Yeah, it’s actually so exciting to be working with so many strong women and men who have seen such a darkness in life.” I smile, glancing at my band buddies to get one of them to try and change the subject.
“We’re really proud of her.” Dane grins. “We’ve done a few things with her and it’s changed our perspective on women. We were never disrespectful guys, but we grew up thinking a certain way and now, seeing how our actions or words as men can literally alter a woman’s entire life is terrifying.”
“After witnessing what she went through, it’s scary. One day she was laughing and trying on Halloween costumes, the next she was just this hollow, bitter person,” Kai continues.
“We have all learned that we aren’t alone. At all. We just think we are and it’s crazy how it doesn’t just affect us either. I mean,” I shift from one foot to the other, “Tobias had such a hard time dealing with it too. He felt like he’d failed to protect me and then I felt as though I’d failed to support him while I was going through what I went through. It’s a maddening situation, hence the fact we’re opening our first sponsored safety centre in England in February next year.”
The crowd claps loudly and I feel like crying with happiness.
I feel a twinge in my stomach and wince. I’ve been getting them for a while. I should have listened to Tobias this morning when he told me not to get out of bed. He’d wrap me up in bubble wrap if he could.
The problem is this interview… It’s so bloody important for the band, company and Another Day Charity that I, Ms Kane, Georgia, Dane, Kai and Eliza have founded. It’s a rehabilitation centre for women and men who have suffered an assault. It’s free, sponsored by numerous companies and generous donors across the world.
I have high hopes that this will help in the huge leap for equality across the sexes.
The slogan is simply,
‘Love and be Loved’
* * *
To say it has taken up hours of my time is an understatement, though we’ve still managed to put a new album into the world that was better received than the last.
I close my eyes and wriggle uncomfortably in my damp seat.
“This interview needs to end,” I whisper to Georgia, who looks at me, confused.
“What’s wrong?” She leans into my ear to ask but everybody is looking. The room is full of reporters with their cameras and such. I don’t reply; I simply smile and wink at the crowd as Dane finishes answering a question directed at him.
“Cerise?” She questions.
“Nothing.” I pat her hand and smile again to hide the discomfort I feel as another contraction flutters through me. It’s just the beginning stages so I’m not too worried. It’s more the fact that I’m going to look like I’ve peed myself when I walk off stage. “Okay, I lied.”
She frowns when I nod downwards, towards my crotch. She doesn’t understand, so I nod again, discreetly but more urgently.
When she still doesn’t get it I snatch her hand and rub it on my inner thigh.
She bokes around the words, “Ewww, I can’t believe you just made me touch that.”
I laugh and sit back triumphantly, breathing and tensing when another pain comes.
“What do we do?” She hisses.
“I don’t know. I was hoping you’d know!”
Then she smiles as though I just told a hilarious joke before cupping her hand to her mouth and snarling, “I can’t believe I touched your pee. That’s just something you do not do with friends, you feral bitch.”
“Wait…” I frown, feeling the urge to face palm. “That’s not pee. My water broke.”
“Your water broke?” She does not say this quietly at all.
“You fucking suck,” I sigh through the very corner of my mouth as suddenly all cameras and flashes are aimed at me.
Kai, who is sitting to my left, raises his brows questioningly.
“Yes, it’s exploded all over this poor chair and my favourite maternity jeans.”
“We’re going to have to end this interview,” Kai says into the mic and then turns to Dane and barks, “Call Lockhart.”
Kai acts every bit the man in charge and gentleman by ripping his jumper up and over his head. He helps me to my feet and ties it around my waist to hide what he can of the spill.
“She has three weeks left.” Dane sounds panicked. “Is it safe? Will the baby be okay?”
“Dane,” Georgia and I snap at the same time, but it’s Georgia that adds, “You’re not helping.”
“I’ll call Gran.” Eliza grins, skipping around me like fucking Bambi.
The pain radiates through my pelvis as I’m helped backstage, shouts, flashes and yells echoing behind me.
I’m made to wait with a cup of tea, wearing nice clean clothing from the dressing rooms as Tobias rushes to get to me. I haven’t spoken to him yet. I’ve been too busy focusing on this god-awful pain in my lady parts.
It only gets worse and, by the time Tobias arrives, I’m holding onto Kai’s hair and screaming in agony.
Me and labour are not a good mix. I don’t like labour. Not at all.
Tobias, on the other hand, looks fucking ecstatic and I want to punch him.
I’m carried to his car and waved off to have what should have been the most relaxing water birth ever.
Instead, after twenty-six hours of nothing but pure agony, two hours of pushing, twenty minutes of Lockhart crying as I beg him to make it stop, I’m taken up to surgery and my very fat, rather large daughter is brought into the world with the help of forceps.
She tears me front to back, almost yanking out my womb with her, and makes it so I’ll likely never have a baby again because FUCK THAT.
On the flip side, seeing Tobias hold his daughter with so much love and joy in his aqua eyes, it made it all worth it.
“You cried.” I smile at him as they clean me up after stitching me up.
“I did,” he admits, smiling at me and holding our gorgeous, pink cheeked giant baby up. “I still might. She’s wonderful.”
“She needs liposuction… like yesterday… before she made me push her out of there.” I grumble, making him laugh because he knows I don’t mean it.
Moving to me with her cradled to his chest, he kisses my forehead and asks, “Are you ready for her yet?”
I shake my head. “I just want to watch you with her for a little bit longer.” Because I’ve genuinely never seen a more beautiful sight than the sight of the man I love falling in love with the baby I carried for thirty-seven weeks.
“She looks like a Shay,” I say as I run my fingers over her thick, black hair and then the rolls of fat that line her forehead.
“Beatrice.” He says and I’m sick of this name argument.
But then I see my bag on the floor and see the open Twix chocolate bar poking out, my major craving for the past ten weeks.
I smile wryly and suggest, “Beatrix.”
“Beatrix?” He questions and I nod eagerly. He tests the name out a few times. “I like that.”
I sing a note of Hallelujah and then hold out my hands. “Give me my baby.”
He smiles, kisses her forehead and gently places her into my arms. I never thought I could love somebody as much as I love her right now. She’s the greatest.
Even though she ruined my vagina.
“I love her so much,” I say tiredly and then yawn as I gaze upon her peacefully sleeping, scrunched up body. “Little fatty.”
“She needs a brother,” Tobias declares, but I choose to not hear that at all.
If he thinks I’m going through that again he has another thing coming.