Eleven Weeks (24 page)

And with that, he turns, his heel kicking up a cloud of sand as he stalks away.

My swing comes to a stop.

So does my heart.

Dear Small Human,

Today, I love you more than I have yet. I know that feeling will be amplified a million times when you’re in my arms, and you know what? It’s going to be worth it. Everything will be okay because we’ll be together.

I’ll give you the world, tiny one.

Everything I can, and everything I am.

Love,

Mum xx

January 8

M
ICHAEL’S WORDS
play over and over in my head, all night, and halfway through the next day. I keep replaying the scene, doing things differently, saying things differently.

I cry, like I’m a dripping tap, the stupid tears falling down my face.

And I question.

I question every little thing I’ve ever done to Michael, everything I’ve ever said. When did I start liking him? Loving him?

I think back to that time at the beach, after he found me on the street. Was it then?

Or was it back in school, when we were sixteen, and I caught him writing my name on the wall outside the school hall, trapped in a love heart with his own initials? I’d blushed. So had he.

Was it then?

I shake my head. It doesn’t matter when it was; all that matters is how soon I can erase those memories from my mind. He doesn’t want me now. He made that much clear yesterday. And it never would have worked between us, anyway.

I turn to my bedside table and open the jar of tablets the doctor gave me, dry-swallowing two of the folic acid supplements. They stick in my throat on the way down, and I almost vomit them back up. Thankfully, I don’t.
Please tell me this means the morning sickness is settling
.

“Stacey! Time to go,” Mum’s voice rings out from downstairs, and I rub at my eyes. I feel so tired, like my lids weigh a ton. When did it start feeling like this?

I pull on some shoes and join her where she waits in the car, Dad in the front seat. It’s Family Lunch at the Mall day. Also known as The Day Stacey Finally Comes Clean About Being Pregnant. I feel like I’m already so damn low, there isn’t much further I can fall. May as well just get it done.

We arrive at the café and secure one of the tables in the outside seating area. Dad takes one head, and Mum takes the other, as we wait for my three brothers and one sister to join us.

After ordering, the games begin.

“I got a raise this week,” Steve says, through a mouthful of complimentary peanuts. “An extra five grand a year.”

“Shut up! I got a raise too,” Shae says, smiling brightly. “Evan really likes me. An extra ten, though—sorry, Steve.” She smirks, and he tilts his head to the side and raises his glass.

“To Shae,” he says, and as one, everyone else at the table lifts their own respective drinks and toasts in her honour.

“Anyone else have any news to report?” Dad asks.

“I got a distinction in my latest uni assignment,” Steve says.

“The house we have down the coast just got a fresh appraisal,” Sean says. “Worth an extra fifty grand.”

“Wow.” Dad nods. “Impressive. I propose a toast. To—”

“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out.

Silence. Six heads swivel to face me.

What have I done?

“Can someone please pass the water?” I say, studying the white tablecloth in front of me.

“That’s … nice,” Mum finally says, choking on the final word

“Do we know the father?” Dad asks, head to the side. Like it’s an everyday topic of conversation. Like this isn’t the most bad-arse thing anyone in our family has ever done.

Scott, Sean, Steve, and Shae are all still staring at me, as if I’ve grown a second head instead of housing a second human.

“Nope.” I shrug.

Dad’s knife screeches against the plate. Mum slurps as she takes a sip of her vodka and lemonade.

“I’m thinking of keeping it.”

More silence.

“This is not the life we had planned out for you, Stacey,” Dad hisses. “We taught you better than this.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, studying the food in front of me. The gravy on the chicken is mixing with the potato mash, till it all looks like a mush stew.

“I’m very disappointed in you.” Dad shakes his head. My heart sinks to my feet. And here I was thinking things couldn’t get any worse.

“Now, dear, it’s hardly like she was going to be a scholar, or a career person,” Mum chides. She reaches across the table for my hand, and I offer it. “This is our Stacey. She’s never been one for all that.”

I blink.

“Yeah! I mean, she’d be an okay model? Or maybe a good supermarket assistant, but that’s about it,” Shae adds, flashing me her career-winning smile.

“What the hell’s wrong with working in a shop?”

“Nothing.” Shae shrugs, but I see the knife in her hands. I know it is aimed for my back.

“Exactly, dear,” Mum says. She gives my hand a squeeze. “You just—I’m sure you’ll make a great mum, better at that than any other thing you could have done.”

I’d thought being told off by Dad was the worst low I could feel.

No. No, it turns out that being told I’d lived up to my career high by my mother and sister was the absolute lowest I could sink.

When did they stop believing in me? I think back to the last few years of my life. There’s no clear-cut, defining incident—just a whole heap of small indiscretions. Stacey, suspended for smoking a cigarette. Stacey, kissing a guy behind the school hall and getting busted. Stacey, failing math and geography, for the second year in a row.

Stacey, the least important Allison child.

I stare off into the distance, beyond Mum, beyond Shae, beyond anyone in my stupid family. Is that what I’m doing with this? Taking the easy way out? Being safe, not even trying for the things I could potentially be because I’ll fail?

Because I’ll fail.

I close my eyes, the hot sun beating down on them. There’s still time. If I wanted to.

But how can I kill this mini-human when other humans out there are dying every day?

Lachlan.

Is it fair that I kill this child when Lachlan didn’t have a choice in whether he stayed or left?

The voices in my head reach a chorus so loud I feel like screaming to shut them up. What the hell is the right answer here? How do I make things right?

I flash my eyes open, ready to speak, to explode, to try and talk to my family about how I really feel—

And then I see him.

Him.

“Oh! There’s Evan now.” Shae smiles, and pushes back her chair to stand.

I don’t have time to see who she is talking about, because I’m too busy jumping from my seat and lunging at the man walking to a table opposite ours.

I’m by his side in less than three seconds, and I shove him, shove at his shoulders hard.

He looks like no one I’ve ever met, but someone I know well, as ridiculous as it seems. His eyes, his lips, his jaw, his hips … they’re all pieces of a jigsaw puzzle I’ve been trying to fit together in my mind.

Without a shadow of a doubt, this man is the father of my child.

“How could you?” I scream, shoving him again. He steps back into the chair behind him, eyes wide. There’s no shock there, though. Recognition, alarm, sure. But not shock. He isn’t surprised to see me.

“Stacey.” He grabs my fists and pulls them to my sides. I struggle for a second and then let him. “Stacey, let’s step to the side and have a chat, shall we?”

It’s then that I notice the woman standing next to him, her hands protectively held over the shoulders of a young boy, maybe two or three years old. He has blond hair like hers, but those eyes … they’re the exact same green as the man in front of me.

Flash.
Me, tripping over the red shiny thing by the front door.

A toy truck.

He’s a father.

I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s obviously got sperm that possesses super-impregnating powers.

He drops my wrists and walks toward the front of the café and like a mute, I follow. I hate that he has a family. I hate that his kid is looking at me like I’m crazy.

I hate that that woman is looking at me like she knows.

“Look, what do you—”

“I’m pregnant,” I whisper. The word barely slips from my mouth.

“It’s no—”

“It’s yours,” I confirm.

He tilts his head back to the sky, lacing his hands behind it and sighs. “I was only at that party for ten minutes. Seeing my cousin.” He pauses. “Bloody hell.”

We stand there in silence for a few moments. I can feel the eyes of my family and his family trained on us, and part of me wants to crumble up and die. Why am I doing this to myself?

“Look, how much do you need to make it go away?” he asks.

“I … I don’t know that I want to,” I say. This time, when I speak of not killing it, it feels less like murder. More like suicide.

“You have to.” His eyes bore into me. “Don’t you get it? Look, if it’s cash you’re after, I’ve got it. Not just to get rid of it, but for you, too.”

“I don’t want … it’s not that.” I shake my head, words failing me.

“How much? Two grand? Three?” He digs in his pocket and pulls out his wallet. He shoves a fifty into my hand. “I’ll get you more over time, over a few months, but just …” He glances back over his shoulder this time worry creases his brow. “… just please, don’t talk. Don’t be a dumb bitch and screw this up.”

“You have a wife and a kid, buddy.” I poke him in the chest. “Don’t call me a dumb bitch.”

“Okay, fine. A dumb slut. I was drunk, okay? You threw yourself at me. What was I supposed to do?” he asks.

“That’s not how I remember it!” I say. Suddenly, the night pieces together in my mind. Me, leaving the stage after talking with Michael. Me, staggering over the grass out the front of the house, looking for a cab. Me, sitting in the gutter, my head resting in my hands, trying to work out what the hell I was going to do with my life.

Him.

Him putting his arm around me.

Him wiping away my tears.

I shiver. “You said you were going to take care of me.”

“And I did.” He smirks, and tilts his head toward my stomach. “Didn’t I?”

“Just stop.” Those stupid tears rush to my eyes again, and I swallow hard to keep control.

“You were begging for my dick, just like the easy piece of nothing you are.” He opens his wallet again, and hands me another fifty. “Here.” He presses it into my hand. “Use it to get yourself checked for any STDs.” He smirks, and my stomach roils. “And if you dare come near me again—I mean, ever—your sister gets fired.”

I blink.

All the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fall into place.

He
is Evan.

Shae looks at me from the table, and I can see it on her face. Her eyes are daggers, her mouth an
O
.