Right, this section is smaller than usual. Thanks for past crits. Enjoy.
Lyla will not be posted after this one for around 6 weeks. Sorry!!!
I was walking bare foot around the garden, feeling the dewy, green grass tickle my toes. The sweet scent of the rosebush filled my nostrils every time the wind blew. Dad was blatantly watching me from the kitchen window; however I had my back to him and refused to acknowledge him. He was keeping an eye on me lately, for what reason I didn’t know. I felt so happy; my sickness had stopped, school was over, all my friends knew and for the first time since I was about eleven years old my hormones felt right. Like they finally slotted into my body, instead of arguing with what I wanted.
I walked past the perfect line of little petunias in the flower bed. They made me smile and for no reason at all.
I laid down on the grass, staring up at the azure sky, thinking about the baby. I’d past the half way mark of my pregnancy and I was feeling extremely disorganised. We hadn’t bought any baby clothes, or essentials like a pram or a cot. As for a name…I felt like whatever I chose would be wrong, or even worse the baby would end up hating it as they grew up.
“Lyla? She’s in the garden.”
That was dad’s voice. I hadn’t heard the doorbell ring.
I lifted myself up onto one elbow, so I could see who was coming through the patio doors.
Tom appeared, leaning against the door frame. I smiled at him and resumed my place laying on my back staring up at the sky. “I thought you weren’t coming round today,” I called over to him. “You told me you were going out with Cal after we went for the scan.” A cloud drifted across the sky, it reminded me of last summer. I felt Tom’s shadow fall over me. He was stood behind me. “Can you remember last summer?” I asked. “When we’d just spend the days lazing in the park, watching the clouds and doing nothing in particular?”
“Yeah. Well, things have changed since then.”
The bitterness in his voice made me raise my eyebrows and sit up. Now I could see the sadness in his eyes. I stood up and slowly made my way over to him, stroking his cheek. He looked away from me.
“What’s wrong?” I breathed and kissed him lightly on his pale lips. He shut his eyes and resisted when I tried to pull him to sit on the grass.
“I have to go,” he said.
“But you just got here!” I exclaimed.
“I don’t mean ‘go now’,” he paused to sigh. I sat on the grass, shading my eyes from the sun as I looked up at him. “When I got home from the hospital my suitcase was in the hall. Packed. And…well…mum’s booked a holiday. And she booked me a place. I have to go.”
I rolled back onto my back. “When do you go?”
“Tonight.”
“For how long?”
“Eighteen days; just over two weeks.”
I closed my eyes, wishing that he wasn’t really there, that I was imagining it.
“Tell her you’re not going,” I said stubbornly. “Say no.”
“I can’t. It’s all paid for and she’ll never let me stay. She says it’s for my own good.”
“Don’t you see?” I shouted, rising to my feet awkwardly. “Of course it’s for your own good! It gets you away from me!”
“Lyla!”
“No, listen!” I shouted, prodding him in the chest. I could feel the tears resting on my eyes. “You’re doing what you promised not to! You’re leaving me!”
He opened his mouth to speak but I had stumped him. What could he say? He had promised to be here for me, but now he was leaving me to go on holiday!
I continued before he could say anything. “If you’re going on that holiday, you walk out of my house right now.”
He looked at me fiercely. “You don’t understand,” he hissed, and left.
Ten minutes later my mum knocked on my bedroom door. I didn’t reply but she came in nonetheless. She stood at the end of my bed and surveyed the room, a distressed look on her face. I buried my head under my sheet so that I could block her out. I knew she was going to say something. Of course she was.
“I understand.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh at that or not. She understood? She understood why I’d trashed the room? Why clothes, smashed CD cases and papers were scattered about the floor from where I’d emptied drawers and chucked things off my desk. Why the bed was a mess from where I’d flung myself on it, angrily hitting my pillow. And finally, why I know lay under the covers with the picture from that mornings scan pressed against my heart.
We were silent for a while then I asked the question that had been plaguing my mind.
“Why did he go?”
I felt mum sit down on my bed. “I don’t know, honey. But you have to see things from his point of view-”
“Huh!” I quipped.
“If he stayed,” she continued, ignoring my interruption, “you’d be happy, but what about his mother? He’d be going against her. He already has, too many times probably and he may not want to loose her respect for good. She’s a frail woman-” I grunted at this, “what with the fact that Tom’s dad works many odd hours and can’t be around that much and she has to do a lot of work for the family. Tom just wants to reassure her that he loves her. Yet, if he went, he’d loose your respect. Maybe he took the risk that you would understand him and forgive him.”
I stayed quiet under the sheet. I didn’t cry anymore, I couldn’t. The weight on the bed shifted and I heard the door close. Sitting up, I rubbed my bump.
“Right,” I thought. “I’m going to put on some music, tidy up and try to forget about things.” Just as I stood up, I felt a sudden kick. Startled, I sat back down. That was new. And again! The baby was kicking for the first time!
“Mum,” I called excitedly. “Mum!”
Mum popped her head round the wooden door.
“What?”
“The baby’s kicking!”
She flew into the room and placed both hands on my bump. We sat, agitated, waiting in silence.
Then…
Kick.
Both mum and I squealed in joy. Things were changing and I knew it was time to grow up.
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