Page 151 of The Wrong Monster

Apparently, being thirty-five weeks pregnant has not cured me of my inability to recognize reasonable limits.

The baby is due in mid-January. Five weeks. Five weeks, and I’m still working full days, reviewing briefs, taking calls, and pretending my swollen ankles are an inconvenience rather than evidence that I am carrying an entire human being. Only now, thanks to that earlier conversation, I’ll be wrapping things up and handing cases off. It’s a bittersweet relief.

I make it another half a block before a sharp cramp tears through my abdomen.

I stop, breath catching. Braxton Hicks. They warned me about that. Practice contractions to get me ready for the baby coming in a few weeks. No big deal. Just have to wait it out.

Then the pain intensifies.

My hand presses against the brick wall beside me as I bend slightly forward, eyes squeezing shut. The cramp twists through my abdomen and back, deep enough to make my knees weaken.

Oh God.

It lasts.

And lasts.

People stream around me, bundled in coats and scarves, rushing toward wherever they need to be. Someone brushes my shoulder. Another person steps around me without so much as a glance.

Apparently, I’m invisible.

Or maybe New Yorkers have simply learned not to interfere with a woman who looks like she could stab someone with a briefcase.

Eventually, the pain begins to ebb. I straighten slowly, breathing through it.

“Okay,” I whisper. “That was not normal.” I step toward the side of the building, out of foot traffic, and pull out my phone. My thumb hovers over Vasily’s name.

No. He will definitely overreact.

He’ll have the helicopter in the air before I can finish explaining that I had one cramp. We’ve already argued about this twice. Once last weekend and once before he left Monday morning.

He wants to stay in the city as my due date gets closer. I insist he stay in Lake Placid.

We have a schedule. He comes down on weekends. I work during the week. We see each other in between.

It is perfectly reasonable.

Mostly.

Instead, I call Isla. She answers on the second ring and asks, just as bad as him, “Where are you?”

“On my way to you.”

There’s a brief silence before she says warily, “You sound weird.” In the background of the call, it’s easy to hear the din of a city lunch: a crowded little restaurant with silverware, parents calling out warnings to kids, a cashier taking orders.

“I had a cramp.”

“A cramp?”

“Like…a really bad one.”

“Matty.”

“I’m fine, but maybe you should meet me halfway instead. I could use the company back to my apartment.” Making a point to keep my voice low and even, I control my breathing and try not to freak out. Because another cramp feels like it’s starting to twitch low, at the seams of my pelvis.

“Call Vasily,” Isla demands.

“No.”