Sorry for the usual wait. Please comment on whether this is an improvement on part 8 which was....horrendous. Thanks.
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That night I lay on the sofa in front of the TV, my comfortable short sleeved pyjamas hanging loose over my bump, with a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate waiting to be scoffed down on the coffee table. Dad was out at a corporate dinner; so mum and I opted for a girl’s night in. We were waiting for Sarah to arrive with a DVD. Hopefully she’d get something upbeat. Even a chick flick would do, as I was in the mood to laugh at the crappiness of a film. Unfortunately, the last time I had left her in Blockbuster we had ended the night in tears over the film Beaches.
I could hear Mum making what smelt like butter popcorn in the kitchen. She was singing to herself, some seventy’s tune that I recognised but couldn’t think of the name of. The doorbell rang and I got up to answer it.
“I hope it’s not another weepy-” I stared at the figure in the porch. Tall, thin, masculine. “Tom,” I breathed.
The figure dropped his suitcase and hugged me. I nestled into him, breathing in his familiar scent. It felt like an eternity before he pulled away and I noticed that he was twitchy.
“What happened? Why are you here?” I led him into the hallway and gasped as he came into the light. “Your face!”
Tom avoided my eyes as I studied his bruised face. His lip was swollen, his cheek was starting to turn purple and there was a slither of dried blood on his forehead.
Propping his suitcase up against the wall, he said, “Its fine. Don’t worry about it.” But the pain was obvious; it made his eyes dull. “Can I stay here tonight? I need to explain…and I’d rather not go home.”
“Of course!” I exclaimed, without even asking mum. I’d have to deal with that problem later.
“Sarah! No, listen. Listen. He hasn’t explained yet. You can still- OK. You sure? Fine. Yes, I’ll tell him. Alright, bye. Bye.” I put the phone down and gazed at the wall in front of me. It felt like it was closing in on me, trapping me. Nothing was straightforward. Not any more.
At least mum had been great. She took one look at Tom, said he could stay on the sofa and walked out the room without asking any questions.
I sighed and made my way into the kitchen to the end cupboard; our medicine cabinet. I removed a packet of Nurofen and a tube of that salted water we had left over from when dad cut his finger.
“Tom,” I called and I heard the TV switch off and footsteps in the hallway.
He walked over to me.
I held the solution over the sink so as not to drip any on my pyjamas and poured it onto cotton wool.
“Here,” I said, placing my hand under Tom’s chin, “let me clean you up.” I began to gently wipe over his face, getting rid of the dried on blood to reveal a cut. He flinched a few times but didn’t make a single sound.
I threw the blood stained cotton wool in the bin and washed my hands under the sink, deep in thought.
“Sarah says she hopes that you’re OK,” I muttered, not really paying attention to what I was saying.
I watched Tom pop one of the Nurofen’s into his mouth and swallow it dry. I never understood how he could do that. I lowered myself onto a chair wearily, waiting for him to speak. But he was being stubborn.
“You going to tell me what happened?” He made a silent intake of breath and sat down on the chair opposite me.
“I told mum that I wasn’t going with her, that’s it.” He looked at me from across the table, the burgundy blood from his cut glistening in the light.
“That’s it?” I repeated. “How about your face?”
Tom shivered slightly in his black T-shirt. The temperature was dropping steadily as the night progressed. It was nearly nine-thirty and I was finding it hard to concentrate. Despite the fact that it was early for most, my body craved the warm comfort of my bed.
“Well…she didn’t take it so great. You know what mum’s like. She lost her temper and…slapped me…” His fingers traced the bruise on his cheek and his lip. “I grabbed her but she struggled free, I picked up my suitcase and walked out the living room door and as I turned around I said, ‘I love Lyla and I want to be with her’. She really lost it at that…picked up the mirror and threw it at me.”
I felt so guilty. It was entirely my fault that he was in this state; I had made him stay behind.
“Tom, I’m sorry,” I said, walking over to him and taking his hand. “I was being completely selfish.” He pulled me onto his lap, nestling his face into my hair.
“It’s always been you, Lyla,” Tom whispered throatily in my ear. “I promised not to leave you and I won’t.”
I tenderly leaned into him, my lips brushing slowly against his. We kissed.
“Amanda,” Tom whispered after a while.
“What?”
Tom smiled brightly. “Amanda if we have a girl. What do you reckon?”
I contemplated the idea. Amanda… not a name I would have considered myself. Hopefully it wouldn’t come up again, especially since we thought the baby was a boy.
“Let’s put it on the list,” I compromised.
“The list?”
I suddenly realised how little Tom knew about what was going on.
“The list of baby names,” I explained. “I forgot you didn’t know about it. I mean, Sarah and I started it soon after I told her I was keeping the baby. It was part of the positive side of all this, but I sort of forgot about it.”
Tom frowned and moved his hands away from my hips and held his head in them. I fiddled absently with his sleek hair.
I knew that everything was starting to creep up on us. There was only four months left to go before I gave birth and there was so much to do. We still had to buy all the necessities: cot, pram, clothes, bottles and everything else. It was all going to cost money; money that Tom and I didn’t have. As for the living arrangements…I was beginning to panic. Tom have the baby at his house a few days here, my house the rest of the time. It was unsettling and I didn’t like the idea. But there was no way that Tom and I could move out and live together. Even if we had the money I doubt our parents would ever allow it.
“How is this going to work?” Tom asked suddenly. He fidgeted on the chair uncomfortably, so I got off his lap wearily and went to lean against the wall opposite him. Feeling suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness, I was close to snapping at someone. I was frustrated and worried.
I grabbed my hair band from the table and violently tied back my curls.
“Oh, Tom, you’re asking me like it never crossed my mind. Like I haven’t thought any of this through,” I said weakly. “Yes, we can’t afford it. Yes, it means we have to grow up fast. I mean, imagine walking down the road, pushing the baby in the buggy and passing someone from school. They’ll look down on us. They’ll be thankful that it was our mistake and not theirs. The most they’ll have to worry about is what they’re gonna wear clubbing that night, not a baby.”
I was becoming passionate about what I was saying. This was everything that was on my mind and I could finally discuss it openly.
“They’ll have their youth. School, friends, a social life. But we’ll have something that out does all that. We’ll have a baby.”
Tom stared, unblinking at me. I could tell that he was trying to believe everything I’d just said. I wanted him to believe. I needed him to. Because maybe if he believed, then I would believe too.
After a while Tom broke our tense silence. “How long before Tilly, Cal and Sarah disown us? I mean, they won’t want to hang around with us once we’ve got a baby.”
I shook my head. “Well, I hope they won’t disown us. I don’t think Sarah ever will. We’ve been best friend since toddlers. She's always been there for me…As for Tilly and Cal…when we told them…” I wandered off into the memory. Tilly’s gasp. Cal’s blank stare.
“They looked sick,” Tom finished for me. I suppose he was right. They had looked ill.
“Just because-” I was cut off by the sound of the doorbell. Tom looked expectantly at me. I shuffled past him, catching whiffs of aftershave and the salty water I had cleaned his face with.
My footsteps echoed along the tiled hallway and the fast reducing light cast long shadows across the walls. The doorbell rang again.
‘Someone’s impatient,’ I thought.
I pushed down on the cold door handle and opened it enough to poke my head round.
“Hello Lyla. I’ve come to get my son.”
How and where they're gonna keep the baby, is that it?
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