Page 151 of Call You Mine
My chest tightens when I lose track again, panic flaring sharp and hot in my chest.
If I don’t get to seventeen, something will go wrong—worse than this, worse than everything already spiraling out of control.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There were no signs that I would need a C-section. I didn’t prepare for it. I don’t know what to expect or what will happen.
I don’t know what it’s going to feel like or what will happen after.
I was supposed to have a natural, vaginal birth.
Anderson was supposed to help me with my breathing while I pushed. The lights were supposed to be low. The playlist I made was supposed to be playing.
My daughter was supposed to be put on my chest right when she came out. We were supposed to have our Golden Hour, to bond, to melt into the skin-to-skin.
Now, we’re not going to have that opportunity. She’s going to come into this world by being pulled out and surrounded by bright lights, machines, and doctors poking and prodding her to make sure she’s no longer in distress.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
My arms are out, balancing on trays as they raise a cover to hide where they’re about to cut into me.
I press my fingers into the thin paper covering, trying again, silently begging my mind to stay still long enough to finish.
Or to take me out of this moment.
To take me somewhere deep in my mind where I can pretend I’m not here.
Terrified. Alone.
One.
Two.
Three.
The movement, the noise, the voices—they don’t stop. The clatter of instruments, the hum of machines, the doctors’ voices overlapping. It pulls me away from the numbers.
I try again, getting to twelve this time before my heart lurches and I lose track just as I think I hear the doctors and nurses verifying the patient and the procedure.
No.
They can’t start.
Not until I get to seventeen.
There are more voices, more shuffling, but I’m drowning deeper and deeper into my mind.
I don’t know how much time passes before I’m somewhere lost in a dream. One where Anderson is there. His steady presence grounds me, making me feel like everything will be okay.
“I’m right here, love,” I hear as a hand touches my head, the gentle touch opening my eyes, the bright lights causing a slight burn as my vision adjusts.
“I’m right here,” Anderson repeats, and a feeling more powerful than love, than relief, washes over me when I see those caramel eyes looking down at me between the surgical cap and mask.
“You’re here,” I whisper over the doctors and the nurses as they begin the C-section.
I feel the sensations of tugging and pulling through the numbness, but I get lost in Anderson’s eyes, focusing on him rather than what’s happening around me.
He’s here.
He didn’t miss it.
