‘It kept my mind occupied.’
‘Fuck,’ she whispers, blowing out a long breath. ‘Harry, right?’ I nod. ‘Does he know?’
This time I shake my head. ‘I’ve only told you. I just thought I’d let you digest your veggie lasagne first.’
‘What are you going to do? Do you know? Have you thought?’
I shrug. I know it makes no sense to say I want to keep it. I’m twenty-two, and my plate’s already overfloweth with life shit. But yes—yet I can’t see how I’ll be able to face doing anything else. I consider myself a modern woman. A feminist. I’m all for a woman’s right to choose. My body and my choice. A choice that wasn’t so much made as instinctually understood as the words formed on the little window of that stick.
PREGNANT.
‘I need to go to the doctor first for confirmation first, I think. Then I suppose I’ll need to grow a massive pair of lady balls before I tell him.’
‘I’m here for you,’ she says, reaching for my hand. ‘And I’ll be by your side in whatever way you need. But don’t discount him. You don’t know what this might mean to him. To you both.’
‘Or he might tell me to bugger off.’
‘And then you’d know. You’d be no worse off than you are now, would you?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Unless.. .’
Unless I’m not going to keep it, she means.
‘Heth,’ I begin, not sure where to go on from here. Before I even speak, I hear how ridiculous it will sound. I’m not yet twenty-three, and I can barely make ends meet financially as it is. My career is still at the fledgling stage, I don’t have a place to live, I have a car that’s nine months overdue a service, and a credit card that’s close to being maxed out. Adding a baby to this mix is not a sensible move. And yet I can’t, in all honesty, see me doing anything else but.
‘I know.’ Her hand tightens on mine. ‘You’re going to keep it.’ There’s no judgement in her words. ‘Then you need to tell him.’
‘What if he hates me? What if he thinks I’ve done this on purpose?’ The fears I’ve been swallowing all afternoon rise to the surface, gushing from my mouth. ‘What if I lose my job?’
‘What if he realises this is as much his responsibility as it is his? And you’re not going to lose your job, idiot. You work for Olivia, not an ogre. But you need to tell him and quickly. Then you won’t be demonising his reactions because you’ll witness the real thing.’
She’s right. I don’t need to be thinking. Hoping. Wondering. Worrying. I need to be dealing—dealing with reality; however that might look.
‘So the sooner you tell him, the better, right?’
‘Right.’ But not right now. Not until I’ve come to terms with it myself. Which will hopefully be sometime in the not too distant future. I’ll give myself a few months. ‘God.’ I sigh, sitting back in my chair. ‘This is like my annus horribilis.’
She screws up her nose as she answers. ‘Ew. Thattotallysounds like a bum disease. Hey, if you’d gone the bum direction, you might not be pregnant.’
‘Trust you to lower the tone. I’ll have you know that’s Latin. And I borrowed it from the Queen. It means horrible year.’
‘Still, I wouldn’t say it too loudly, or people might think you’re contagious.’
We smile, maybe a little sadly, and I can see how worried she is for me. So I lean over and squeeze her cheeks together using one hand.
‘Ah, Heather-feather, who would’ve thought growing up would be so complicated? Eww!’
As she sticks out her tongue, licking a wet stripe on my hand, I pull back.
‘Better than the alternative, though, right?’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I say on a sigh. ‘Growing down doesn’t sound like a great plan, either.’
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it.’
‘I know.’ The opposite of growing up is never getting the chance. Being one age, frozen forever. Death, I suppose.
