by Shey Stahl
“I need to check your cervix again,” a nurse says, pulling my blanket back.
I’m in the room with just Red and Nova, and his eyes widen. There’re certain parts of this ordeal he said he won’t be a part of. Exams are one of them.
I can’t blame him. I don’t even want to be in the room for it.
“I’ll be right back.” And then Red jets out the door leaving me with Nova. Alone. I wish like hell Lenny was here, but I understood between having a C-section only five weeks ago and a newborn who stays awake during the night, she’s probably exhausted. Little Chevy thinks 2:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. is time for him to be wide awake and screaming.
Nova looks at me with curiosity, her eyes darting to the door, and then me. She walks to the foot of the bed where the nurse is and lifts the blanket back where the nurse has her hand stuck up my vagina. “How’d the baby get in there? Who put it in there?”
Now I know why she looked at the door. She doesn’t want to ask in front of her dad. More than likely because she’s already asked the question and didn’t get the answer she wanted.
“First of all, step away from my V, and second, that’s a conversation for another day, sweetie.”
Nova’s eyes dart to mine and thankfully, she comes back up by my head. “That’s what a V is?”
Crap! Raven told me about that story of the sleepover and Tyler referring to Raven’s V as her vagina.
The nurse smiles at Nova and then touches my knee gently. “You’re at a nine, Sophie, and fully effaced so I’m going to page the doctor now.”
Oh shit.
Nova waits until the nurse leaves us alone and leans on the bed using the bars on the side to twirl in her leotard. “Well, if you won’t tell me how it got in there, can you tell me who the dad is? Daddy says it takes a mommy and a daddy to make one. So there’s a dad, right?”
I’m hesitant to say, but I know she already knows this. “Uncle Rawley?” It comes out a question because I’m not entirely sure why she’s asking.
She stops her twirling and rolls her eyes licking her Cheetos fingers. “Where ever he went.”
It’s hard to explain to her the decisions her uncle made, and we haven’t. Just that he went away for a while. And that in itself was tough because of what happened to her mother and her papa. In some ways, I think she knows we’re trying to protect her.
“He’ll be back someday. He’s promoting his new CD,” I tell her, hoping I’m not lying to her. I know Rawley, and he won’t stay away forever. He just won’t and when he comes home…. I’ll cross that bridge when it comes.
BEFORE I KNOW it, it’s nearing midnight and the doctor tells me it’s baby time. Mia’s stuck in traffic so that leaves me with Red and Nova asleep on the couch. Despite all the commotion, she doesn’t wake up and eventually, a nurse takes her out of the room so she doesn’t see me giving birth.
I still haven’t had drugs other than some mild pain killers and I’m priding myself on doing this naturally. Might as well give me a gold metal as far as I’m concerned.
Dr. Nells comes in the room clasping his hands together. “Looks like it’s baby time!”
Red stands. “I think I should go.”
I grab his wrist before he can get away. “I’m scared, Red. I can’t do this. Not alone.” I sense his denial coming. Frantically I add, “Look, I know this isn’t ideal for you, but I need you here. You’re the closest thing I have to Rawley, and you’re like my big brother. You’ve been through this twice and I don’t want to be alone. Please?”
After what I’m sure is some internal debate, he nods and takes a seat. He’s torn. I see it flashing in his eyes. On one hand, he doesn’t want to be in here. On the other, he doesn’t want to leave me alone. “You might be the one having the baby but you’re not alone. We’re family and if you want me here, I’m here for you. But,” he draws out, slowly pointing below my waist. “I don’t want anything to do with what’s happening from the neck down.”
I start crying. Mostly because this was not at all how I pictured my life or how this would happen. I pictured myself getting married to Rawley and having his babies, not losing him and having his son with his brother holding my hand.
What seems like only seconds later, I’m pushing.
I don’t like the way they tell me to bear down. Like what? Like I’m taking a poop? It’s awful and so embarrassing having Red in here and I’m tempted to tell him to leave just in case I, I don’t know, poop.
“If I, you know, do anything embarrassing in here, or something comes out of me other than a baby, please don’t judge me,” I say between contractions and pushes.
Red laughs beside me like it’s no big deal, but to me it is. Technically speaking, he’s my boss and here he is in the delivery room with me because I forced him to stay.
As I’m pushing and feeling like he’s never coming out, Dr. Nells glances at his nurse, then the fetal monitor and gives the nurse beside me a nod.
Relaxed like everything is completely fine, she places an oxygen mask on me.
I rip it off, my arms resembling jelly as I attempt to move. This pushing is no joke. “Why’d you do that? What’s wrong?”
Dr. Nells doesn’t look at me. “Sophie, we need to get the baby out now. His heartrate it dropping.”
Bearing down as they call it, I shoot Dr. Nells a glare, sweat pouring down my face. “I’ve been in labor for three hours,” I say this as if I’ve been in labor for days, but in my mind, it’s felt like months based on my tolerance for pain. “You’re not doing a C-section now.”
Red chuckles, seeing how his tough as nails girlfriend was in labor with Chevy for eighteen hours before he finally arrived. I’m not Lenny. I’m Sophie, the girl deathly afraid of pain and the fact that I’m having a baby naturally has to account for something in my mind.
“Okay, I’ll give you four more pushes but if we can’t get him out, I have to perform a C-section.”
Red takes my hand tighter, knowing I’m a second away from a breakdown. “You got this.
The doctor works quickly and tells me to push. There’s an intense pressure in my stomach and pelvis and then he stands and I feel like he reaches inside me to get the baby out.
The pressure increases slightly and then nothing. He’s out and I feel emptiness.
The doctor takes the baby in his hands and winks at me, cutting the cord himself in what seems like rushed motions. “It’s a boy.”
Time immediately slows down, a painful lump rising in my throat. I don’t hear anything. No crying, just piercing silence as he hands my limp baby off to the nurse beside him.
My stomach drops, my heart racing. “Why isn’t he crying? Shouldn’t he be crying? Is he breathing?”
I can’t see him. I try but five nurses are immediately surrounding my baby and two more rush through the door.
“Red, go look, is he okay?”
Red lets go of my hand and stands, trying to see. He and the doctor exchange a look and then he glances down at me. “He’s fine. They’re just warming him up.”
“That’s bullshit. I don’t hear anything. He should be crying!” My hysterical voice takes over and I’m crying, trying to wipe away tears to clear my blurry vision and get a better view, but I can’t. I can’t see him at all.
Red moves from beside me to where the nurses are but doesn’t interfere with what they’re doing.
It feels like hours before I hear a shrieking scream pierce through the room. I’ve never been so happy in my entire life to hear a baby crying.
The nurses hand the baby to Red and he brings him over, smiling down at me. “See, everything’s okay.”
“Oh my God,” is all I can say when I see him, pushing the white blanket away from his face. He’s tiny, so tiny and kind of tinted blue, but he’s breathing.
“He looks like Rawley did when he was a baby,” Red murmurs, stopping briefly to take a breath and then hands the baby to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.
“He does,” I agree
, taking him gently in my arms. Living at Mia’s house, I’m constantly surrounded by photographs of Rawley when he was younger, even ones where he was a newborn in his father’s arms and without a shred of doubt, my son looks like his father. His color’s still pale but the tiny scrunch to his brows, and the shape of his face, round with full lips and a distinct chin, he’s definitely a Walker boy. The only feature I find of mine on him is my nose. Cute little button nose.
I start crying, as if I wasn’t already. Only now it’s harder and I’m shaking.
Red rubs my arm. “You’re okay. He’s okay.” It’s reassuring, in a sense. In other ways, I don’t know if I am okay. I really don’t.
“He’s a pretty good size for being six weeks early,” Dr. Nells tells us, touching my arm. “Five pounds thirteen ounces… but we’re gonna put him in the special care nursery for a few days and see if we can’t get his lungs a little stronger.”
Staring down at him, a precious little person who reminds me so much of Rawley, I can’t help but miss him. He should be a part of this. The Rawley I loved would have wanted to be a part of it. He’s got Rawley’s chin but my nose. I can’t tell whose eyes he has as they’re closed. He seems perfectly content now, his breathing light and controlled.
I look at Red, a sadness swirling his eyes. Even though we don’t talk about it, he knows how much I wish it was Rawley here with me and not him. Though I’m thankful he was here for me today. He holds me close. “You’re gonna be fine.”
Tears spill from the corners of my eyes, the baby in my arms keeping me afloat. “I know,” I say with a whisper, struggling for air with the pinch those words bring. I didn’t want to do this alone, but it’s the reality I’m facing. And for this baby boy in my arms, I will do just that.
Thunder rolls through the city, lightning turning my room cobalt blue. White flashes dance behind my lids, the rumbling in the sky stirring me awake. The bed’s dipped, a presence next to me of a faceless woman. I couldn’t pick her face out of a line up if I had to, but I bet she knows exactly who I am.
I don’t part my lids because every time I do, I see her, and I don’t want to. Life is easier when I keep my eyes closed to everything around me.
Turning over, I face the small window and stare out it hoping maybe if I do, the rain might put me back to sleep.
It doesn’t.
It never does.
Nothing does. I can’t remember the last time I actually slept for any significant time. I wake up every morning an hour after I fall asleep around 2:00 a.m. and I’m up, wishing for sleep, only my brain won’t shut down long enough for me to find relief.
It swims with a memory I’ll never completely drown out. I tell myself to let go. I’ve been gone long enough she won’t give a shit about me coming back.
Sophie.
She’s in the deepest, darkest parts of my thoughts, and each time she crosses my mind, the pain comes back, the words I said, the things I did… it’s all there.
It’s been over a year since I left home and not once has she tried to call me. It’s not like I’ve reached out to her either, but in a round-about way a couple months back, Raven told me she was doing fine. I figure that’s code for she’s moved on.
I still hear from Raven and my mom but only through text messages. When I first left, they tried calling, but after a couple weeks of me not answering their calls, they apparently got the hint and texted me. My fear was if I did pick up the phone, heard their voice, I’d change my mind about staying away and head back home. If I heard Sophie’s voice, it’d be over. I knew that.
Maybe that’s why I can’t fucking sleep.
Tossing and turning, I finally get up after an hour and check my phone. It died last night after the show, so I plugged it in once I got home. I hadn’t bothered to look at it since then to see if Beck called me back. He’s been in LA all week visiting his dad and I think, though I can’t remember, I might have had to pick him up at the airport last night.
The screen to my phone lights up when I hit the home button. It shows two missed calls from Beck, three missed calls from Sam, and another text message from Beck that simply reads.
Beck: Dude, fuck you. I had to take a cab.
Turning my head, I see he’s on the couch so clearly his phobia of cabs didn’t come true and he is in fact, still very much alive. He’s had this stupid fucking fear ever since watching some movie called The Bone Collector. Now any time he’s forced to catch a cab, he’s convinced they’re secretly going to drag him out in the middle of nowhere, cut off his fingers and leave only bones visible in the dirt. The way I look at it, I did the paranoid motherfucker a favor. Proved his fear was bullshit.
I listen to the message from Sam. He’s reminding me we have a show tomorrow night and then two more next week in Portland, and one in Los Angeles the following week. In the last six months, we’ve toured all across the west coast promoting our EP. I said I wouldn’t hire Sam as our manager but Beck and Lincoln both disagreed with me. We needed a manager and he was offering what we needed. Exposure. So we ended up hiring him and his business partner Nick to promote us.
There’s another message that catches my attention. It’s from my mom and left last night around seven.
Mom: Rawley, answer your damn phone!
That’s all it says. I’ll send her a message tomorrow but there’s no way I’m calling. Setting my phone down, I leave it plugged in and move to the fridge to find something to drink. I share an apartment with Beck and Lincoln in downtown Seattle. It’s only two bedrooms so Beck sleeps on the couch and never complains. He’s simple like that and if he wants to bring a girl home, he does. We just know that sometimes we’re gonna see him fucking girls on the couch. It’s not like it matters though. We’ve all seen it hundreds of times in the last year. Hell, there’s times I don’t even close my door when I have someone in there. It’s just the way it is with us.
With a flash of light, another crack of thunder rattles through our tenth-floor apartment. Beck stirs on the couch and turns over, a pillow smashed to his head as he attempts to block out the light.
“Are you coming back to bed?” a timid voice asks from behind.
Twisting in the direction of the voice, I realize I’m standing naked in the middle of my kitchen. I turn to look at the stranger standing in my bedroom doorway. It’s obviously the girl I fucked in my bed last night, but as I look at her, I’m reminded I can’t even remember her damn name, and she’s looking at me like I should.
I don’t say anything and grab a beer from the fridge and then take it back to my room with me. She follows, closing the door softly behind us.
When I’m finished with the beer, I mumble, “You should go.” Tossing the can to the floor, I look outside to the pouring rain hitting the window. The orange glow of the city below casts softness in the room. Focusing on the cobwebs in the corners of the window, I sigh, needing the breath, but no relief comes from it.
On my nightstand, I gaze at the one thing I know is a sure fire way to deliver the relief I so desperately need. My chest hurts, pounds steadily knowing it’s not an answer, but nonetheless, it’s a remedy I want at the moment. Lifting my hand to the razor blade next to the coke, my heart feels like it’s going to shatter and I’m not sure if it’s from regret or anticipation. Maybe both. I split two lines and snort.
I sniff, rubbing my nose and swallow, my stomach coiling.
In the dim lighting, I can make out her figure now, just not her face as I lay down on the bed and bring the sheet up over my waist.
She lies beside me. “Can’t I stay for a couple hours until the storm passes?”
I shrug and turn away from her, my pulse screaming and unbalanced. “Whatever.”
I’m not sure why, but she doesn’t say anymore. Most girls would call me an asshole about now or even walk out, but this girl just lies here and says nothing. My curiosity gets the better of me and I turn over to get a better view of her face. She’s blonde, or at least I think she is. It’s no
surprise. I’m a sucker for them. Sophie’s blonde and when you’re attempting to fill a void, you go for anything that reminds you of what you really desire.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I can’t look at her anymore. Eventually I drift off to sleep, but it doesn’t stop my mind. It surges like the storm outside, a constant reminder that you can try and leave, flee from your mistakes, but there’re decisions you’ll never outrun.
“Why are you here?”
I don’t answer Kate. I can’t. I don’t have an answer. All I know is I want to forget what I’ve heard and the boulder-sized lump lodged in my throat since I heard the words, “I slept with someone else when I was in Mexico. I didn’t mean to. It was a mistake. I swear, Rawley. I’d never hurt you like that.”
But she did. Right then she reached inside my chest and ripped out my fucking soul.
Never in my life would I have expected Sophie to do that to me. When she said she was going with her friends to Mexico for spring break, I was excited for her to get away. Her mom is kind of a nutcase and she’s been dealing with her shit for so long by herself, I wanted her to have some time to lay low.
My parents made me stay home since I wrecked my dad’s car the week before. I didn’t mind because it’s not like I wanted to go to Mexico. Now I wished I had.
My hands shake and I grab Kate by the shoulders. “Can I come in,” I ask, unable to stop my pounding heart from turning my motions jittery as though I’ve had too much caffeine.
“Okay….” Kate eyes me, still trying to understand why I showed up at her house at midnight. “But be quiet, my parents are sleeping.”
She takes me by the hand and leads me down the hall to her room. The fact that she’s leading me to her room reminds me that yeah, she’s Sophie’s best friend, but the chance to be alone with me is something she wants. I’ve known for years Kate’s had a thing for me. Before Sophie and I were official freshman year, I finger fucked Kate in the 8th grade against the lockers in the boy’s locker room. I’m sure Sophie doesn’t know that, and it’s not like I was dating her at the time.
