chapter fourteen
If you and I had decided to take a walk around the city at three forty-five, perhaps we would've witnessed two French gentlemen arguing over food stamps, or maybe our attention would lazily drift to the seven year old girl with an ice cream cone the size of her head—her hair pulled back from her face with bright pink hair ties; but most likely we would've stopped and stared at the collective group of individuals who seemed to be yelling for no apparent reason. Teenagers—not a care in the world.
"THE BABY IS COMING." Ashton hollered to no one in particular, his eyes dancing with delight and slight fear—he remembered when each of his siblings took their first breath, but he also had just recently watched a film on how tigers gave birth and he was now more than slightly worried. "You're not going to eat it if it's sick-looking right?"
"She's not going to fucking eat it, what the hell is your problem?" Jeff rumbled, he was pacing back and forth on the sidewalk waiting for the ambulance Mindy had called—his thoughts were clouded over with the impending baby, the fact they would probably never be allowed in that coffee shop again, and how Asia had seemingly passed out.
"Jesus Christ—" Calum moaned, his heart racing a mile a minute "—she having our baby, she having MY kid on the sidewalk."
"Childbirth can sometimes take hours," Mali offered in what she hoped to be a reassuring voice, "don't worry. We have like five more hours of this."
This was certainly not what any of them needed to hear, but before they could verbally assault Mali (mainly Mindy, who was crying too much to talk, but would somehow find it within herself to sputter out a few words) Asia let out a murmur of a sentence, "would you all just shut the fuck up?"
Childbirth—despite Hollywood's persistence to make it seem just that—is not lovely, it's not blissful nor romantic, it's not entrancing or enticing; its pain. Horrible-I-think-I'd-rather-be-shot-in-the-face pain, that Asia was currently submerged in. The sidewalk beneath her was sticky, the words from her friends were blurred together above her, and she couldn't shake the feeling that this was not the ideal place she wanted her child to be born.
Exactly fifteen exasperating minutes later, Asia awoke to find the pleasantly familiar walls of the hospital blooming before her eyes, the pain her stomach had gone down tremendously—and upon further investigation she was seemingly alone in the cool room, leaving her to do as she pleased.
"Finally—"she breathed, "Some time to be me."
Silence wrapped its thick hands around her, the stillness of the room spinning before her eyes as she realized something. She was alone to be herself, yes. To submerge herself in silence, relishing in the few blissful moments of total self-love. But..... who was she?
She was Calum Hood's ex-girlfriend, and somewhat estranged lover—a high school graduate, College drop-out and once in fourth grade she had played softball, but only because her mother had forced her to participate in organized sports. But that couldn't be it...could it? There was a time where she had actually enjoyed life, cherished it even; her senior year of High school, the second day of fifth grade where she had met Mindy, the day she found out she was pregnant—but who was she now?
A shattering burden fell on her chest as she felt the pain her stomach building up again, this was it—this was her life, how had she gone from being seventeen and ready to take on life to eighteen and wanting to be taken out of it? She let out a single sob, the sound echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls—the door slowly creaked open and Calum slipped through, sliding it shut behind him.
"Are you alright?" He mumbled, looking down as Asia felt tears beginning to stream down her cheeks, slowly at first before picking up in speed.
"No." She finally chocked out, "I'm not."
He crossed the shiny floors quickly, his shoes tapping lightly on their waxed surface—when he reached her bedside, he watched as she crumbled before him, this was all his doing.
"I'm nothing. Whoever I was before all this shit happened disappeared a longtime ago—"She blubbered, thick tears sliding down her cheeks "—all I am is a shell."
"Whoever you are is inside you—"Calum responded tightly; grasping her left hand tightly with his own"—you've just lost track of her."
They watched each other for a while, finally enjoying each other's presence, Calum seized the moment to do something incredibly stupid. (he told me months after this)
"Will you marry me?" he asked quietly.
"What?" yelped Asia.
"What?" Mindy yelled from behind the door, in response to Jeff asking her if she wanted to meet his mom.
"What?" Doctor Henry stammered in response to Ashton asking if there was more pudding cups in the cafeteria.
"What?" Luke yelled above the sound of the television in the waiting room, his pudding cups empty.
"WHAT?" Michael growled from across Brooklyn, seeing Mali had just called them about Asia going into labor.
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dedicated to blackvansluke for being rlly super cool!!!! rock on!!!
WELL HEY THIS WAS SUCH A FILLER CHAPTER I'M SO SORRY, but next chapter is where everything kinda???????????/goes down?????????????????
um there are three chapters left, so bE PREPARED and thank you SO much for 70k on this holy shit wow thanks!!! ps i wrote this when i was distracted by cals nudes so blame him if u hate this chapter alright alright
so tell me what u think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i suck i know.
ps writing this was hard,,,,,almoST AS HARD AS CALS DICK AM I RIGHT LADIES
with all my love,
wendy
