To Love/Hate the Spotlight

My POV:

A bone shattering scream erupted from my mouth.

"Push!"

Drenched in sweat, chest crushing from air being torn from my lungs in sporadic wails.

"Come on! Push!"

Legs tense, pressed hard against metal stirrups. The space between fused with unyielding torture.

"Push!"

"FUCK YOU!" I shouted, writhing and sick.

The small mess of nurses and doctors crowded around my lower half didn't even flinch at the venom spat at them; They only babbled orders and stats. The room wreaked of bleach, blood, and something I'm sure I didn't want to know. In my agony, the light overhead competed with the wrath of the sun. My eyes squinted and strained with tears. Not much could be seen over my ballooned stomach and the blanket over my knees.

"Rebecca," one of the blue-masked bastards started, "we really need you to push."

My head shook wildly, fighting static and searing stabs of white heat. All I wanted was for my dry tongue to receive at least a drop of anything-gin-vodka-rum- hell, I'd even take beer. I haven't had that in forever.

"Drugs! Give me drugs!" Excitement briefly number that merciless stretch.

Each and everyone of their cloth caps refused with a head shake. "It's too late for that. You have to do this natural. You have to push." One of them exclaimed in frustration.

Defeated, I slammed my head back to the inclined mattress and closed my eyes. Anything would be better than this: A good cut, a nasty burn, possibly a Hannah Montana concert but even that's a long shot. Seriously, anything that wasn't this reenactment from the scene in, Alien. Everything just hurts. Why didn't I get to the hospital sooner for an Epidural?

"Becky, Baby..." A cool set of fingertips smoothed the strips of bangs plastered to my forehead to the side. My head weighed a ton as it rolled to the left. Blinding light slipped between my eyelids and expanded. Slicing through the dizzying white was a dark silhouette slowly coming into focus. The first to come crystal clear was a pair of piercing blue eyes.

"... Jimmy?" I mumbled the name of a memory.

He smirked, crossing his arms. " Cross your legs and hope to die, Champ," he said softly and soon broke into earsplitting laughter. I quickly winced from another surge of pain.

A nurse screeched, "PUSH!"

Losing control more and more, I looked again. The brightest green possible under these fluorescent lights replaced those fanatical blues. All I could do then was cry.

Draped in an unflattering gown, Billie Joe planted a kiss on my forehead. "Baby, you're biting your lip again..."

My tongue traced my bottom lip and tasted sweet blood.

"Billie," I whimpered, my broken lip quivering. "I can't do this."

"Shh..." He brought his hand held in a vice by my own to his chest as he tried to get closer. He cringed as he did so. My left arm locked and shaking - knuckles white - hand aching yet determined; My other clung to the wrinkled sheets.

"Baby, you gotta work with them. You gotta push."

"I can't- It hurts- I- I don't want to do this anymore!" I sobbed, wanting to die and no longer feel this.

"Sir," a doctor interrupted, standing upright opposed to huddled in front of my dilation. "If you want your child to be delivered without a C-Section, I suggest you get her to push."

Billie's eyes widened like a deer in headlights. "It's not mine..."

"Rebecca, push now!"

"OH GO TO HELL, YOU PSYCHOTIC FUCK!" I yelled, having grown tired of the demands and the suffering. Out of the corner of my eye, Billie Joe took a step back. He was afraid; We both were, and I hated it.

So after a few deep breaths, I willed myself to push. My exhale trapped. Eyes Squeezed shut. Arms finding more strength to tense harder. Stomach muscles constricting.

Again..... Again..... Energy draining....... Again......... This is going to kill me......... Again.

"Here comes the head..."

"You're doing it!" Billie's face lit up while peeking at the process.

"DON'T LOOK!" I shrieked, forcing Billie Joe back by my side. He sees that once and never look down there the same way again.

"Push just a few more times."

Despite the pressure building rapidly in my head, I continued to do as they said. Breathing was less than a priority; Inhaling in huffs without gagging the air out in return.

"Four more good pushes should do it."

The pain was at its peak.

"Three..."

Muscles clenched tighter. My teeth dug harder in my lip extracting more crimson.

"Babe, -ow- you're hurting me," Billie squeaked.

"Okay, two more. You're doing great."

My brain screamed as all its contents became jumbled in its suffocation. I soon found myself dizzy and staggering through consciousness in this hospital bed.

"One more-- you're almost there!"

My eyesight switched on and off. Struggling to focus, I felt it passing through me. I couldn't physically understand how any of this could be considered a "Miracle."

"Here it comes..." The doctor announced, more excited than I was. "...there!"

An infant's cry was all I heard until everything went black.