I couldn’t breathe. I doubled over, sliding helplessly off the edge of the sofa, falling heavily to my knees on the hardwood floor. I clutched my stomach with both hands, gasping for air that refused to enter my lungs, my vision instantly swimming with black spots.
I looked up, my vision blurred with involuntary tears of pure, unadulterated agony.
My mother hadn’t even stood up from the loveseat. She was looking at me, but there was no horror in her eyes. There was only a profound, irritated smirk. She rolled her eyes, her gaze drifting back toward the loud television.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Emily, stop it,” my mother sighed, her tone dripping with absolute, condescending dismissal. “It was just a rubber ball. You are being completely hysterical. That’s nothing compared to what real labor is going to feel like. You need to toughen up.”
I couldn’t formulate words to argue. The pain was escalating, a rolling, white-hot wave of terror radiating from my core.
I turned my head desperately toward the armchair, fighting through the dizziness to focus on my sister.
I expected to see Nicole rushing toward me. I expected to hear her scolding her son.
Instead, Nicole was standing up, but she wasn’t moving to help me. She had her smartphone raised, held horizontally in both hands, the camera lens pointed directly at my face as I writhed on the floor.
The small, red recording light in the corner of her screen was blinking steadily.
She was giggling.
