Riot novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Her First Cry

Joss's POV

The pain came in walls, and each one was higher than the last.

I had stopped being able to talk around the fourth hour.

I held the bed rail with one hand and Rhys's wrist with the other, and I knew I was leaving marks.

He did not pull away.

"Breathe out," the nurse said. "Long and slow, Joss."

"I can't."

"You can."

"I can't do this, Rhys."

"You are doing it," he said. "You are doing it right now."

His voice shook, and his face was gray under the lights, and he had never looked so beautiful.

The doctor came in at dawn and checked me and smiled behind her mask.

"Ten centimeters," she said. "Next one, you push."

I looked at Rhys.

"She's early," I said. "She's thirty-four weeks. What if she can't breathe?"

"There's a team in the corner," he said. "They've been standing there for two hours. They're not going anywhere."

"What if I'm not..."

"Joss."

He put his forehead against mine.

"You stood in a lobby with forty people laughing at you," he said, low.

"Rhys."

"You told them the truth, and you walked out with your head up. You can do anything."

The next wall came.

"Push," the doctor said.

I pushed.

I pushed until the room went white at the edges.

I screamed his name, and I screamed the baby's, and I screamed a word Bex would have been proud of.

"I see her head," the doctor said. "Dark hair. A lot of it."

Rhys made a sound I had never heard.

"Again."

I bore down with everything I had.

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