Thank you to those who have critiqued Part 1 and 2. Suggestions have been taken aboard. Please feel free to crit. Enjoy.
Lyla. Part 3.
“What?”
I felt mum wrap her arm around me, but I couldn’t react. This was what I had been dreading. This was what had kept me awake night after night. And this was the conversation I had been avoiding.
“I know it’s the last thing you want to do right now, but you’re seven weeks along and it’s imperative that you see a doctor,” mum continued calmly. I threw my school bag onto the bed and began to violently stuff books into it.
“It’s imperative that I get to decide if I go to the doctor or not!” I snapped.
“You’re not responsible enough,” mum muttered under her breath.
“What?!” I screamed. “It’s my body! I can look after it!”
Mum rose and pointed a slender finger at me. “Really? If you were responsible and respected your body in the first place we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
I stopped still, my heart racing. Mum had gone red. I didn’t know what to say. I grabbed my tie, swung my bag over my shoulder and stormed out the room.
I was still shaken at seven forty-five when I was munching on the last of my toast. I had managed to avoid mum after our screaming match. I couldn’t face her again, so the best thing to do would be to leave the house as soon as Sarah got there. But when the doorbell did go, she happened to corner me at the stained glass front door.
“The appointment is at five, please think about.” I watched her for a second then rushed out the house.
Sarah noticed that I grew quiet as we drew closer to the school. Without saying anything she looped her arm through mine. I clung onto her, thankful that I had someone who could get me through the day.
As we walked along the road the smell of petrol and freshly cut grass hit my nose. I had the sudden urge to be sick and before I could control myself I gagged.
“Lyla! Are you ok?”
I felt my cheeks go pink and suddenly became very aware of the group of year nines walking next to us. “Yeah, just feeling a bit sick, that’s all.”
Sarah patted my back. She leaned closer to me, her blonde hair tickling my face. “You know what that is, don’t you?” she whispered.
Morning sickness. The signs were fully rearing their heads now. I ignored her question and pointed to the looming school gates. The familiar scene of hundreds of teenagers strolling towards school felt weird today. They all seemed like hypnotized bees, swarming towards honey. Nothing felt real. Then panic filled me. He was going to be here. It would be the first time I’d seen him since…Even if I stayed away from him in the morning I still had English with him before lunch, it would be impossible to ignore him then.
“Lyla? Lyla? Lyla?! Are you ready?” Sarah had walked off without me as I stood worrying a few meters from the gate.
I coughed, adjusted my bag, quickly touched my bloated but concealed stomach and walked through the gates.
Tom took a bar of Vanish out of a cupboard and moistened it under the kitchen sink. Carefully, (this was hard as the kitchen was full of bustling bodies) he rubbed at the stain on my light azure blue dress. I giggled as the bar of soap rubbed on my ribs. Tom looked at me and I bit my lip, but he just smiled this lazy smile from the right hand corner of his mouth. “You’re very giggly tonight,” he remarked, packing the soap away while I smoothed down my dress.
“Well I’m just glad for you, that’s all. You have reason to celebrate. You haven’t stopped worrying about your script for the last month. All your hard work paid off. I’m proud of you.”
He pulled me into a hug and I nestled into my familiar place on his shoulder. When we broke apart he left his hands on the small of my back.
“Your dress is all wet now, you’re frozen! You’ll get ill if you stay in this,” he said into my ear. His words tickled. “I know, what if we ditch this party, John won’t mind. He’s so drunk that he won’t remember anything tomorrow.”
I watched Will, a boy from my form try to kiss Tilly as she made her way to the toilet. It was quite funny especially when Will didn’t get the hint, so Tilly lost her temper and slapped him round the face. She stalked off, leaving a tomato red Will behind. Turning my attention back to my boyfriend I asked where we could go if we left.
“Back to mine. Mum and Dad have gone up to Oxford for Tina’s graduation and Anthony is out clubbing, he won’t be back ‘till at least two in the morning. I have the place to myself. What do you say?”
Tom’s words sparked big red danger signs to go off in my head. To his house, alone, at night. We had never done that before. Anything could happen. But then again, I was always around his house, sometimes alone, so what was the difference?
“Ok, but I told my dad that I’d ring him when I wanted picking up. He thinks he’s coming here.” I nervously smoothed down the collar on his black shirt. He didn’t seem to notice the effect his words had on me.
“Well,” he continued, taking my fussing hands away from his shirt and holding them in his own. “my house is only a ten minute walk from here. I promise to walk you back to the top of the road and your dad can pick you up from there. Yes?”
I couldn’t resist. We hadn’t been alone for a long time lately, what with studying for GCSE’s and Tom working on his script, it would be nice. It wasn’t like Sarah needed me to stay here with her; she was getting a lift home with Tilly.
“I can’t stay longer than half eleven,” I agreed. Tom checked his watch and rolled his eyes.
“Lyla…”
“What? Look, I’d rather not get in trouble!” I snapped.
“Ok, ok. Sorry. We should leave now then, it’s nearly half nine.”
Finally deciding on what to do, I set out to find Sarah to tell her I was leaving.
As I grew nearer to the DJ, and the music got louder, I met Tilly. I tapped her on the shoulder and asked if Will had a swollen cheek.
“Oh my, you saw! I swear that boy is too forward!” she said reminding me of a woman in her thirties rather than a sixteen year old.
“Aww. I think you two would look cute together…” I laughed. Tilly pretended to swat me away. “Bye!”
She waved her return.
I weaved through dancing people, the beat of the music vibrating through the floor and up my body, making me feel lively. I passed by a group of Johns older mates, sixth formers who were smoking in the corner. The smoke from their cigarettes wafted up and along the living room, towards the open patio doors. I followed the haze. There I recognized Sarah’s shoulder length muddy blonde hair. She was still talking to Cal, who was swigging from a bottle of beer.
“Sarah,” I called. She turned around and that’s when I saw it. She was smoking. She looked shocked to see me, like she had forgotten that I was even there. It felt like an eternity before she spoke.
“Lyla, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Its just one day I got offered one and-’’
“It doesn’t matter. It’s your body that you’re ruining,” I remarked. I could feel the happiness leave my body, all the excitement that had built up just vanish. It was as if it floated out of me, a fluffy yellow cloud, which swam across the ceiling and out the door. How could Sarah not tell me? We never kept secrets from each other. I should have been the first to know. “Just one thing,” I had to ask, “How long have you been smoking?”
Sarah looked into my eyes obviously terrified of my reaction. Unable to hold my gaze she turned her eyes to the wooden floor. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw John dancing with a group of girls.
“New years eve,” she answered. I nodded, upset that she had kept this from me for so long. “Lyla.” She grabbed my arm, but I shook her off.
“I’m leaving now with Tom. I’m not angry with you, Sarah; I’m just upset that you didn’t tell me, I thought we never ever kept secrets from each other. I was wrong.” I finished and walked away, ignoring Sarah’s calls after me.
Tom was waiting at the door. “Find Sarah?” he asked. I nodded solemnly. “Hey, what’s up?”
I took his hand. “I’ll explain on the way.”
He draped his coat over my shoulders and we braved the February ice.
The bell for break rang through the small Spanish classroom and everyone began packing away.
“Remember to look over your notes on Mi Casa because it will definitely come up in you GCSE paper,” Miss Neoma informed us, before her petite body was lost in a cloud of black and white uniformed kids.
I crammed my pencil case and Spanish book into my Nike bag and followed Sarah out of the room.
“See, two lessons down and it hasn’t been too bad,” Sarah muttered to me. I nodded then pointed down M corridor, where the girls’ toilets were.
“I’m really busting for the loo. It’s one of my new things,” I commented, raising an eyebrow. Sarah understood, so we headed in that direction.
Inside the toilets a group of year ten and eleven girls were sat by the sinks smoking. The stench seemed worse than usual today. They were chatting about some boy; I shuffled past them and sought out a cubicle. Their conversation drifted under my door:
“Oi, Sarah, you were at that Johns birthday, weren’t you, you know, the one with the green eyes?” one girl was saying.
“Er…yeah, that was a while ago…why?”
“Well apparently a lot went down that night.” That was Tasha, gossip queen of year eleven and the biggest rat of them all. I flushed the toilet and couldn’t hear what was being said.
Emerging from my cubicle, they all fell silent. I studied Sarah’s reflection in the mirror as I washed my hands. She was dying to say something.
“Lyla, would you mind if I …” she faltered, glancing at the packet of Marlboros next to the sink.
“I’ll wait outside,” I replied, knowing what she meant. As the blue door closed on the toilets I heard Tasha say, “You don’t have to ask her for permission before you have a fag. Who does she think she is?”
Sighing, and wishing gravely that I had never bothered to come in, I lowered myself onto one of the concrete steps that led upstairs.
“Haven’t seen you in a while,” said a voice from behind me. My whole body froze. The hairs on my arms stood on end, I could tell even though I was wearing a thick jumper. My brain searched for a quirky remark to make but all I could focus on was the sound of my rapidly beating heart. It was Tom. He sat down next to me, while I just stared straight ahead. I contemplated getting up and moving away, but that would just make me look weak.
“We have boring Brown next. The worst English teacher around,” he continued. I could tell he was trying to make small talk; the next topic would probably be the weather.
“What do you want?” My voice was quiet and deeper than usual, it sounded odd. I felt him shift nervously next to me.
“I want to talk,” he said more seriously.
“Well I don’t,” I retorted and I did a brave thing; I turned to face him. There it was. The dark floppy hair, little pointed nose, droplets of freckles and those eyes. Those damn green eyes.
“Come on Lyla.”
“Oh, don’t you ‘come on’ me,” I hissed, standing up to face him.
“Lyla, I just want to talk-’’
“Well, why should I talk to you? Your mother made it very clear what she thought of me. What was it she said? Oh, Thomas, I don’t want you involved with some knocked up sixteen year old,” I whispered venomously.
Tom ran his fingers through his hair. “I can’t vouch for my mum. She was in shock, that’s all I’m gonna say.”
I backed down the stairs to the floor, shaking my head. “I was in shock too.”
He stood up and walked over to me, his eyes fixed confidently on mine.
“After school today,” he continued. “At Easy Beanz, we’ll just talk.” Tom seeked out my hand. I stared down at our hands and, with a lot of effort, pulled mine away.
“No, I have a doctor’s appointment,” I said finally, deciding that I would attend the appointment without even realising it. The bell rang, prompting Sarah to leave the toilets.
“Shall we-’’ she stopped when she saw Tom.
“Let’s go,” I said and we walked up the stairs, leaving him at the bottom.
.
Beautiful.
