He had been quietly stepped over.
Emily groaned behind him.
The sound pulled him back.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“What?”
“Tell me something.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Baby’s name?”
She breathed hard.
“We were still arguing.”
“About what?”
“Names.”
“Pick mine.”
That time she really did laugh.
It came out broken and wet, but it was a laugh.
“Miles?”
“It’s a good name.”
“It is,” she whispered. “It really is.”
He smiled for half a second.
Then the cart wheel squealed.
He looked down.
The left front wheel had started to wobble badly.
“No, no, no,” he muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
The wheel jerked sideways.
The cart lurched.
Emily grabbed the blanket.
Miles threw his whole weight against the handle, steadying it before it tipped.
His knee hit the pavement.
Pain shot up his leg.
He did not stop.
He dragged the cart to the curb, bent down, and slapped the wheel with his palm.
The tape was coming loose.
Of course it was.
Because the world never waited until morning to fall apart.
Miles pulled the roll of duct tape from his back pocket. His fingers shook so hard he could barely find the end.
Emily watched him from the cart, face pale, eyes glossy.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
He looked at his knee.
A small scrape. Nothing.
“It’s just skin.”
“You’re fifteen.”
He kept wrapping tape around the wheel.
“You said that already.”
“You should be home.”
The tape stretched tight.
Miles yanked it with his teeth.
“So should you.”
Emily’s eyes filled.
He looked away.
Not because he didn’t care.
Because if he looked too long, he might start feeling how unfair it all was, and feeling was heavy.
He had no room for heavy.
Not tonight.
The wheel held.
Barely.
Miles stood and grabbed the handle again.
“Ready?”
Emily nodded.
He pushed.
Seven blocks.
Then six.
Then five.
The hospital lights grew brighter.
Miles could see the emergency entrance now, tucked beyond the ambulance lane.
His lungs burned.
His arms trembled.
Every part of him begged to stop.
Then Emily whispered, “He’s coming.”
Miles froze for half a step.
The street around them seemed to pull away.
The traffic lights blinked red.
The city hummed.
And in the cart behind him, Emily held her belly and cried softly, not from weakness, but from the terrible nearness of a life arriving too soon.
Miles did not know anything about babies.
He knew how to find cans.
He knew how to sleep with one eye open.
He knew how to hide his shoes under his blanket so nobody walked off with them.
He did not know what to do if a baby came into the world on a sidewalk.
So he did the only thing he could.
He ran.
The cart shook wildly.
The wheel screamed.
Emily held on.
“Almost there!” he shouted.
A man stepping out of an apartment building turned and stared.
Miles screamed, “Help! Hospital!”
The man blinked, confused, but Miles did not wait for him to understand.
He ran past.
By the time the hospital driveway rose before him, his legs felt like rubber.
