“You told Mike?”
“I told Jess.”
CHAPTERFOUR
THEN
“You’re pregnant?”Jess’ words were definitely a question but carried an element of disbelief and horror.
I nodded, unsure what else to say and desperately trying to keep a hold of any semblance of calm I had, however, the truth was that inside I was freaking out badly.
Jess began to pace around the kitchen, circling the table I sat at, a constant hum sound radiating from her. This continued for several minutes before she eventually rejoined me.
“Have you told Mike?” Her expression was unreadable from where she sat on the opposite side of the table.
Shaking my head, I had a feeling what was coming next when guilt filled my mind, wondering why I hadn’t told him and had instead told Jess.
“Okay . . . decide what you want to do before you tell anyone else,anyone, okay?” She didn’t wait for a response. “I can’t tell you what to do, this needs to be your decision, and I do mean yours, but a baby will change your life and your career plans won’t be possible.”
I shook my head and felt my anxiety and irritation rising, but why? Was I angry with Jess or myself for being in this position? After all, she was right and she was saying everything I already knew to be true. “I could still do my foundation. It might just take a little longer . . .” The trailing off of my voice and the threatening tears suggested I wasn’t even fooling myself.
Jess was already at my side hugging me. “I thought you were being careful.” She interrupted herself. “Sorry, no contraception is foolproof.”
“There have been a couple of times when we haven’t.”
That was enough to exhaust my friend’s sympathy. “Why? Why would you risk ending up in this position?” While she remained at my side, she had put some distance between us and was studying me. “Ah. This is Mike’s doing, right?”
I wanted to defend him. To protest and explain that we had been in agreement. We hadn’t. He had wanted me to go on the pill. I had been on it as a teenager to regulate periods that were horrendous, and I had a really bad reaction to it with awful mood swings and bruising all over my legs. The doctor had taken me off it and said it wasn’t something I should take again which I now knew was more to do with the clotting rather than the moods. So, I’d told Mike I couldn’t take the pill and he had tried to argue that I could try and that not using a condom would be special between us. I had stood my ground and he seemed to accept it, however there had been at least three occasions I knew about when we had not been protected during sex, twice, I hadn’t realised we hadn’t used a condom until after the event, and now here I was pregnant.
Jess continued to fix me with a heavy stare until possible realisation dawned. “Mike. Shit! He has done this on purpose, Danni. This is a humungous fucking trap and he has well and truly sprung it. Even if you desperately wanted a baby, would it be with him because once he knows, you are never going to be rid of that man.” She spoke with complete contempt for Mike. I’d known she didn’t like him but thought she might come to in time, but she hated him and apart from anything else, I had no clue why.
“I don’t want to be rid of him. I love him.” I sounded pathetic but I did love Mike, didn’t I? Plus, I wasn’t sure that I could cope without him anymore. We spent huge amounts of time together and were planning a future. When there were practical things I couldn’t do, he would laugh and ask how I managed before him and then he would tell me that I’d never survive without him. One thing I wasn’t good at was cooking and he would tease me about it when we first got together but now he would say that it was a good job I was with him because no other man would put up with a woman who was so clueless in the kitchen. Pushing down the times he’d said similar things about the bedroom too, I focused on Jess and it was as though she could see exactly what was going on in my head.
Jess rolled her eyes several times before speaking. “He is a dickhead, and I don’t like him, but I could put that all aside if he treated you as you should be treated. He puts you down at every opportunity, and with subtlety in company so not everyone will notice, he controls where you go and what you do, he has sexually assaulted you at least once, and now he has knocked you up without your consent. Now tell me, what is there to love about that?
Preparing to protest, Jess got to her feet, I thought as preparation to leave me. She didn’t. Instead, she leaned down to give me a hug I didn’t know I needed as much as I did.
“I love you, Danni, and whatever you choose to do is your decision and I will try to support you any way that I can, but Mike is bad news, bad for you and his kid, the kid who will ensure that for the rest of your life, Mike will be in it, one way or another, so think really carefully about what you do next.”
Now she did leave me alone with her words and my thoughts.
* * *
Several days passedand I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do about telling Mike. The words Jess had spoken about my plans not being possible rang loud and clear, and yet I knew there was a way I could still make my dreams come true, but I would need to work twice as hard and I would need Mike to be there and support me, especially with the childcare. My parents would normally be the ones to jump into the breach with that, but they lived too far away. Mike didn’t have a good relationship with his parents, so that left just the two of us, and being a junior doctor would involve long and unsociable hours with studying on top. It would be hard. I corrected myself, it would be impossible without Mike’s support, support I wasn’t sure would be there. Jess was right. I’d known it all along but she had voiced it and I knew that is why I had chosen to confide in her. The question now was whether I told Mike or not because if I didn’t and we remained together, I would need for him to never find out, and if I told him, I needed to accept that he would have an opinion that may be very different from my own.
* * *
Jessand I hadn’t spoken about my pregnancy or her feelings towards Mike. Instead, she went about her life and I went about mine. In my head, I knew what I needed to do, and whilst I had no moral objection to termination, it wasn’t something I ever imagined having to go through. I called a clinic and arranged an appointment. It was all set and then, as is the case with best laid plans, it all went to shit.
Mike had been staying with me over a bank holiday weekend and by the Monday, he was suspicious of my early morning fleeing to the bathroom and the telltale sounds of vomiting. Returning to bed on that morning he asked me if I was pregnant, and I couldn’t deny it. I had expected him to be pleased, however, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“You had better be fucking joking!” Mike was up and pacing around the bed. The sight of him pacing whilst naked would be funny under other circumstances, but not these. Annoyance rolled off him. With a murderous expression fixed on me, he continued. “How could you be so fucking stupid?” He laughed but there was no amusement in it. “A straight A student my arse! You’re not clever, you’re a fucking imbecile, you idiotic bitch!”
“Mike—”
“No!” That one word was a roar. “You’ve trapped me, haven’t you? I know you’re insecure but fuck me, I didn’t think you’d sink this low.” He dropped into a sitting position at the bottom of my bed, and a little calmer, I approached him.
“I didn’t. I think when you didn’t use protection it must have happened.”
