Chapter 16 #3
Indeed she was… because Rylee’s water had just broken.
“What?” Xander asked, taking her hand.
“We have to go,” she said instead. “Right now.”
Without another word, Xander took Rylee’s hand, helping her down the stairs, out of the house, and into the truck.
The calm driving they were doing away from the house became much faster, Xander doing just above the speed limit as they drove past the Greene Gardens welcome sign.
The bumps in their ride sent a wave of sensations through Rylee.
“Just breathe, baby,” Xander coached, his eyes volleying between the road and his fiancée. “Shit, we don’t have the overnight bag you packed.”
“My mother told me,” Rylee said, feeling her stomach tighten with a contraction. “She fucking told me.”
Xander reached across to her, placing a hand on her belly for comfort.
He snatched his eyes off the road immediately, his hand feeling around her stomach. “It’s hard. Are you having a contraction?”
She peeked down, then up at him again. “A Braxton, maybe.”
He felt again, shaking his head. “This don’t feel like a Braxton, baby. You not feeling anything stronger right now?”
She shook her head. “How would you know the difference just feeling my stomach?”
“Experience,” he mumbled, anxiety evident in the wrinkle of his brows and the biting he was doing on his bottom lip.
In his haste and distracted in conversation while simply getting on the expressway to get to the birthing center in Brooklyn, Xander missed the pothole they were approaching and only noticed it as they were going over it.
The impact rattled the truck, shaking them in their seats, and triggering a strong contraction Rylee most definitely felt this time.
She shouted.
“Fuck,” he exhaled. “Sorry. You okay?”
That one contraction rolled immediately into another… and then another.
“Oh, God!” she gasped, pressing one hand to her stomach and the other to the handle on the door. “Ahh! Shit.”
“It’s aight, it’s aight,” Xander repeated.
He stopped speaking altogether as the truck gradually began to reduce in speed.
Rylee opened her eyes to a sea of red taillights in front of her.
“Oh, no,” she said, her head falling back against the headrest.
The traffic jam they’d passed on the way to the house in Greene Gardens that seemed unfortunate on the other side of the expressway was now what they found themselves stopped in.
“Okay,” Xander said, rubbing her belly, his other hand gripping the steering wheel as he moved the truck up in the slow-moving traffic. “You got this, baby. Just breathe with me.”
That worked for the first fifteen minutes… then the half an hour of sitting in traffic.
As much progress as they had made in traffic, the exit to the birthing center was still only 1.2 miles away. The contractions were back to back now, and Rylee was panicking.
Then suddenly, she felt the pressure between her thighs. And while her pregnancies before this one were different all the way around, that feeling was familiar.
Her moaning and groaning quickly transformed into screaming.
“I feel like I gotta push!” she shouted.
Rylee felt the air move as Xander looked her way.
“I don’t know why I feel like I have to push,” she cried. “But I have to push, Xander.”
She tried to hold it in, but her body was not trying to cooperate.
Her face misted with sweat as another contraction rolled through. She tried to close her legs… but the urge to push gripped every muscle in her body like a vice, leaving her no choice but to give in.
She screamed as the wave of her contraction built and reached a high, and she bared down uncontrollably.
“Okay, okay.” Xander switched on his hazard lights and honked as he moved the truck up and over to the shoulder of the road. “I got you. I’m pulling over.”
“What is happening?” Rylee cried out, her face now wet with tears. “It’s too soon. My water just broke.”
“Precipitous labor,” Xander said, his voice steady, calmer. “You’re in active labor now. Dr. Grayson warned us about this.”
Rylee’s heart felt like it was in her throat as she felt another contraction creeping up.
“This is your third child.” Xander put the car in park and unhooked his seatbelt. “Labor likely already started while we were shopping. Open your door, Rylee.”
Rylee did as told. Her body was shaking, hands trembling… something she only noticed when she was opening the door.
“Aight,” Xander said outside, peeling off his hoodie by the sleeves. The breeze from outside whipped against her face, cooling her.
He was grabbing her by her legs when he told her, “Can you turn toward me, baby? Yeah, just like that.”
Rylee did as told, barely able to move but doing it anyway. “Xander—”
“Sit sideways,” he coached over her. “One leg on the seat.”
Her breaths were coming in faster than she could stop them, but still, she carried out his request.
“Yeah.” He nodded, eyes firmly on her as he removed her sneakers. “Now put the other up on the dash if you can.”
“Xander, what’s happening?” she asked, doing as told.
“That’s it.” He exhaled slowly through his mouth, forcing a smile while nodding. “Stick right here, I’ll be right back.”
Her heart was pounding now. The sounds of honking cars, passing winds, and the natural sounds of the expressway they traveled down cluttered her sound space.
Another contraction rolled through her and she gritted her teeth while trying to hold back her scream and the sensation to push, but she struggled to do both.
She watched Xander open the backseat of his truck to retrieve something, then head to the trunk and grab a bottle of isopropyl alcohol. He poured it over his hands, the sharp scent instantly rising into the cold air.
“Aight,” he said as he returned in front of her, pushing air through his mouth. He grabbed at the waistband of her sweatpants and her heart dropped.
“Xander, what the fuck?!”
He looked up at her, and she held his gaze.
“I’m scared,” she admitted, her bottom lip trembling. “This can’t happen. I can’t have him right now. I don’t want something to happen to him—”
“Look at me.” Xander crouched down on the ground outside, his breath still steady, his warm hand holding her by the side of her face. “You got me, and I got you. And we’ve got him,” he said, placing his hand on her hard belly. “You are not alone, and you don’t have to be scared. Aight?”
With her pants off, Xander got low to check, using his fingers to measure how far she’d dilated.
He looked up at her, eyes focused. “Baby… you’re fully dilated.”
“Oh, God.”
Xander slid his hoodie underneath her next and grabbed one of the towels he got from the backseat.
His eyes returned to hers when he told her, “With your next contraction I need you to push just like you were doing, okay?”
And just as he was instructing, another contraction rolled through, holding Rylee tight around her belly and sending a wave of pain throughout her.
Rylee bared down and pushed, screaming through the whole thing and only having enough energy to catch her breath and do it again. Not that she had a choice. Her body was pushing her to do only that… push.
“Good, baby,” he said, his voice a little higher. “You’re doing incredible. Just breathe. Big breath in and blow it out.”
She did and pushed again when her body signaled her to. Her hand gripped the headrest as she bared her teeth, feeling like she’d shatter them but committing to being okay with that if it meant getting her and their son through this in one piece.
It was in her next push that she felt the sting that always felt like it would rip her in half. The ring of fire stretch she’d felt when Nova and LJ’s heads were right there.
“Oh my God!” She screamed. “His head.”
“I know, baby,” Xander shouted back. “I know. You got this—”
“He’s coming,” she said over him. “I can feel him—”
“Yeah, he’s coming,” Xander said, peeking down between her legs, his voice catching. “I see him, Snoop. He’s right there, baby.”
His voice was heavy in emotion but still guidance, and somehow, that gave Rylee more comfort than panic in the moment.
Another contraction built from the base of her spine, traveling up her stomach and seeming like it was holding her by her throat.
“One more push, Rylee,” Xander coached. “Give me one more big push.”
Rylee bared down with a scream, this one straining her vocal cords. It was mixed in with crying and sobbing, but still, determination. Her voice echoed around them as her body tensed. Her hand flew to the dashboard to brace herself.
“Okay… okay…” Xander shouted, voice breaking, his hands steady. “I got his head. I got it in my hand. The cord’s not around his neck, so you’re good, baby. You’re good. Give me one more, Rylee. One more, mama.”
Rylee screamed and pushed as hard as she could this time, holding the position and her breath. The moment she felt tiny limbs move out of her, she dropped back against the truck’s center console behind herself, chest rising, breaths heavy.
There was silence… until the baby’s cries pierced the moment.
And the cry made Rylee exhale all the air inside of her.
“Oh, God,” she heard Xander express, his voice heavy in emotion as the baby’s cry challenged any sound around them. “You did it, baby. You did it.”
Rylee’s head was spinning, her eyes heavy. She felt lightheaded but ignored it. And it was easy to, with the adrenaline pulsing through her veins, her mind on a natural, intense high.
A chill washed over her, starting at her toes and slowly traveling up her legs.
“Rylee?”
Xander’s voice sounded distant, more like an echo than his actual tone. He suddenly seemed so far away, even though he was standing right in front of her.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t open her eyes either.
“Rylee?!” Xander shouted in a panic.
She felt him lift her head but she had no energy to hold it up herself. Her vision blurred, her hands trembling, the sweat on her lip now cold.
“Oh, God, Rylee, stay with me,” Xander said in a panic, his voice echoing even more. “Open your eyes, baby. Look at me, Rylee.”
She couldn’t.
Warmth seemed to pour out beneath her, but she couldn’t tell what it was.
“Shit,” Xander hissed low, almost to himself. “Shit. Shit. Shit! The placenta hasn’t even detached yet and there’s blood everywhere. You’re bleeding out. Fuck.”
Rylee sensed movement over her.
“Stay with me, Rylee,” Xander said in one breath. “Stay with me.”
She couldn’t understand why her mouth wouldn’t form the words.
She wanted to say she was tired. That she’d just get some sleep… just for a little while. But her lips felt sealed shut by something outside of her control.
“This is Firefighter Cox, badge 241,” Xander shouted into what she could only assume was his phone. “I need an ambulance on the BQE westbound, near exit 29. Emergency roadside delivery. We’ve got blood loss and the mother is losing consciousness. Please. Hurry!”
The last thing Rylee felt was Xander’s cold hand at the side of her face.
The baby continued to cry beneath Xander’s voice, but Rylee no longer had the strength to respond. All she could do was drift.
“No,” Xander stuttered. “Rylee, you stay with me. You hear me? You don’t get to leave, baby. Not now. Not after this.”
She could hear her heart beating in her ears, but even that sound was fading.
“We just started,” she heard in the distance. “You hear me? We just started.”
And a heartbeat later… everything went dark.