308: end of chapter 7

You've had a child.

The information came to her in the hasty, sardonic words of a nurse as she rose from medicine induced slumber. Amber had choked out a sound of utter confusion; her mind was hazy with sleep as the nurse wheeled her forward through a hallway of flashing lights and fading dreams.

You gave birth to a little baby girl.

There were other questions on pain, questions on her memories. Then the repeating feed of information like a broken record. It was their way of reducing the stress, to allow the knowledge to settle in her head like dust upon tranquil waters. A slow fed poison. A 'gentle' alternative to the explosion it should cause.

What do you remember?

Blood. JieMi's eyes, JieMi's voice. JieM's tears. Her chest grew tight and her belly ached with fear. Her soulmates. The fans. The airport. She'd squinted, tasted the dryness of her lips. The tour.

There was a flash JieMi's panic-stricken eyes, so filled with terror that it sent a heavy rush of pain through her chest. She squirmed, tried to get up, but failed from weakness. Itchiness settled upon her skin; she scratched at what she could find.

Sweetheart, you've had a placental abruption. Your placenta tore from physical trauma resulting in blood loss. We've had to give you an emergency c-section.

Amber had squinted, her mind whirred. But she didn't have a placenta...Her lips parted. She didn't understand what the nurse was trying to say. The words that she seemed to repeat as Amber was wheeled along a corridor of endless rooms didn't register in her brain.

You were bleeding very heavily, but thankfully it stopped before it could get worse.

What placenta? Her brain hovered over the word and chose to ignore its scientific meaning. It searched for an alternative, a synonym, something else better than the word 'placenta'. God, please give her something else. Fuck the dictionary, please just delete that word from existence. She didn't need it, she didn't want it.

Your baby was born just a little early, but she's completely fine. Very healthy. There was a pleased coo in her voice, a delighted tremble. She came out a little blue and a tad small but she's alright now, just waiting for mommy to hold her.

Her eyes flew open, danced to the woman's face as if she'd started sprouting a tale of flying dicks and running breasts on cartwheels. There was a gulp, a moment of panic and then she requested confirmation. Her brain didn't seem to be working, and she was just so, so tired. She blamed the lethargy for the fantastical words that the stranger seemed to be sprouting.

I understand from your soulmates that you weren't showing at all and have had irregular cycles. Bleeding and spotting could be signs of serious complications, but those symptoms occur for many pregnant women.

You've got the wrong person, Amber had insisted. There was a mistake. She repeated, the blurred panic dancing through her heart. You're in the wrong room. She tried. Could you please check again?

Her breath came out in panicked pants.

I'm very sure, a fiddle with a chart, a smack of her lips, Ambrosia Momo Pei. There was a look of smooth pity and then a smile through her surgical mask. Perhaps, your soulmates will bring you more comfort? They'll be here soon to explain more.

A brief moment of solitude had her staring at the walls and then the window. Her eyes moved to the drip of fluids into the needle through her arm, a lift of her frock revealed bandages upon her tummy. A painful ache similar to cramps had her wincing. A reach for the clock and then the calendar told her that this wasn't a moment of lapse amnesia from a far distant future.

The panic pounded through her, the questions repeated as she peeled at her fingers and waited for someone to tell her everything was all just a bad dream. Alone she stewed in her anxiety and terror. No acceptance came as she cycled through the stages of understanding. She closed her eyes, pinched herself and then trembled under the sheets.

The door clattered open.

Oliver was there first; he flew into the room his hands took hers as he smoothed her hair back with a strange quivering expression on his face. There was a vulnerability in his eyes, worry and then a back seated shimmer of tearful joy. He smiled so big and so wide she was momentarily dazzled as he kissed her hands.

The relief was sharp and sweet in his face, but the breathless happiness from him unnerved her.

"Oh, sunshine," he'd whispered through a softened voice that seemed fragile with more than just worry. It dripped with a strange tenderness that she'd never heard from him before. It confused her.

It scared her.

"The others?" she rasped out, confused as she tried to move. He helped her up, gently scooped the pillows under her waist. He was careful with her middle, whispering words like 'stitches' and 'tearing'. "JieMi?"

God, there was no way he would forget the trauma of watching a fountain of blood explode from her vagina. The nausea hit her for a moment and she had to take a moment to inhale and exhale.

"Just outside, don't want you too overwhelmed." He smoothed her hair again, combing messy strands into a simple pony tail. "They'll come over soon after I break the news. It'll be easier with just one voice instead of seven."

Break what news? She stared at him as if he had two heads and his lips twitched. A crack in his mask. A double take as he looked at her. He bit his lips, nervous and a little wary of her reaction.

His anxiety only fuelled hers.

"The nurses told us that they would explain some of it. Did they tell you anything?" His voice grew softer, gentler, less emotional. A lulled sweetness that he used only with children and animals. Her breathing only grew more rapid. The worry spread, spider webs in her head.

"The nurse said stuff that doesn't make any sense," she laughed, tried to get rid of the dread that sat on her chest; a fat, heavy weight that made it hard to breathe. "I think she got the wrong person."

She smiled up at him as he held her hands but Oliver's face only fell into a calmed blankness that scared her. There was no signs of the agreeing chuckle, none of the animatic confusion and furrowed brows. He should be guffawing, should be giving her a face of shocked bewilderment.

"What did the nurse say?" Expressionless, he said those words as he fed her chips of ice.

Her pulse skyrocketed. "She told me I had a baby. What the fuck—"

"You did, sunshine, you did."

His words were quick and short, chaste as they cut through everything. There was no gentle bounce, arms to hold her, kisses to assure her, as her sky fell. Oliver's words were scissors to her harness and her rope. She had a second to think and another to numbly stare into his eyes. Her brain restarted.

"What?"

"You gave birth to our child."

Her lips parted and Oliver's face only grew more solemn. His grip on her hands tightened and she felt the urge to struggle and run from his grasp. But he sat and made her look at him, made her face the truth in his eyes. There was no joke to catch her as she continued to fall.

This was reality.

Her heart fell.

"But I can't," she whispered. "I can't. I'm not ready—W-What?" Her eyes welled with tears, desperation, confusion, disbelief. Heart flying, stomach clenching. Her hands went to her belly. "I didn't do anything right. I drank coffee. I fucking ate sushi—"

Her mind was nowhere then everywhere. There was no prenatal care in her daily routine. No visits to the gynaecologist. None of the hundreds of vitamins that she should have downed for bone growth. No education, no preparation. She ate lesser when she wanted more, she overworked and hustled.

How could a child survive in her crappy, rot-filled body?

"It's okay, darling, it's okay Rumi's fine."

"R-Rumi?"

The name made things seem more real, an actual quantification of the child she had yet to meet but had stayed in her for more than eight months. It pained her that they'd named the baby without her input. And for a moment Amber visualized herself far out at sea, stranded in a boat as her soulmates took off on a cruise towards family.

The child felt at that moment, like an unknown quiet little parasite that had stayed in her body for far too long. A silent killer that had slipped into Amber's life. There was no time for coddling or love, only cold hard facts that turned Amber green.

Oliver paused, parted lips a soft 'o' then a shake of his head at the slip. There was more panic in his eyes as he kissed her hands. He read her emotions no doubt from the words on her skin. Humiliation filled her for the thoughts that spilt into inky scattered notes that he could read. Shame overwhelmed her.

She tried not to think.

"J-just what Sieon knows from his dreams...We'll discuss it. Choose whatever you want. Something that fits her."

But she didn't want to choose.

A person's name was their life. The odds of getting teased. The makings of their personality. The beginning of their everything. Her hands shook at his words, at the already prophesized truth that she was unable to escape. There was a sense of doom that filled her, and her eyes only grew round as she considered what she could do in this new predicament.

She was a mother at a young age, a mother just barely before she was out of school.

A mother before her life could begin again.

"H-how did I fuck up?" she echoed out weakly. "But the contraception, we were careful—"

The condoms and the pills. Perhaps, she should have considered an IUD.

"Don't cry love, please." She realised she was crying with a swipe of her hand to her cheek which parted to reveal a shimmery trail of warmth. "You didn't fuck up, don't blame yourself for this." Oliver's arms were around her as she weakly sobbed into his embrace. "It's us who did this to you."

Truth, they planted the seed.

"Y-you don't understand, I'm not ready for this, I c-can't do this. I don't know how—" The words escaped her in a whoosh of anxiety.

"We'll learn together..."

"I'm not good enough—"

"Baby, you will be an amazing mother, I know you will be," he kissed her cheeks as if that would calm her, but his words only brought her greater harsher dread. There was no chances for mistake, she had to be a good mother. She had to. It was a woman's job. A woman's role. All mothers were angels.

There was no doubt that a child was a part of her goals in life. But she'd assumed it would only come when she was mentally ready, when she'd had her time to live her life pursuing a career. When there was wisdom in her head, experience under her belt. She wanted everything to fall into place before she even considered settling down.

Her soulmates had long succeeded. But Amber wanted her success too, she wanted her years in education to mean something more than just knowledge to be passed down to a child. She didn't want to spend her future after sixteen fucking years of studying, waist-deep in diapers and crying babies.

"Baby..."Oliver tried to soothe her.

She let out a dry sob, "that's the whole point, I'm still a baby, how can I care for one, if I'm like a child?"

Her world was crashing, her mind spinning. The baby was to be her main priority, her full source of passion, her everything. Her entire existence was now tied to this being she didn't even know. She was to quit her dreams, her career and her hobbies.

A human she didn't know.

It was a strange painfully selfish and yet horrifying thought that had Amber gasping all over again. There was anger and then a final cold-hearted resentment that started to coil around her heart. There must be something wrong with her. How could she hate the one situation everyone seemed to enjoy? It only seemed to push forth what she knew must be true.

She wasn't meant to be a mother and yet her she was.

"You'll be fine, you have us," Oliver assured, her mind swivelled to the tour. "You know we would never leave you alone, we've got eight parents in our team. I promise we will do everything to make it easier." He was right, they did have the manpower for the task.

"B-but your job—"

"We'll get a trained professional to help you if it comes to it, but I promise we'll do everything to be with you."

"Y-you can't promise me anything—" There were tears in her eyes; her breath wheezed, the migraine burned. The sense of inadequacy consumed.

"You're worrying too much about the unknown. You're not alone, sunshine," Oliver soothed in his soft voice, lips pressed to her cheeks and then the tears that dripped down. "You have a family now and we'll get through this together, okay?" He smiled, stroked her hair. "It's going to be hard now, and you're hurt and tired. But it'll get better, okay?"

"I don't know..."

"We'll figure this out together," he promised again.

But all Amber heard were empty words slathered on a mountain of shit she had to do, and the perfection she had to become. Her breath caught as he dabbed at the tears from her eyes with a tissue.

"It's normal to feel blue love." He said again. "The hormonal imbalance will make you sad. It'll be here for a while."

Words to smooth out the blow, words meant to assure her that things would right itself, but all Amber felt was defeat. She went quiet as he stroked her hair and told her that everything would be alright. She sank into the orange, vibrancy of his scent buried herself in the musk of her soulmate and pretended for a moment that this wasn't real.

It helped.

When the rest of her soulmates entered, they were nothing like her, each sporting their own individual grins of joy. There was terror, there was fear. There was worry for her. The concern that she would feel pain.

But the elation overthrew everything, and JieMi seemed extremely drunk on their child. He spoke of her in rapid words, no stutter and no pause as he described her eyes, her face and her smile.

"She's so, so pretty with huge eyes and big dimples when she smiles." JieMi chuckled as he spoke, his eyes were alight with stars. "She has a full head of hair, I was so surprised when I saw her." Amber fed on their joy, tried to mirror it in her own heart as she listened to the chatter.

It helped a little.

"I thought babies would be slower and sleepier, but she was wiggling around in her blanket." Casper.

"She's active and strong even though she's small, " MinJae giggled. "The tiny ones are the strongest!"

"She opened her eyes and stared at me when we first met! She couldn't stop looking at me. I must be beautiful to her." Hikaru simpered. "Do you think she'll remember my face?"

"Babies are as blind as bats," Ezra chuckled, " she probably thinks your colours are interesting."

"Should I dye my hair then so that she'll know it's me?" Sieon.

"If you're dying your hair I'm doing it too!" Hikaru.

"Guys, I'm pretty sure our daughter can only see black and white at this point," Oliver sighed.

"Red's the first colour," Casper confirmed.

"We're dying our hair red the moment she can see it," Sieon promised.

"Then how can she tell the fucking difference?" Ezra.

"No swearing in front of our baby!" Hikaru chided with a shake of his hand.

"Fuck, got to get used to that rule."

"Oh, Amber you'll love her," JieMi murmured out taking her hand. "Thank you for the gift." His eyes grew wet as his lips trembled, so moved by his emotions that he went on his knees. "Thank you for surviving." He kissed her then, lips moulded to hers chaste but sweet. "Thank you for staying with me." The tears dripped from his eyes, haunted memories dancing in dark doe eyes.

And for a moment Amber was overwhelmed with her own tears. JieMi was right. There were bigger fears, bigger hurdles that she'd crossed. She'd come back from near-death once again and while the situation had been surprising. She should be grateful for everything, grateful that she hadn't left her soulmates behind.

"I'm sorry for scaring you," she murmured. "I didn't expect this..."

"Regular body check-ups?" Casper suggested, rubbing her shoulder. "For all of us, dental too."

"Always."

The normalcy of their conversation calmed her. It distracted her momentarily from the fears that clouded her mind. She was calm and at peace with her soulmates stroking her back and kissing her cheeks. There was love that held her gracefully in its palms, cherishing her existence.

Then the baby was wheeled in.

Her soulmates crowded the bassinet for a look, eager for a glimpse as they cooed and melted for a child she had yet to meet. In depressing contrast, Amber found her heart to be filled with fear. The nurse lifted her, cradled a bundle of cloth in her arms as she brought the baby up to Amber with a cheery 'let's go to mommy!'

Inside, Amber prayed for the joyous moment. For the connection between a mother and baby, the absolute elation and love that should hit her for a person her soulmates described as the most beautiful in the world. She should be touched. She should be moved. She should feel in love.

This was a being that had stayed with her for months and would change her life forever.

This was a being that came unannounced.

This was a being she didn't know existed in her.

But the stranger placed in her arms had a red, squeamish face, squashed and angry with deep wrinkles. Her hair was a fluffed mess that stuck out from all sides. There was nothing beautiful about that face that fussed with irritation. Then the twist of a distasteful nose.

Her heart fell as numbness filled her.

Why was she so ugly? The words caught in her throat, breathless tears as she waited for a miracle. The baby squalled, a sharp cry that startled her and the child drooped from her arms.

Her stomach clenched as the child screamed harder from sharply awakened slumber. No love came for the crying child that struggled in her arms as if she wanted to leave, tussled as if her hands were the thorniest of bushes. In a great panic, the nurse caught the child, held her with soft hushes—closed off body language against a perpetrator.

Dread filled her throat.

Rumi would be better off with a different mother.

-

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