Winning Hollywood's Goodest Girl

Harrison steps forward to help me from the chair while I wheeze in pain, wrapping his arms around me from behind and letting me lean all of my weight into him. “I’m so sorry it hurts, Rock. You’re doing so good, baby.”

I nod, breathing through the contraction until it finally passes, and then using the two minutes off to change into my gown.

A few minutes later, Melody, my nurse, comes in to put an IV in my vein, draw some blood for lab work, and put the baby’s heartbeat and my contractions on a monitor.

The whoosh-whoosh-whoosh sound of our little baby’s heartbeat fills the room, and it is music to my ears. Well, between all the horrible contraction pain, that is. During a contraction, it is freaking impossible for anything to be music to my ears.

Once I’m settled in the bed, thrashing around seems like the only way to get any relief as contraction after contraction rolls through me.

Through it all, though, Harrison is so fucking supportive, getting me ice chips and wiping my forehead with a cool cloth whenever I let out even the slightest of a whimper. And with every passing contraction, the lump in my throat grows.

He is literally the best man I know, and I don’t feel like my lying ass deserves him.

It doesn’t matter that we’ve said our I love yous and compared our stories enough to know that Heidi changed Harrison’s number in my contacts, texted him from my phone a string of unbelievably hurtful things to convince him I wanted us to be over and then deleted the evidence, blocked his real number from my phone, lied to us both directly and indirectly, schemed to make sure we never connected, and even went so far as to record me insisting that people leave me the fuck alone in my trailer at work and using it against Harrison to make him leave… I still haven’t told him that the night we slept together—the night we got pregnant—I was knowingly unprotected against pregnancy by implying I was on birth control when I wasn’t.

Heidi isn’t the only evil, scheming witch…I’m one too!

Gah!

Between the contraction pain and the hormones and the adrenaline and my racing thoughts and Dr. Will and Melody getting the room set up for delivery and all of the fucking things happening around me right now, sudden tears burst from my eyes, and it’s all I can do not to wail at the top of my lungs.

“Rocky, baby, what’s wrong?” Harrison asks, rubbing at the back of my hand as a huge contraction barrels in on me.

Sweet Jesus and Lucifer at a pancake breakfast together, it feels like I’m getting fucked by a train!

Harrison is patient and kind and everything good, and I tricked him into having a baby with me! I can’t hold it in anymore!

As soon as the contraction stops sinking its claws into every fiber of my being, I blurt it out in a rush of words and spit and tears.

“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry that I’m having this baby that you’re having to have now.”

“Baby, what are you talking about?”

“I tricked you!” I cry. “You thought I was on birth control, but I was most definitely not on birth control. And I was a virgin! And you didn’t know that either. But you eventually found out that lie! Oh my God, I’m a horrible person!” My sobs ring out in the delivery room, and Dr. Will and Melody very graciously look the other way. I am a mess and a half, so when Harrison laughs, it is the very last thing in the world I expect.

“Why are you laugh—ahhhhh!” I scream as another contraction takes charge and ruins my life.

“Because you didn’t trick me,” he says, still laughing. “Rock,” he continues, tears in his eyes, making them spring to my own. “You saved me. That night is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Neither of us planned on this. I know that. But my God, I’m the luckiest son of a bitch in the world because it happened.”

My sobs are absolutely grotesque as Harrison puts his lips to my own, and a pain like I have never known grips me so fiercely, I could swear I’m going to be ripped in half.

My scream cuts our kiss short, and without my even having to say anything, Dr. Will and Melody jump into action.

When Harrison asks him how he knows it’s time, he says that a woman ready to push has a look and sound all her own. After this many years in the business, he’s learned it well.

It takes an hour of the most intense pushing, but when I finally succeed, it is the sincerest satisfaction I’ve ever felt in my life. Better than any career milestone, any award, and any amount of money.