The Girl in the Hoodie is Mine

Max’s POV:

We had just made it through the hospital doors when the ER staff took over like it was a damn medical heist. A nurse wheeled Ella through the automatic doors with military precision while barking out code words like "Vitals!" and "Call OB!" and "Why is she screaming about a minivan?"

And then—

Like a cinematic slow-motion moment in an action movie...

Jason appeared.

He looked deranged. Wild-eyed. Disheveled. Tie crooked. Suit jacket half-buttoned. And slung across his shoulders like a fashionably confused dad-batman hybrid was a bright pink hospital bag with a stuffed giraffe hanging out the side and what looked like a bottle of almond body lotion jammed in the cup holder.

He was running.

Running hard.

He spotted us, zeroed in, and made a beeline, cutting through the hospital corridor like a linebacker on a caffeine bender.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY—THAT’S MY WIFE!" he bellowed, nearly body-checking a nurse holding a clipboard. "THAT—IS—MY—WIFE!"

One nurse tried to hold him back with a firm hand on the chest. Big mistake.

"I AM THE FATHER!" Justin roared, eyes bloodshot, voice cracking. "I HAVE THE PINK BAG! I KNOW THE CODE WORDS! HER FEET SWELL WHEN SHE’S STRESSED, AND SHE HATES THE TASTE OF MINT TOOTHPASTE! LET! ME! THROUGH!"

The nurse blinked, checked the clipboard, sighed, and stepped aside.

Ella, on the gurney, looked up and locked eyes with him.

"Oh look," she snarled like a demon in lip gloss, "the man responsible for this suffering has arrived."

Dylan leaned toward me and whispered, "His funeral starts in five... four... three..."

Jason dropped the bag and reached for her hand, clearly trying to be loving and supportive and doing that soft concerned-husband voice. "Hey baby, I’m here now, you’re doing so good—"

She let out a wail and yanked him by the collar so hard I swear I saw his soul leave his body.

"YOU!" she shrieked, as the nurses kept pushing the gurney into the labor wing. "THIS IS YOUR FAULT! YOUR STUPID GENES! YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

"I—okay—yes! I love you?" Jason replied, clearly unsure if now was a good time to say that.

She pulled his hair—HARD.

Like spiritual purification via scalp hard.

Jason yelped.

"I SAID I WAS SORRY!" he cried as she grabbed a handful of his beautiful executive hair and yanked. "I TOLD THEM NOT TO TAKE YOU OUT! THEY DIDN’T LISTEN TO ME! I HAVE THE BAG! I BROUGHT THE PINK BAG!"

"I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE BAG I CARE ABOUT GETTING THIS BABY OUT OF ME RIGHT NOW!" she roared, kicking her leg slightly, which I think grazed his thigh in a very intimate way.

I took a deep breath, watched as the staff finally got Ella into a delivery room, and Dylan and I slowly slinked toward the waiting area like battered, broken assistants to chaos.

We collapsed into two chairs, wide-eyed, speechless.

"Is it just me," Dylan panted, "or did she almost curb-stomp us with contractions?"

"I think she levitated," I muttered. "Like... her whole body. Off the gurney. Exorcist-style."

We both turned our heads slowly to peer through the delivery room window.

Inside, Jason was now trapped at Ella’s side, pink bag on the floor beside him, trying to soothe her with forehead kisses and soft encouragements like, "You’re powerful. You’re beautiful. You’re a goddess."

"YOU’RE A DEAD MAN!" she shrieked.

He nodded rapidly. "Yes. Yes, baby. Absolutely. I deserve death."

We watched in silence as she hurled a pillow at his head.

And then—grabbed his hand. Squeezed. He yelped again.

I winced. "That’s the ’crush-the-bones-to-dust’ grip."

"She’s gonna break his fingers before the baby comes," Dylan said solemnly.

"And yet," I added, "he still looks so in love. Idiot."

Dylan smirked. "He really is. The moron."

We both turned back to the scene. Justin was now sweating. Ella was cursing in languages I didn’t know she spoke. Somewhere, a nurse ducked as a sippy cup was thrown across the room. Possibly a nurse’s sippy cup. Who’s to say?

The chaos had come full circle.

And now, it was finally Jason’s turn to ride the hell-coaster we’d been on all day.

Amen.

Jason’s POV:

Okay. I expected wildness.

I expected some cursing. Maybe a thrown object or two. I’d seen the birthing videos, took the prenatal classes, even memorized breathing techniques. "Stay calm, encourage her, stay grounded in the moment," they said. But what I got was... biblical.

No one—and I mean NO ONE—prepared me for Ella going full apocalyptic goddess in a hospital gown. Nothing from those prenatal classes prepared me for this. Not the breathing exercises. Not the handouts. Not the cheery instructor with the plastic pelvis and foam baby.

It started deceptively calm. A gentle beep from the monitor. A nurse smiling too sweetly as she announced, "You’re fully dilated. We’ll start pushing soon."

And then Ella turned her head toward me like the girl from The Exorcist.

"You," she hissed. "Are about to suffer."

"Okay," I nodded nervously, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from her forehead. "Remember the breathing exercises—"

"I REMEMBER HOW YOU BREATHED THE NIGHT THIS HAPPENED, THAT’S WHAT I REMEMBER!"

She gripped my hand with the strength of ten thousand suns. Bones cracked. I think I lost circulation to my ancestors.

Then the first real contraction hit.

The first scream came like a warning siren from the gods.

The second came as the earth cracked open.

"YOU!" she shrieked at me, pupils blown wide, hair stuck to her face like a horror movie final girl. "YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

"I’m sorry!" I gasped, holding her hand, which she immediately used to crush my fingers like walnuts.

"I’M NEVER HAVING SEX AGAIN!"

"That’s fair! That’s fair!"

The doctor smiled as if she wasn’t standing in the eye of a hurricane. "Okay, we’re ready to start pushing."

Screaming. Not just a normal scream. A battle cry. A war horn made of rage and uterine might.

"She’s crowning," the nurse said cheerfully like she was giving weather updates.

Ella arched her back, shrieked like a banshee, and bellowed:

Another contraction. She grabbed a nurse by the collar and demanded, "Did you put hot sauce in the IV because my spine is on fire."

"No, dear—just saline."

"LIAR."

I tried to do the calm, steady-dad thing and whispered, "You’re doing great, baby. Almost there. You’re a warrior."

"IF I’M A WARRIOR THEN WHERE IS MY FUCKING SWORD? AND WHY DOES MY CROTCH FEEL LIKE IT’S BEING SPLIT BY A DEMON’S FORK?"

Another nurse peeked in and immediately turned back around. I didn’t blame her.

"Push!" the doctor said, bright and breezy, as if she wasn’t asking Ella to defy the laws of physics.

"Push? You want me to push? You try pushing out a human watermelon and we’ll talk!" Ella growled, veins popping in her neck.

"I—I can’t," I whimpered. "No uterus."

"I SWEAR TO GOD, JASON, IF YOU PASS OUT I WILL RESURRECT YOU JUST TO KILL YOU MYSELF!"

And I almost did pass out when she yanked me down by my shirt collar and screamed into my ear:

"I BLAME YOUR PENIS."

"Noted!" I squeaked.

"Next contraction’s coming!" the doctor announced like a cruise director.

Ella’s head whipped around like a bloodhound.

She gripped my hand again, even harder.

I think I saw the lights dim. Possibly a power outage caused by her sheer rage.

The doctor counted. "One... two... three—Push!"

"You want me to WHAT?"

"Push."

She grabbed my collar. "Tell her I am pushing. I’m pushing my soul out of my ass."

"I think she means more, babe."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "YOU push."

"I don’t have—""PUSH!"

"Yes ma’am."

The doctor counted. "One, two, three—Push!"

Ella let out a sound that definitely cracked the time-space continuum.

And God help us all, Ella pushed.

Her scream shook the walls. Somewhere in the hospital, a baby in the nursery started crying in solidarity.

"I CAN FEEL HIM!" she screamed. "HE’S COMING! WHY DOES IT FEEL LIKE HE’S TAKING A DETOUR THROUGH MY KIDNEYS?"

"He’s almost there, honey!" I said, completely unsure if that was true, but trying to survive.

"I SWEAR IF HE COMES OUT LOOKING LIKE YOU, I’M MAKING YOU SHAVE YOUR HEAD OUT OF SPITE!"

"Noted again!"

Then, a nurse tried to mop her forehead.

Ella smacked her hand away.

"DON’T PATRONIZE MY FOREHEAD! SHE’S GOING THROUGH A LOT!"

Another push. Another scream. My hand—definitely broken. My soul—hanging on by a thread.

Then—suddenly—the doctor shouted, "I see the head!"

Ella screamed again. A sound so primal it echoed through time.

And then—there he was.

Our son.

Wrinkly. Screaming. Beautiful.

The chaos suddenly stopped.

Like a cosmic pause button had been pressed

He came out red and wrinkled and wailing, arms flailing like he was just as pissed about the situation as Ella.

I choked out a laugh and a sob and reached for her hand again.

"You did it," I whispered. "He’s beautiful. You’re amazing."

She slumped back against the pillows, sweaty and limp. "I am never doing that again. Ever. I want six epidurals. Retroactively. Put them in my spine. Now."

The doctor suddenly frowned.

"Oh," she said.

Oh?

OH?!

"What ’oh’?!" Ella snapped, sitting bolt upright like a demon reborn.

The doctor was peering between her legs like she’d found a surprise party.

"I’m seeing... another head."