Felix
C hristabelle surges up in bed with a start, a hiss exploding from her throat and her elbow slamming to the center of my stomach until the pain feels like a thousand fire ants crawling just beneath my skin.
I’ve woken like this a million times in my life, a million different torments and a million more promises of worse to come.
Like those times, I swing from dead asleep to wide awake in the space of a single heartbeat. But never have I woken in a fucking bus before. Never in a tiny cubby, twined with my pregnant wife on a mattress thinner than her arm.
And then I remember.
“Darling?”
“Argh!” She clutches her stomach, her long hair falling forward in the shadows, and her wide eyes, two moons in the dark, come around to mine in panic. “Felix…”
“W-what’s wrong?” I slap the button on the back wall of our bed and blink as the dark turns to light.
As shadows make way for eye-aching brightness.
But then I get a good look at Christabelle’s expression and the rosy red blush in her cheeks.
Gulping, I follow the beaded sweat on her brow and the tremble of her lips, and when she cries out a third time, I speed my study and whip the sheet off her swollen belly and discover what my psyche already knew.
“Fuck!” I jump up and slam my back to the roof of our cubby, the moist slick of water touching my feet, and the cold patch on the side of my leg tingling when fresh air touches my uncovered skin. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” The baby’s coming.
THE BABY’S COMING!
I climb over Christabelle, careful not to crush her, only to fall out of the fucking opening and onto the floor in the middle aisle, tearing the curtain clear off the side of the wall.
“THE BABY’S COMING!” I bound up again and sprint toward Minka’s cubby in nothing more than my shorts, rip the curtain open, and shout until my voice turns hoarse.
“Mayet! MAYET! Wake up.” I spin and run back to Christabelle. “Alright, Darling. Let’s be calm.”
“I am calm, you jackass!” She holds her belly as lights come on throughout the bus.
One by one, cubbies illuminate and people wake.
“It’s too soon for the baby. We still have a few weeks.
” Pained, she turns on the bed and dangles her legs over the side.
So I help her set her hands on my shoulders, then I take her weight and carefully, so fucking delicately, place her on her feet.
“You overreacted,” she breathes, breathes, breathes .
She inhales, expanding her chest, then exhales again, though it comes out on a wounded shudder.
“I was calm, and you climbed over me so you could fall out of bed.”
“The hell is going on?” Minka stumbles along the galley hall, scrubbing her eyes and using her hand on the wall to guide her way. “It’s too early for your shit, Lix.”
“She’s having the baby!” I release Christabelle and latch on to Minka instead, shaking her with such ferocity, her head snaps around and her teeth clatter. “The baby is coming!”
Not nearly as fucking interested as she should be, she peels just one eye open and looks Christabelle up and down. Then she studies our bed and yawns. “Water broke or peed your pants?”
“Her water?—”
“Shhh.” She pinches my lips shut. “Water broke or peed your pants?”
“Uh… water, I guess.” Christabelle wrinkles her face, a new wave of pain rolling across her abdomen as she pants and clutches the side of the bed. “Pretty sure these are contractions. Kinda hurt.”
“Panic!” I shake Minka again and wait for her to actually give a shit. “Mayet, my baby is coming!”
She brushes my hand off, too fucking casually. “So?”
“So, you’re a doctor!” I whirl around and look past Christabelle in search of the other one. The one who might be better. “Aubree! Help us.”
“You need to calm the hell down.” Christabelle snags my hand, squeezing it on a contraction and shaking her head side to side. “They’re kinda close together though, so maybe we should…” She rolls her wrist, gesturing nowhere. “I dunno. Hospital, maybe.”
“The baby is coming!” Cato bounds into the hallway, waving his shirt in the air. “Hooooooooly shit! The baby is coming! It’s my niece or nephew. But it’s my cousin!” He claps his hands to his face, Home-Alone-Aftershave-esque . “I’m so confused right now, guys!”
“See! He’s appropriately interested! Now give me my pants.” I tap my thighs, then I look at the bed. “Where are my pants?”
“Good lord.” Yawning, Minka turns and heads back to her bed. The most fucking relaxed I’ve ever seen her in her whole life. She climbs into her cubby and shatters my heart.
The love I had for her disintegrates like smoke in the air, because she just doesn’t give a shit.
But she emerges again a moment later with itty bitty little shorts on and Archer’s t-shirt dwarfing her trim frame.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
I love her again!
“Jay?” Minka accepts one shoe from Archer, bending to slide it on and searching sleepily until she finds the Bishop she’s looking for. “Is the bus drivable or not? I forgot where Soph’s bullshit ended and her truth began.”
“You’re still cranky, huh?” The ballerina strolls into the aisle and past us on her way to the front. “Jesus. What does a woman have to do to make friends around here?”
“How far apart are your contractions?” Aubree comes up behind Christabelle and turns her, the way the cops are apt to press a man to the hood of their car and search his pockets. She lays Christabelle’s hands on the bed and drags her fingers along her back. “Estimate for me?”
“Can’t you just read the baby’s mind?” Soph heckles. “Ask it. See what it thinks.”
“Hush now, Sugar Plum.” Jay sweeps his arm around her hip and pulls her down to the chair beside his. “We’ve created a kind of truce with these motherfuckers. But Felix mightn’t be working with his most rational brain right now. Panic can make a man gun happy.”
“I’m not panicked!” I’m so fucking panicked!
I stalk to Micah’s cubby and snatch out his pants, the fabric whipping in the air and almost slapping his face on the way past. Since mine are wet, I stab my legs inside and shove past Archer to get back to Christabelle.
“What do we do? Darling?” I grab her face and carefully draw her eyes to mine. “What do we do?”
“We definitely don’t panic.” She exhales a long, heavy breath that hits my face and blows my hair back, but then she drops her head and whimpers.
“Um… I suppose they’re two minutes apart.
Considering this one.” She yelps and fists the wet sheets, her knuckles turning white in stark contrast to the slate gray fabric.
“And the last one. Oh God.” She groans. “They’re kinda close.
This is gonna hurt real bad, huh? It’s gonna be bad. ”
“It’s not so bad.” Jess pops up, wild blonde hair and wilder, blue eyes.
She grins, the expression taking on a demonic, frenzied edge that makes Christabelle gulp.
She pulls an elastic band from around her wrist and finger-combs Christabelle’s hair into a braid to keep the strands off her face.
“I had twin girls with giant Bishop shoulders.”
“It wasn’t so bad, right?” I snag Jess’ wrist, squeezing harder than I mean, but fuck, I can’t stop it. “You did it double in one go. It wasn’t so bad?”
“I mean…” She finishes the braid and peels her arm from my grip. “I had them via the sunroof. Oddly, my vagina still hurt afterwards. It was the craziest thing.”
“Enough of that.” Aubree steers Jess out of the way, then she steps in and glides her knuckles along Christabelle’s spine. “Ignore the craziness and focus on your body. You don’t feel like you have to push yet, do you?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. Not really.”
“How yes is yes?” As the bus engine powers to life and Jay destroys the grill still hanging off the side, the chairs in the way, the tub of trash being rolled over, Minka finishes with her shoes and squeezes between me and my fucking wife.
She leans onto the bed and angles her neck to get a look at Christabelle’s face. “Debbie? How yes is yes?”
“Like…” She grunts, long, deep, and bordering on the fucking exorcist. “Mostly yes. But I can still control it.”
“Hold on.” Archer crowds us in, placing one hand on Minka’s shoulder and another on Christabelle’s, steadying them in the same moment Jay drives us off the dirt and onto tar. “We’re only a couple of minutes away.”
“You need to check her dilation.” Aubree makes a whole fucking career of rubbing Christabelle’s back, like a massage will fix this shit. “Mayet,” she tips her chin. “You gotta see what we’re working with.”
“Dilation?” My heart thunders, chaotically sprinting in my chest until my head turns woozy and my vision grows a little dark. “She’s already dilating?”
“That’s what contractions are for,” Minka grumbles, searching the bus for… something. A fucking obstetrics team, maybe.
“Here.” Ellie tiptoes closer, sheepishly blushing, and offers my wallet. “You might need this when we get to the hospital.”
“What?” I’m gonna pass out. I’m going to fucking die of a heart attack. “I don’t?—”
“Here.” Aubree spins and sprints to her cubby, then back again in the time it takes my stomach to flip. Then she slams a bottle of sanitizer into Minka’s palm. “You have to check so we know.”
“Debbie?” Minka squirts clear liquid onto her hands and tosses the bottle. “We’re only a few minutes from the hospital. So either you can wait, or I can look for you.”
“She’s dripping on the floor.” Cato throws his arms in the air, like those dancing balloon men outside car dealerships. “Oh my god, she’s leaking!”
“Christabelle?” Minka grips her face and draws her eyes around. “It’s your body. How close are you?”
“I don’t know.” Big, fat, soul-shattering tears dribble onto her cheeks. “I kinda want to push.”