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The pain seemed to ease enough for her to straighten. She rubbed the bottom of her stomach and started toward the bathroom. I stayed sitting up.

“Let me know if you need me,” I called out behind her.

“I will.”

She disappeared into the bathroom. I reached for my phone on the nightstand and checked the time again. Everybody was still downstairs. I could hear faint laughter every now and then, which meant Maliah, MJ, and Tahari were probably still downstairs bullshitting from earlier. I was about to put my phone back down when Eternity cried out.

“Malik!”

I damn near dropped it.

“Eternity?”

“Oh my God!”

I threw the covers off my body.

“What happened?” I asked as my heart began to thud in my chest.

“My water broke!”

My heart started beating faster. Then she screamed. Not yelled. Screamed.

“AHHH! Malik!”

Every thought left my fucking head.

“Baby!”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and reached for my walker.

“It hurts!” she cried out.

“I’m coming.”

“Malik, something doesn’t feel right!”

The fear in her voice did something to me. I knew how I was supposed to get up. My therapist drilled the same shit into my head over and over. Get positioned. Make sure my feet are planted. Push up from a stable surface. Get my balance before I tried to move. I didn’t do any of that. My wife was in the bathroom screaming, so I didn’t have time for that shit. I grabbed the walker and forced myself to my feet.

“Eternity!”

I barely got upright before my legs started shaking. I tried to move anyway. My right leg buckled.

“Fuck!”

I threw my weight onto the walker, but I wasn’t balanced enough to catch myself. One side lifted off the floor, my left knee gave out behind the right, and I went down.

My hip hit the floor first, then my shoulder. Pain shot through my side so hard that everything went black for half a second.

“Malik!” I could hear her yell.

“I’m good!”

I wasn’t, but I didn’t give a fuck about me. I pushed up on one arm and looked toward the bathroom.

“Eternity?”

She appeared in the doorway, and my chest tightened. She was holding onto the frame with one hand and clutching the bottom of her stomach with the other. Tears covered her face.