Together Apart (16 page)

24.

T
he next morning, Adam walked into the kitchen to see Claire making coffee, or trying to.

‘How does this thing work?’ She looked up at him.

‘Here, I’ll do it.’ He took the tub of ground coffee from her.

Talk about déjà vu. When the coffee machine had first been delivered, Sarah had stood in the very same spot and asked the same thing. She never had worked out how to use it. She was a tea drinker anyway.

After she’d left him in the kitchen last night, Claire hadn’t come back. He’d heard her leave Sarah’s room in the early hours for what would have been an extremely late dinner or early breakfast.

‘That’s a pretty snazzy machine,’ Claire said.

‘I’m a bit of a coffee snob, I suppose.’ He put a long shot glass under the spout. ‘My first job was as a barista. I haven’t touched instant since and you won’t find any in the cupboards either.’

‘I noticed.’ Claire grinned back at him. ‘I was starting to worry I’d have to drink tea.’

Adam smiled as she pretended to shudder. Claire hated tea and Sarah hated coffee. Claire was already dressed and made up, but
if Sarah
walked into the kitchen at that exact moment, he would bet she would still be in her pyjamas with bed-hair.

‘How is she?’ he asked, handing her the glass of coffee.

‘She’s fine, considering.’ Claire took a sip. ‘This is a good espresso. I need it after last night.’

‘You didn’t sleep well? I know the sofa’s a bit uncomfortable.’

Claire laughed and shook her head. ‘I bunked with Sarah. I’d forgotten how much she snores. I don’t know how you managed to cope sleeping next to her for all this time.’

Adam laughed and took his coffee. ‘Yeah. She does snore a bit sometimes.’

‘It can’t have been easy the last couple of months.’

That was an understatement. It had been anything but. It had been frustrating, confusing, annoying, angering and horribly
bittersweet
.

‘Shit happens, right?’ Adam replied with a small laugh.

‘Yep, it certainly does.’

‘So how come you still have an accent and Sarah doesn’t?’

‘I dunno. Sheffield is definitely in the past for Sarah. She hated the place, but I love it.’

‘You two really are different.’

‘We had different experiences growing up there.’ Claire shrugged. ‘It’s not really surprising. I had it much easier. I hung around with a more popular set of people and I was a bit more reserved than Sarah.’ Claire smiled and shook her head. ‘She was a total nightmare back then. Forever grounded.’

Adam raised his eyebrows, even though he already knew about Sarah’s rebellion. ‘And you?’

‘I guess I just dealt with things differently. When Mum remarried after Dad died, I didn’t like it but I went along with it. But, Sarah had already changed by then and you know how stubborn she is.’

Adam nodded. ‘She’s possibly the single most stubborn person I’ve ever met.’

Claire laughed. ‘She was way worse back then and so was Peter, our stepdad. I think it would be fair to say they didn’t see eye to eye. I kept out of it for the most part.’

‘Are you sure you’re actually twins?’ Adam smiled.

Claire looked at him and frowned. ‘It’s funny you say that. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she never even told you about me.’

For a split second, he faltered as he took a sip of his coffee. ‘Really? What makes you say that?’

‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Not that it matters, because obviously she did. I think I’ll stay tonight as well.’

‘Of course. Do you want my room?’

‘No, I’m good. But thanks.’

Her eyes scanned his face like a radar. He was certain she knew that Sarah hadn’t told him she was a twin, and he could see the lies starting to unravel right in front of him. How much longer was he going to be able to keep it going?

30 October

Thank God for Claire. I don’t think I could have coped without her. I can’t even imagine what Adam thought when he met her. I just hope he hasn’t judged me too harshly for keeping her a secret.

Having her here felt like the old days when we shared a room. I’ve been asleep most of the time, but just knowing she’s here is like being wrapped in a comfort blanket. It’s made the shock of what happened to Richard more bearable. I wish she could stay a little longer, but she has to leave today. It means a lot that she dropped everything and came here for me.

She tried to persuade me to keep the baby. I knew she would, but I’m not going to change my mind, and she respects that, even if she doesn’t like it. I know she’ll stand by me like she always has. She doesn’t like that I’m not going to tell Adam, but she understands why I can’t. Even if I could, I don’t have the strength to. It’s been hard enough to just sit up and write this entry. I know this is all going to get much worse before it gets better.

I’m just so tired.

Adam tried to focus his blurry vision as he showered. For the second night in a row, he’d heard Claire’s hushed whispers and Sarah’s crying coming from the other side of the wall, and in the end, he’d slept
on the
sofa. At least Claire was here. Knowing Sarah as he knew her now, there was no way she’d turn to him for support. It made him feel sick to admit it, but it was true. And nobody should have to grieve alone.

He stepped out of the shower and reached for his towel. He swore as it dropped, landing half on the floor and half in the bin. He bent down to pick it up. Thankfully, the bin was empty aside from some cotton pads and a leaflet. Adam looked at his reflection and frowned for a second before going back to the bin and picking up the leaflet. He recognised the brand name on it, and his hands shook as he unfolded the paper, his stomach churning with every movement he made. It was a pregnancy test.

He scanned the words as if it would tell him what the hell was going on. It
could
be Claire’s, but the cold shiver running through his body told him it wasn’t. It was Sarah’s. He’d bet money on it. Was she pregnant? Was the test positive, or was it a false alarm? When did she take it, and why hadn’t she told him?

Was the baby someone else’s?

He shook away the dizziness that particular thought caused. He refused to think that about her, even with the strange way she’d been acting. If she
was
pregnant, then the baby was his. Maybe that was why she wanted to split up. But that didn’t make any sense either. Getting pregnant wasn’t any more of a valid excuse to split than the wishy-washy one she’d given him already.

He dropped the leaflet back into the bin and rubbed his hands over his eyes. When would all this drama stop? It was getting to the stage where he could barely remember what his life was like before this whole mess started, and he couldn’t see when it would ever end. With the addition of his dad’s hospital trip, it was like his life had turned into a skewed soap opera.

Adam rolled his head back and let out a loud sigh before going to get dressed. He was trying to think about anything other than the leaflet he’d found, and it worked until he walked into the kitchen and saw Sarah making a cup of tea. When she heard him behind her, she turned around, and his eyes involuntarily flicked to her stomach, as if he’d be able to tell whether she was carrying his child simply by looking. It wasn’t as if he could ask her outright, not now that she was grieving over her dead secondary-school boyfriend.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

Sarah shrugged. ‘I’ve been better.’

‘I was sorry to hear about your friend,’ he said as he stuck a glass under the tap.

‘Thanks.’ She blinked back tears.

What was he supposed to do next? He didn’t want to say
anything
else in case she broke down, but the question of her pregnancy was hanging between them like the elephant in the room. Irritation welled inside of him. He was sick of pussyfooting around her and being unable to ask her anything that really mattered. He was going to give her one last chance and that was all. No matter how much he loved her, he wasn’t about to beg. He had more self-respect than that.

‘Sarah,’ he said, looking her dead in the eye. ‘Have you got something you want to tell me?’

Her eyes widened for a second, and it was written all over her face. She knew that he knew about the test. What else would he be referring to? He’d stopped asking why she’d chosen to end their relationship a long time ago. He looked right at her, willing her to tell him something – anything. But she stayed silent, adding to the already tense air in the flat.

Adam counted down from twenty in his head. When he got to zero, he put his glass of water down and walked out. He was done. He’d chased after her, only to be met by her flat rejection, and defended her when his friends had told him he deserved better, but she still wouldn’t open up to him. He didn’t even feel angry anymore. All he felt as he opened the front door was disappointment.

‘Adam, wait.’

He turned and looked at her, keeping his hand on the latch. ‘What for? I don’t have the energy for this anymore. I’ve got other things to worry about than you, and if you bothered to stop being so selfish, you’d know that.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not being selfish.’

‘When’s the last time you asked how I was? My dad had a stroke, but you couldn’t possibly know that because everything is all about you. Well, guess what? I’m done.’

‘Oh my god. Is he okay? Was it serious? Why didn’t you
tell me?’

Her eyes were wide, and the colour had drained from her cheeks. She loved his family almost as much as he did – she’d said as much herself. Adam sighed and took his hand off the door latch.

‘He’s fine. It was a TIA – a mini-stroke.’ He shook his head as he spoke. ‘It wasn’t serious.’

‘You should have told me,’ Sarah replied softly.

‘How? When?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘We don’t speak
anymore
.’

As if to punctuate his point, she didn’t reply, and he looked at her and sighed. ‘You see? This is exactly what I mean. I can’t deal with this shit anymore.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘How about the truth? Why don’t you try telling me what’s going on with you instead of clamming up all the time?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘It’s not that easy.’

‘You open your mouth and words come out. It’s not exactly difficult.’

‘I’ve tried, Adam.’

‘Really?’ He raised an eyebrow at her and turned to leave the flat. ‘Maybe you should try harder.’

25.

31 October, 11.30 a.m.

T
hings couldn’t get any worse. He knows. I know he does. The way he asked if there was something I needed to tell him was obvious, and when he left, I looked around the flat and realised I’d thrown a leaflet for one of the tests in the bin. I’m so fuc
king stupid!

I wanted to tell him. I really did. I just couldn’t get the words out of my mouth, especially after he told me about his dad. I was so scared for him. I know what it’s like to lose a parent, and I’d do anything to protect him from that kind of pain.

Everything is such a mess. He stormed out, and I have no idea where he’s gone or when he’ll be back, or even
if
he’ll be back. I feel sick, and it’s not just because of Adam. It’s funny how I went without a single symptom, but now that I know I’m pregnant, my body seems to want to ram it in my face from the moment I wake up. At least I haven’t actually been sick. I’m trying not to be because if I do, it would be like acknowledging that it exists. Which is ridiculous. I know it does. My appointment at the clinic is tomorrow, and it’s not like I’m going for a nice day out. It just makes the whole thing a lot easier if I pretend that this isn’t really happening. Not the smartest of moves, I know. I’ve been here before. Ignoring it won’t make it go away.

I wish Claire was still here. I could really use the support
tomorrow
.

He was supposed to be working, but after almost two hours of being in the office, Adam hadn’t even so much as looked at his inbox. For once, there was nothing booked into his diary. He normally craved days like today, and ideally he would be catching up on all the things he never seemed to find the time to do, like the filing or
putting
together a database for all the maintenance on
the apartments
. There was an endless list of things he should be doing. Looking on websites to see how his hypothetical child was developing was not one of them.

He couldn’t get the niggling curiosity about what might be going on inside her out of his head. His resolve was slipping away, and he found himself giving in to the urge to type into the search bar the words that had been whizzing around in his head all morning.

The results loaded, and he clicked on the first link. He bit t
he ski
n on the side of his thumb as he read. Supposing she’d become pregnant at the end of their relationship, she’d be around twelve weeks gone, and he looked at the images on the screen.
At tw
elve weeks old, the baby was two inches long, had fingernails,
a tongu
e and individual fingers and toes. The picture next to the text showed a distinctly human-looking foetus.

A lump formed in his throat, and he closed the browser. He’d read enough.

4 November

Today has been the second worst day of my life. I don’t understand how things can keep getting worse. It feels like I’m in the middle of a never-ending nightmare.

The clinic wasn’t how I thought it would be. I’d expected a waiting room full of women, quietly dabbing the tears away with crumpled tissues, but after signing myself in with the receptionist, I was surprised to see the waiting room full of women and couples watching TV or flicking through magazines. None of them looked upset or ashamed or disgusted with themselves, and it made me feel awkward because I felt all of those things. I stared at a spot on the wall, trying to ignore the stinging in my eyes as they built up with tears. I didn’t want to cry. Not when everyone else seemed so calm in comparison. Even though I knew it was natural to feel how I did, I didn’t have the right to cry. Nobody was forcing me to be there. It was a choice I had made myself, albeit with go
od reason.

It just didn’t make sense. I couldn’t see how I’d ended up there, in that waiting room, when it was only a few weeks ago that I’d been feeling like the happiest woman on the planet. So I focused on holding back the urge to pee. I’d been told to keep my bladder full in case they needed to do a scan, and the concentration helped, but when they called my name, I thought I’d faint. I had to keep telling myself that it would soon be over.

The nurse sat me down and asked questions about my health and medical history. I told her I was perfectly healthy, no adverse medical history. I lied, telling her my main reason for wanting to terminate was the breakdown of my relationship with Adam. I didn’t want to bring a baby up by myself. Apparently, it was a satisfactory answer. I sat in that leather-padded chair, looking at the plastic flowers in a vase and the small silver frame with the picture of her and her partner sitting on a beach, and I didn’t waver. I had no doubts – until the scan. It was standard procedure, apparently.

I’d kept my eyes closed until the sonographer squeezed the ice-cold gel onto my stomach. For some unknown reason, I opened my eyes. Maybe it was some kind of sick way of torturing myself, but even up until that point, I still had no doubts. She twiddled some buttons, and the monitor flickered into life, and I wondered how many other women had lain on that bed before me.
Thousands
, probably. I couldn’t help but think of what their circumstances might have been. Were they all like me? Were they in relationships or
single
? Happy or sad? Relieved or doubtful?

Even now, I don’t know why I turned my head towards the monitor when she rubbed the probe thing over my nonexistent bump, but I did, and out of the fuzziness, the image came to
life. I
wanted to tear my eyes away, but I couldn’t. I could see it, and I could hear the sonar-like sound of its heartbeat echoing in the room. It was the loudest thing I’d ever heard in my life. It was so quick and steady that it felt like I was being deafened with it.

The sonographer didn’t speak as she took notes, but I saw her
eyebrows
knitting together, and then she picked up the phone
to call in
a doctor. Something was clearly wrong, and for a second I thought I’d miscarried. I don’t know why I thought that. I’d heard the baby’s heartbeat myself, but when the doctor came in a
nd looke
d at the screen, I still expected to hear that I’d lost it. I wasn’t prepared for what he actually said.

I was carrying twins. Or, technically, I
had
been carrying twins. They could only detect one heartbeat, but there was a second foetus that had stopped growing at around eight weeks. The other baby was fine, and they put my pregnancy at a day under thirteen weeks.

I completely lost my voice. I couldn’t speak. I could hardly even breathe; my throat had completely closed up. My own heartbeat was pounding in my ears, and my stomach wouldn’t stop turning. The idea of one baby was bad enough, let alone two, but knowing that I’d lost one is something I still can’t get my head around.

It’s like imagining life without Claire. It’s simply inconceivable, and even thinking about it gives me a physical ache so bad, it makes me feel like throwing up. I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it, no matter how distant we sometimes are.

Until this morning, I thought I was carrying one baby, and terminating that one would have been hard enough. Now it turns out there were two – or had been. One had died and the other lived. The idea of terminating the surviving twin is one I don’t know how to deal with. I wish I could tell Adam. Maybe I should. He already knows something’s going on. I don’t know if I can deal with this on my own, but how do I tell him I’ll be aborting his child, especially now that I’ve lost one of them already?

And if all that wasn’t enough, I stopped in at the supermarket on the way home to get some painkillers and bumped into Jenny. She was colder than ice when she saw me, and she told me that Adam had already moved on. She didn’t say anything more than that, but it was the
way
she said it. There was no doubt about what she meant. He’s slept with someone else. I almost threw up on her shoes when she said that, but what could I say back? That I still love him, and by the way, I’m carrying his child? Hardly. Still, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what she said. I keep picturing him kissing some faceless woman. I have no right to be angry w
ith hi
m, but I am. I’m angry that he’s apparently moved on so quickly. It was like she reached into my chest and crumbled my heart into a billion pieces when she told me.

I just want all this to be over.