long,” she frowned. “Don’t be scared, B. It’s going to be okay.”
I bit at my lip, “But I’m cursed…What if…something happens…”
“Nothing is going to happen,” she retorted sternly. “Jimmy won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You and your fucking guardian bullshit,” I teased with a grin.
“I’m serious,” she insisted. “You’ve got two! You have Tyler and Jimmy…No way are they letting anything happen to you or that beautiful baby in there. You’ll see, Blair…It’s all going to be perfect.”
“If Brian even gets here in time,” I whined, sinking further into my pity party than ever before.
“He will,” she groaned impatiently. “He’s only three hours away. That’s tons of time!”
“It’s not tons,” I noted argumentatively. “That’s without delays and without bags and assuming they’ve got a plane ready to go…Everything’s going to go fucking wrong. I know it.”
“Can you just stop? Stop your bitching and just…enjoy this. I know it hurts and stuff…But…What if this is the only time you do this, B? Don’t you think you should enjoy it?”
I stared at her.
“Or just freak out,” she gave up. “Whatever.”
With permission granted, I tossed my arms into the air, “I don’t want to push a baby out of my vagina!”
“Well you should have thought of that before you had sex, Blair Haner,” she told me with a finger point, abandoning me on the couch.
Even though I desperately wanted to laugh, my insecurities shackled me into a permanent state of disorientation. I could focus on nothing but the unknown.
“I’m going to make you a cup of tea and you’re going to sit there and enjoy your last bit of time before you’re a mother forever.”
Her impatience pulled out an unconventional thought from my panicking mind. She was totally right; this was it.
“Oh fuck,” I thought aloud, a strange calmness washing over my tensed muscles.
Lauren whipped around, “What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I replied weakly.
She furrowed her brows at me.
“You just…pulled me back,” I laughed awkwardly.
She was still confused, “Back from what?”
“Panic,” I answered simply.
I prayed Brian made it in time to be with me as we became parents.

Notes

xx