/0/97516/coverorgin.jpg?v=52f2fa46488d9cfa056cbdb71b6e4065&imageMogr2/format/webp)
EMMA
The tenth shrill scream comes from my lips as I close my eyes, trying to control or have some sort of control over the pain I am feeling right now.
I close my eyes, biting my lips hard, not caring when I feel the burning and the taste of blood in my mouth.
All I want more than anything is for this absurd pain to end at once because I feel like I am about to pass out at any moment. That's when I think about how reckless I was nine months ago, after a drunken night out.
But I repeat for the second time that now is not the right time to try to feel any regret, and as hard as I try, I can't regret what that night brought me.
“Try to breathe; the baby will be here soon, Emma!”, I hear my friend's voice from beside me as the nurses push the wheelchair. I am being wheeled into the delivery room.
A night of hot sex earned me an unexpected pregnancy from a stranger. It was my first time, and I gave my own body to someone I had never seen in my entire life.
To say it was good is an understatement, but here I am today, about to give birth to my first child, a single mother, and not knowing anything about my baby's father other than a single name.
Alex.
A new scream makes me bite my lips harder. Feeling the tears streaming down my face as I am carried down a long corridor of the maternity part of the hospital, I repeat a new sequence of breathing and sobbing with each new contraction.
I touch my belly, covered by the dress I am wearing, thinking that at some point tonight I will meet the little face of my beloved baby.
“Oh my god!”, I grunted, squeezing my best friend's hand for some support.
"You can do it, Emma! Let's meet our, Benjamin."
I nod my head, almost screaming at the nurse who is pushing me in the wheelchair to go faster. I am out of patience and feeling extreme pain, but my heartbeat seems to stop when my eyes fixate on a person.
This can't be happening, God!
It's him!
The unbearable pain of feeling my child being born seems to fade for a second when I see none other than the man who is the father of my baby.
Time seems to freeze around me when I see him talking to the receptionist at the hospital counter. He looks exactly like the handsome man I met that night.
I don't blink when the nurse asks the people in front of us to excuse me; I grab Coral's hand, and just as I am about to say that finally the miracle has happened, my expectations are shattered in a few seconds when something unexpected happens.
He can't see me, but I see that when a woman in a long dress approaches holding a baby in her lap, he smiles broadly before taking the child from the woman's lap and holding the baby, visibly moved.
/0/46243/coverorgin.jpg?v=c2d59a779e54b52a3a194b0b4a8d5e92&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/33728/coverorgin.jpg?v=235cd88689cacd43f710fe6e2e8e3ab7&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/56209/coverorgin.jpg?v=1899dc8bc39508f13a806a2a0e22fa8d&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/31116/coverorgin.jpg?v=f72e085fdb0c0528d0f35573281a66e6&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/18424/coverorgin.jpg?v=9273d6bbc5964e39c5214b8508d6678d&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/18559/coverorgin.jpg?v=8478b2a93098d91b094e80af9670f74d&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/65944/coverorgin.jpg?v=3213d8c0e3fe42f38872874fda431860&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/37845/coverorgin.jpg?v=e7c62151afa2816bd8a544bffc10724f&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/57114/coverorgin.jpg?v=8c0c7e1d7f02a6239a31d4878de6f93c&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/42589/coverorgin.jpg?v=f79b7419a6f842853e20563b842ac919&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/37156/coverorgin.jpg?v=55eec7bd8c6ddef6ed23f46ede30247b&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/67800/coverorgin.jpg?v=53912fe6e504c0b9e17e3a72f371c8e0&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/22048/coverorgin.jpg?v=b94accd7555c32f62ff1fbe9f8c5d0c7&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/40537/coverorgin.jpg?v=277931e6c504857d474e4e32619df550&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/51736/coverorgin.jpg?v=19a7a5b8ed338c0091d0b4b019d2dea6&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/78043/coverorgin.jpg?v=c50a74e57d751c6107710307eb739746&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/66838/coverorgin.jpg?v=006501fe2d81e726b57720cefd9ec66b&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/69250/coverorgin.jpg?v=f5f38d6375c965def980a7ea97f0ccb9&imageMogr2/format/webp)
/0/51298/coverorgin.jpg?v=20240217145651&imageMogr2/format/webp)