“Him
again?” Jenny asks with concern in her eyes. “Are you just going to keep on ignoring him forever more?”
“What are you on about, Jenny? You were the one ready to kick his ass not that long ago.” I can’t believe she actually looks like she might not be on my side for once. “I can’t think about it now. I have this heaving bump to worry about. I don’t care about him, just like he’s never cared about me.”
A guilty expression crosses Jenny’s face and I can tell that something has happened. I don’t know if I want to know what really, but at the same time I’m desperate to. I shove my hands onto my hips the best that I can and I glare at her until she finally reveals all.
“I ran into Tia today...”
“Tia? My old roommate? The girl that you fell out with over a guy?” I can’t believe it, this is insane. I thought they despised one another, it’s one of the reasons that I don’t see Tia much anymore myself. “What the hell?”
“Well, Mike is back in her life. Or at least, he’s trying to be. So we got together to hatch up a revenge plot. It was good for me to go back anyway, I haven’t seen the guys from CeeLow’s for a while.”
I’m stunned, almost into silence. “What do you mean? What happened?”
“Well, after we hatched our revenge plan – which I’ll totally tell you about later because it’s brilliant – you came up. Ben too. She sees him a lot because he comes into the club...”
“Drinking and sleeping with women, no doubt.”
“No. None of that actually, he comes into the club to talk to her because he’s lonely. He misses you like crazy and he wants to change. Apparently he really is sorry and he does want to be involved with the babies lives. It seems like he really is a different person.... and I know Tia wouldn’t say all of that if she didn’t mean it.”
I clutch onto my stomach as a wave of pain hits me. It’s shock, I know it is, I cannot for the life of me believe what I’m hearing. “I don’t need this now, Jenny. In case you haven’t noticed I’m about to have my babies. I don’t want to even think about him. I don’t care how sorry he is or whatever. It’s come much too late.”
Jenny moves over to me and she rubs my back in a reassuring gesture. “I know you don’t need this, Serena, but I think it’s best that you hear what’s going on, don’t you?”
I breathe deeply, a hotness radiates right through my body at a million miles an hour. My head is dizzy, I feel sick, it’s as if I’m going into real life shock. “I don’t... I don’t know...”
“Serena?” Her voice sounds different now, I almost can’t hear her. “Serena? Are you okay?”
“Hurts...” I splutter out. “It hurts.”
“Are you in labour? Are these contractions?” She’s panicking now, I can hear it, but that feels distant from me. I’m trapped in the bubble where it’s just me and my brain. “What do I do? Shall I call a doctor? Do we need to get to the hospital? What do we do? What does it say in your baby book?”
As she moves from me to try and figure out what she’s going to do I collapse onto the couch in agony. This isn’t supposed to be happening yet, I still have a couple of weeks. I wanted to work right up until the very end for the money, but now it seems that the end has come already.
I’m about to be a Mom. I’m about to really have these babies... all by myself.
“Oh my God.” I feel a popping sensation and then a weirdly warm water drips down my legs. This is too quick. I don’t know much about giving birth because I haven’t done it before but I know my waters shouldn’t have broken already. This is wrong, I need to be in a hospital quickly before I get some sort of infection. “Jenny, I need to go. We need to get to the hospital right now.”
She tucks her hands under my armpits and pulls me into a standing position. It’s hard because my body is resistant, but eventually we manage it. She gets me standing and calls a cab, all the while my body and my mind is a hot mess. I ache everywhere, bolts of agony shoot right through me, my mind is full of confusing thoughts.
The main one I think is I cannot do this alone.
“Jenny, I need him,” I tell her weakly. “I need him.”
“Him?” She guides me towards the door. “Him who?”
“Ben.” I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help myself. I want him by my side, I don’t want to be the one to blame for him missing the birth of his twins. If he doesn’t come, that’s his own choice. But it cannot be my fault. “I know what I said before, but I think he needs to be here.”
“Let’s get you into the cab first, then I’ll call.”
Things move in a blur, I don’t even know what’s happening. I sort of remember climbing into a cab, and I vaguely remember listening to Jenny on the call to Ben, but I don’t recall anything that was said, and I also remember arriving at the hospital but I don’t recall coming into a room or putting on a hospital gown.
“Did you dress me, Jenny?” I ask once the contractions stop for just a moment. “I didn’t put this on, did I?”
“I helped,” she admits. “But I didn’t do it. To be honest after witnessing this I don’t want to do any of it. You’ve really put me off having children ever. I don’t think I’ll have sex ever again.”
“Yeah, me neither.” My fingers grip to the edge of the bed as I rock back and forth on my feet. They keep telling me to get into the bed but I know that I can’t. The agony is too damn much. “Fucking hell, this hurts...”