what now? | outerbanks

• thirty-five •

   
Sitting silently on the living room floor, I wrap up a gift for Wheezie, something I bought for her a long time ago but never got to give. John B. has been trying to talk to me all morning, but I'm blinded by my anger from last night and won't give up my pride.
There's only one thing I want to say to him, but I can't tell him because of my fury. We're going to have a baby; how could we be fighting like this?
"Sarah, honey, would you please talk to me? Please?" I sit in my spot on the floor, seething with my eyes trained on the gift I so meticulously wrap. My back aches from sitting in the same position for so long, but I'm so angry at the boy that I'm basically immune to it.
    "Just a little busy here, sorry." I fold over one flap of the brown paper, running my finger along the edge of the box, creating a clean seam.
    "So this is really how this is going to go?"
    "You couldn't even pretend to be grateful? Like, not even a little bit?" I shake my head and shrug my shoulders, finally looking up at the boy's tanned face for once. His brows are furrowed, and the corners of his mouth are tugged slightly into a frown. I don't care. "I did all of this. All of this." I motion to the decorated house around me. "You couldn't even bother to look up, maybe a compliment, something?"
    "Yeah, baby, it's nice." The nickname lights an even larger fire inside of me, fuming at his not-so-sly tactics to calm me down. They don't work on me anymore; I'm not naive like I used to be. I roll my eyes at him and go right back to wrapping the gift. "Look, what do you want me to say? It looks great, but I'm not really a big holiday guy. It doesn't really mean anything to me." I don't respond, not even a glance. "Okay, Sarah." He walks to me from the kitchen counter, crouching down behind me so he's on my level before wrapping his arms around mine, attempting to hold my hands. I hold a tape dispenser in my left, tearing a piece of tape with my right.
    He tries to remove the tape from my hands, and when I push him roughly off of me, my thumb presses hard against the blade of the dispenser, and it makes a large, deep gash in my finger.
    "Shit!" I curse violently under my breath. Blood drips from my thumb onto our brand new white carpet, and I curse again when I see the stain. I hold my hand out to the side of me and quickly get up to run to the kitchen.
    "Oh, gosh. Let me help you, Sarah." John B. grabs my waist to help me up, but I shove him off of me and do it myself. As I stand up and start rushing for the kitchen, my foot catches on a roll of wrapping paper and I fall to my face, my chin hitting the floor with a loud thud. I don't think to brace the upper half of my body, but my hands instead find their way instantly to my stomach, its flat state juxtaposing with the life I know it holds. I hiss and let out a loud cry.
    "Ah!" I stay frozen on the floor, the pain overcoming me and my ability to move.
    "Sarah!" John B. yells and rushes towards my still body, scrambling to lift me from the floor.
    "Get off of me!" I thrash in his arms, though I know he only means well. Fiery tears blaze a trail down my reddened cheeks, accompanying the searing pain in my chin. I so much as forget about my thumb, my hand flying to my face, holding the laceration I just received. "I'm fine." I don't know who I'm trying to convince, myself or my husband, but I finally get up as I speak, successfully making it to the kitchen. My blood drips onto the counters with a splatter.
    "You're not fine. You need my help. Please let me help you." I see the sincerity in his eyes and decide that for just this second, I will forget about our fight and let him help. I don't say anything, but I stop protesting and look to him with panic on my face. He can tell I'm done fighting him for the moment, and he steps into full fight-or-flight mode.
    "It's okay, you're gonna be okay. Um, okay, grab my phone from my pocket, call Kie. I think her and Pope were working on something across the street." He wets a rag in the running sink and rambles as he presses it to my chin. I let out another cry, but I listen to him in my pain, dialing the ever-familiar phone number.
    My face winces as I try to speak into the phone, so John B. takes over.
    "I need you over here. Like now. Bring Pope too." He speaks loud and clear before Kie can even vocally answer.
    "Woah there, buddy. Slow down. I'm with Cleo, first of all, not Pope. What's the matter?"
    "Medical emergency, Kie. No time for logistics."
    "Shit, yeah. We'll be over in no time." The girl hangs up the phone from the other end and before we can even decide what the next move is, I hear her bust through the front door and storm her way to the kitchen, Celo blazing behind.
    "What'ya do now?" Cleo asks, her accent thick with worry. I look at my friends, tears blurring my vision so I can hardly make out which is which.
    "Are you okay? Did you fall on your stomach, is the-" I stop the girl before she says anything to spill our secret. I can't tell him yet, not now.
    "Oh, love," Kie says, acknowledging me with silent understanding. With a growing frown, she walks over to me to assess the situation. "Holy fuck, this is bad, Sarah. You have to go to the hospital."
    "No, no, no. No hospital, I can't." I cry even harder, thinking of my mom and her screams the night Wheezie was born. The doctors barely helped her, and because of them, she was gone.
    "She won't do it. We have to find another way," John B. says, his mind obviously already thinking of plans, and I'm thankful to him for following my wishes for once. "Pope. He knows how to do stitches, right Cleo?"
    "Uh, he should. I think he's down at his dad's with J. Ten minutes tops. Should I call him?" She asks, but before she's even done her sentence, she already has him on the phone.
    "Hey, yeah. You gotta get up here, babe; serious medical issue." I can't hear what the boy says on the other side, but she finishes the conversation with, "Yeah, ASAP. You need to get here, like, yesterday."
    I look down at the towel my husband holds tightly on my chin and get nauseous from the red-soaked cloth. All of a sudden, I begin to get woozy, and my vision goes even blurrier than before.
    "Woah, you okay?" John B. asks me, trying to find my gaze as my head swings lightly back and forth. He can't catch sight of me, though, and my legs wobble beneath me. He grabs me up before I can fall and yells to the girls. "A little help here!" I'm still conscious, but I feel weak and strangely otherworldly.
    "She's losing too much blood, we have to lay her down. Keep applying pressure, John B," Cleo says, turning into a version of herself I've never seen. She's efficient and motherly, in a strict way rather than nurturing. John B. lifts me up completely and lies me down on the cold counter, Kie placing a pillow beneath my head. Then, everything around me starts getting muffled, and I can hardly make anything out anymore.
    "He's going to need hydrogen peroxide, Kie. There are needles and string in Sarah's sewing kit in the guest room upstairs." I can't see, but I'm guessing the girl runs to follow John B.'s demands. "It's gonna be alright, baby, I promise." This is the last thing I hear, John B. placing a light kiss on my forehead as I pass out completely.