After taking the quickest shower ever, Cali got dressed, put a comb through her hair, and put on a base foundation and some lip gloss. The hickey was still there, red and ugly as ever, and she scowled at the reflection in the mirror.
“Syd?” she called when she entered the kitchen. “Syd? Where are you?”
Syd didn’t answer and all Cali felt in that moment was dread. She walked through the house, calling her name. She heard a faint moan in the master bedroom and pushed the door open. Syd was lying on the bed in a fetal position.
She rushed over to her. “Syd?” She climbed in the bed next to her. “Did you call the doctor?”
“Yes. They said it was normal,” she groaned. “Braxton-Hicks contractions.”
“This doesn’t seem normal to me. Did you tell them how much it hurt?”
Syd moaned in pain. “I…” She screamed and squeezed Cali’s hand so tight she thought she broke it.
Gritting her teeth through the pain, Cali announced, “I’m calling the ambulance.”
“No,” Syd said. “Just… take me to the hospital.”
“Can you even walk? It seems like these pains are coming consistently.”
Syd tried to sit up, but fell back on the bed.
“Syd?” she shouted. “Damn it. Don’t do this to me. You’re supposed to be in the hospital when the baby comes, not sitting here in your bedroom with me.”
“I can’t have this baby right now,” Syd breathed. “It’s too soon.”
Syd screamed and Cali prayed for an intervention. She grabbed the landline next to the bed and punched in 9-1-1. When the operator answered, Cali shouted, “My friend is pregnant, due February 1st and she’s in a lot of pain and clenching her stomach. I need an ambulance.” She screamed when Syd squeezed her hand again. “I can’t do this. Get someone here right now.”
The operator explained that she’d send someone over right away and told Cali to try to encourage her to walk. She asked her a few more questions, which Cali answered right away. Hanging up finally, she turned to Syd. “You have to get up and walk.”
“I don’t want to walk.” She rolled onto her back, rubbing her stomach. “This hurts like hell.”
Cali clenched her hand to try to get some feeling back into her fingers. “You have to. The operator said it can help.”
Syd held out her hand and Cali helped her to her feet. Screaming louder this time, Syd leaned against the bed. “Shit! This can’t be happening. Something’s wrong. I have to go.”
“The ambulance is coming, babe. Hang tight. Walk in the bathroom.”
Syd managed to shuffle to the bathroom.
“Now, come back,” Cali told her.
She slowly made her way back over to her.
“Go back to the bathroom,” Cali ordered.
“What… I’m not walking back to the bathroom. Let’s go to the kitchen.”
But then Syd doubled over in pain, screaming again and holding on to Cali’s sweater. Cali screamed, too. Syd moaned. Cali moaned, too.
“Stop,” Syd barked. “You’re making it worse.”
“Shit, I don’t know what to do. I was trying to show some solidarity.”
“Just… walk with me into the kitchen and grab that bag over there by the dresser. It’s my hospital bag.”
“Oh Lord. Oh my God. I’m calling Morgan.”
“Don’t you dare,” Syd hissed. “I will call him if I have to, but not right now. Not until we figure out what’s going on.”
Cali knew that was a bad idea. Morgan wouldn’t kill Syd if she didn’t tell him, he’d kill her. What about Red? She picked up her phone and Syd snatched it away.
“Promise me. Don’t call Morgan unless I tell you to.”
Against her better judgment, she agreed and led Syd toward the kitchen.
A loud knock followed by the doorbell sounded and she breathed a sigh of relief. Opening the door, she stepped back as the paramedics rushed in and got to work on Syd. Her poor friend was poked, prodded, hooked up to an IV and some sort of monitor, and finally placed on the gurney. The paramedics asked questions along the way and Cali tried to answer them, thankful that Syd had talked about her birth plan with her. Cali requested they take her to University hospital, where Syd’s doctor worked. Normally they would’ve taken her to the nearest hospital, but Morgan lived in a central location so that helped. As they wheeled her out of the house, Syd was barking orders at Cali between grunts and moans of pain. Cali grabbed the small bag, both of their purses, and the keys off the kitchen counter. Locking the door, she rushed over to the ambulance and hopped in.
Once they were secured in the ambulance, Syd turned to Cali, tears streaming from her eyes. “I’m scared,” she cried. “The baby’s not ready. What if…”
Cali shushed her. “Don’t say it. The baby is going to be okay. There are so many advances in medicine now, they can stop it if it’s labor. You know that show with the lady and the nineteen kids… she had one baby months ahead of time and that baby is like four years old now. It’s going to be okay.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Embracing Syd, Cali prayed that this was one promise she could keep.
A short while later, Cali followed the paramedics as they wheeled Syd into the maternity emergency room. Syd had cried the whole ride over, and she couldn’t take it. Other people might look at their friendship and wonder why they clicked the way they did, but she knew why. It was Syd. Since she’d known her, Syd had embraced her like they were real sisters.
Syd was emotional and cried at the drop of a hat, but she was one of the strongest women Cali knew, beating the odds in everything. And Cali admired that in her friend. What would she do if something happened to her?
She tried dialing Red again. He hadn’t answered the last ten times she’d tried him. Where the hell is he?
Scrolling through her contacts, she found the name she was looking for. She bit down on her lip. Hard decisions. Impossible decisions. She let out a deep breath and pushed the call button.
“What’s up, Cali?” Morgan asked.
Her stomach churned and her mouth went dry. “Hey,” she croaked. “I… um… I need to tell you something.”
“What is it?” He already sounded irritated. One thing about Morgan, he was no-nonsense. He was a straight shooter, always in control, didn’t beat around the bush. That’s why it was so surprising that he and Syd had ended up together. The entire debacle between him, his brother, and Syd had been out of control.
“It’s Syd.”
“What about Syd?” he asked.
“So… Syd is in the hospital and—”
“What?” he shouted.
“Can you keep calm and not yell in my ear? It’s not dire,” she lied. Well, for all she knew it seemed pretty dire, but she didn’t want him to flip out.
“What about the baby?” he asked. “Is the baby okay?”
“As far as I know. They just wheeled her back to a room. I’m going to go check on her as soon as I get off the phone with you.”
“What happened?”
“She was having contractions. On the way over in the ambulance, I—”
“The ambulance!” he blared. “Cali, what the hell aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m trying to tell you everything I know but you keep interrupting me.” She took a deep breath and started again. “Anyway, the paramedics think she may be dehydrated which kind of caused her to start contracting.”
“Do they think she’s in active labor?”
“I don’t know yet. I told you, I have to go check on her. We were at your house when she keeled over in pain. She told me not to call you because, you know, she didn’t want you to worry. I just kind of thought… hmmm, maybe I should call Morgan,” she babbled. “Can you call her? And don’t tell her I told you. Act normal, like you’re calling out the blue to check on her. Make it good. Don’t tell her I called you because I promised. If you feel the urge to say something to her about this, tell her Red told you. I have no problem with throwing him under the bus.” She tapped her chin with her finger. “Wait, that’s not going to work. I don’t know when she’ll be able to talk on the phone. Plus, she’s in a lot of pain and—”
“Cali!” Morgan blared, startling her. “Stop talking. Don’t say another word, just listen.” She clamped her mouth shut. “Go in the back and ask the doctor for an update and call me back. I’m going to get on the next flight out there, okay?”
“Okay. Oh, I forgot to say this… They did mention that her swollen ankles and wrists were cause for concern.” Cali realized she was babbling a few seconds earlier, but she couldn’t stop. She hated hospitals and she was terrified of something happening to her best friend or the baby. If she kept talking, maybe she wouldn’t have to think about everything that could go wrong. “I thought it was because she was eating too much. She told me her doctor said she needed to slow down and watch her weight, but I wasn’t supposed to repeat that to anyone ever. Damn. Yeah, so…”
Way to mess that up. “Anyway, I don’t think you should come or anything,” she told him. “Syd said they’ll probably send her home and tell her to kick her feet up. I’ll tell her to call you, or I’ll give you the all clear to call her when she can talk. We don’t want to make her more upset than she already is. She’s a little scared, ya know? Well, she’s not really that scared. I’m scared because I’m the only one here. Did I mention I can’t get a hold of Red? And he’s been flirting with Syd’s doctor Love?”
“Cali, please,” Morgan groaned. “You’re making me tired. You’re nervous and I understand why, but this isn’t helping. I’m coming. Tell her or don’t, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Before she could say anything else, she heard the chirp that signaled he’d ended the call. Great. Way to go, Cali.
Cali stepped into Syd’s hospital room. She was lying there, hooked up to all the monitors. The nurses were running around, barking orders at the techs. Cali couldn’t imagine being pregnant, let alone being pregnant and scared for the baby’s life.
Syd turned her head. “Did you reach Red?”
“I can’t get him. I’m not sure where he is.”
“Cali, I can’t do this. I can’t have this baby this early and without Morgan. Plus, it just hit me… we’re not married. We should be married.”
Cali scrunched her nose. “I think it’s a little late for that.”
“I want to marry him. I want to be with him forever. We have to make this official.”
“I’m sure you will soon, Syd,” Cali assured her friend. She wondered what it would be like to be so in love with someone that she couldn’t go another day without being his wife.
“No, I want to get married right now.”
Frowning, Cali asked, “Did they give you some pain medicine or something?”
“No!” Syd cried. “You have to plan us a wedding. I’m going to propose to him as soon as I get out of here. Cali, please.”
Cali pulled some tissue from a bedside table and dabbed her eyes with it. “Come on, Syd. You have to calm down. I don’t want your blood pressure to go up or anything.”
“Not until you tell me you’re going to plan my wedding.”
“You know I’m going to plan your wedding.” She grabbed Syd’s hand and squeezed. “We can set it for July when you can fit into the dress of your dreams.”
“But I don’t want the baby to be born out of wedlock,” Syd said, her eyes wild and wide. “What would my pastor say?”
Cali glanced at the bag of fluids hanging nearby. Is that saline or morphine? It wasn’t like her friend to be so crazed. Well, not really. Even when she’d have her crazy moments, she was lucid. This Syd wasn’t the occasionally whacky Syd she knew and loved. Thinking of something to say to appease her was harder than she thought. She drew a blank.
She’d heard all the weird stories of women in labor and the off the wall things they said, but she couldn’t recall any tips on how to actually handle women going through it. The experience was definitely making her glad she’d never have to go through it herself. “Um, well, I think we should wait until you lose all the baby weight before we plan your wedding. Only because you’ll regret the baby bump in the pictures. Then we won’t be able to drink or do any shots at the wedding. Plus, your ankles are so swollen, you won’t be able to dance.”
“What if there’s something wrong with the baby?”
“Nothing is wrong with the baby.” At least she hoped there wasn’t. She didn’t know how her friend would get through it if something happened. She didn’t know how anyone would get through it.
Syd sobbed loudly. “I’m scared.”
“Me too. I’m terrified, but we’re going to get through this. I promise.”
She pulled Syd into her arms and let her cry it out, rubbing her back the entire time and whispering words of comfort as Syd grunted in pain. Lord, please let someone else come here.
A nurse pulled the curtain back. “Are you family?” she asked Cali.
“Yes,” she replied. “What’s going on?”
“We’re going to move her into a bigger room. They’re getting it ready as we speak.” The kind woman smiled down at Syd. “Do you think you can give me a urine sample?”
“I think so.” The nurse helped Syd stand up.
“What is that for?” Cali asked, knowing she probably sounded like an idiot to the nurse.
“They want to make sure she doesn’t have preeclampsia,” the nurse told her.
“Oh, okay,” Cali said, trying not to let on that she had no idea what that even was.
Once the nurse had escorted Syd out of the room, Cali pulled out her phone. She signed into the hospital Wi-Fi and Googled preeclampsia. As she skimmed the causes, treatments, and complications, her stomach rolled with worry.
She paced back and forth, wringing her hands together. God, she wished they were home talking about hickeys and not at the hospital trying to figure out what was wrong with her best friend and her godchild. She called Red again. No answer. Where the hell is he?