by Adele Parks
“I’m pregnant.”
So now he looks at me. His head snaps around so damn quickly I think it is going to fall off. I expect to see some level of regret or sympathy, maybe even excitement, or is that too much? All I see is rage.
“You are fucking lying.” His voice breaks on the word fucking. Which—’cause I’m drunk—makes me sort of want to laugh. Laugh for two reasons, I mean, one, his voice is still unreliable and he’s going to be a daddy. Plus two, the word fucking is definitely the pertinent one here. We had sex, more than once, now there’s a baby coming. It doesn’t take Einstein. My brain is thinking this, but lots of other stuff, too. Once again I feel like I’m floating above this conversation, not really in it. It’s too much. I guess I’m technically hysterical.
I shake my head, try to focus. “It’s true. I took a test.”
“Fuck.” He drops into a low crouch. Goes down like he’s been shot. Balancing on his feet, his elbows resting on his haunches, his shoulders bent, head in his hands, he stares at the ground. It’s a familiar stance. He squats like this when his team loses a match. “Fuck,” he says again.
“It’s okay,” I say. Although I don’t think it is. I don’t want to be a mum. I’m too young. We’ve just won the lottery and I’ve bought all those cool clothes. I won’t be able to get into them because I’ll get fat. But on the other hand, we’ve just won the lottery and I am sixteen in a few weeks so maybe it could be okay. If Ridley wanted the baby. If he wanted me. I crouch down next to him. Very close. Our heads are almost touching. I want to put my hand on his back. Stroke him. Comfort him. I start to, but daren’t, not quite. My hand hovers near his skin but not on it. I can feel the heat coming off him. It drives me mad.
I hear him mumble something, but it’s tricky to make out exactly what. I’m swaying—crouching in heels after debut-vodka-chugging is hard. He repeats himself, clearer this time. “I don’t want this.”
“This?” I ask, dying.
“You. A baby. This.” He looks straight at me now. Arrows fly from his eyes and literally pierce me. “I don’t want you at all.” His words knock me over. I fall back onto my bottom. The ground is damp.
I look at Ridley, he is shaking, his hands and lips are quivering. I think he’s going to cry. He hasn’t cried since he was eleven, not even when his grandad died, and he loved his grandad. He looks really scared. Really sad. I feel bad that I’ve made him feel this way. That not wanting me is weighing so heavily on him. I know this is weird and I should just hate him, but I don’t. I love him. All I ever wanted was to make him happy. To be happy with him. I’ve known him since before I can remember knowing anything. He is so familiar to me. He is the boy for me. I watch him withdraw. It hurts as though I am being split in half. “How can I mean nothing to you now?” I ask. When we were that. All that.
“I dunno, but you don’t.” He stands up and looks longingly back at the party. I know he wants to be there. Probably with Evie Clarke. He does not want to be with me, or to be a dad.
“Have you told anyone?” he asks. I shake my head. “You need to tell your mum. She’ll sort it out. You have enough money to fix everything now,” he says over his shoulder as he strides away.
I can’t watch him walk. I turn away, and clamber onto all fours, like an animal. I start to puke. My vomit is cocktail-colored. Red. It looks like blood is pouring from my mouth. I’m sick and sick and sick until I’m just retching and spluttering and there’s nothing more to bring up. I don’t know if I’m being sick with the pregnancy, or with the alcohol. I know, lousy combo. Maybe I’m just sick because of life. My eyes are closed as I can’t face the world. But then I hear footsteps behind me, scrambling through the brambles, twigs and grass. I freeze.
Ridley has come back! My heart lifts again. He’s come back! Maybe to apologize, maybe to hold me close. He’s come back and it will be okay. I quickly wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. He won’t want to kiss me if I’m covered in vomit. I don’t want him to see me crawling on all fours, surrounded by puke and self-pity. I need to get up, look a bit dignified, look a bit sorted. As I move, something hits me from behind. Really hard. Sudden and unexpected, I think a log has fallen from a tree above and bashed me. It’s like accidentally belly flopping into a swimming pool when you are trying to dive. Hurt and shock invade, but the pain is not on my belly but in my bottom as though I’ve literally been kicked up the arse. Instinctually, I scrabble away from the pain. As I do so I put my palm flat into my vomit, which causes my arm to slip and give way beneath me. Whack, another hit. Terrified, I think the sky is falling in. I cannot control my limbs. I crumple and fall flat to the ground.
Instantly, frenzied hands are all over me and I understand it’s not logs falling, not the sky. It’s more ordinary than that. I’m being assaulted. It’s a man, or men. I’m a young girl in a leotard. This sort of thing happens all the time. I start to scream, but a hand is clamped over my mouth. I wriggle, I struggle, I try to bite the hand, but tape, thick blue tape, is wrapped around my mouth and eyes. In just seconds, I’m made blind and dumb. I still kick out and try to push them off me but there’s two, three, maybe more of them. Men. Not boys. I can smell them and feel their rough hands gag and bind me. My heart is thumping against my chest cavity, and I think I’m going to split wide-open in fear. They tie my feet together, they tie my hands behind my back. It’s fast and unspeakably terrifying. I’m powerless. They straddle me and I think they are going to rape me, but realize that they are just subduing me. At least at the moment. They are probably going to take me somewhere else to rape me. I’m sobbing but neither the tears nor the sound can escape. I think I might suffocate. I am so utterly petrified, more petrified than I have ever been in my life. This is a million times worse than the beating in the loo, this is a million times worse than the blue tick on the window of the pregnancy test. This is the worst thing I can ever imagine. I beg them to let me go, but they can’t hear me because of the tape. And they don’t care. I’m hauled up and two people carry me between them. I think I’m going to die.
“Shut the fuck up and stay fucking still or you’ll regret it,” says a man’s voice. I believe him. I want to be quiet now because he could hurt me more, but I sob and kick, my body flaying and bucking uselessly. Then someone punches me in the stomach. I’m too winded to shout out. Then I smell something odd, like at a dentist.
CHAPTER 34
Lexi
In the Uber, the effects of the wine and the punch start to wane, and I immediately feel the responsibilities of my family, of my life, settle back on my shoulders. I shouldn’t have just taken off without telling anyone where I was going. What was I thinking? Just because I felt a bit lonely and neglected at my party isn’t a good excuse to bail. I check my phone, feeling guilty that I hadn’t looked at it whilst I was with Toma. However, there are no messages for me. Irrationally, the guilt is immediately shoved aside, and I feel a flare of irritation. It’s eleven thirty and apparently no one has missed me. My reaction makes no sense. It’s better that I wasn’t missed. I’m behaving like a teenager. I call Logan and he picks up after the third ring.
“Hi, having fun?”
“It’s awesome, Mum! Where are you? I’ve been looking for you.”
I smile, grateful that after all I haven’t been completely forgotten. “I had to go out, do something, but I’m on my way back now. Five minutes away. Meet me at the dance floor?”
“We are not dancing together, Mum.” I can almost hear him roll his eyes in despair.
“No, I know. I just want to see you.” I want to hold him, my baby who is now only a couple of inches shorter than me. I suddenly feel a very keen need to be reassured by his solidness, his simplicity. Things are so complicated right now. “Have you seen much of your dad tonight?” I feel wrong asking. I can’t really expect Jake to have been too hands-on, considering I dashed off to be at another party. With another man.
“He’s wi
th me now. We were looking for you and Emily. Neither of you turned up to do the cake-cutting photo thing.”
“Oh, sorry, I forgot all about it.”
“You forgot about a metre-high cake!” Logan is still young enough to have an unashamedly sweet tooth and the four-tier cake has been a source of endless discussion for him over this past week. He was the one who had the final say over the layers—red velvet, chocolate, coconut, lime and carrot.
“Does Dad want to cut it now?”
“No, it’s okay, we did it. Jennifer and Fred and loads of other friends just piled in. It’s like a big gang photo now. Not a family one.”
I seethe, but bite my tongue. “Okay, well, nearly there with you.” As I reenter the party grounds I swiftly help myself to a glass of champagne from a tray. Hearing that Jennifer crashed the family photo op somehow means I require liquid fortification. I know it is partially my fault for not being there, but really? Did it have to be Jennifer who stood in for me? The server holding the tray looks bored, and I see her casting longing looks in the direction of the loud party. She’s only about nineteen. I flash her a sympathetic smile. I did a lot of waitressing work for extra cash when I was young—it was basically an exercise in managing older men’s roaming hands and older women’s unreasonable dietary requirements. I hope she hasn’t been met with too much rudeness tonight. I hope everyone has smiled, made eye contact, said thank you.
I head toward the main marquee where the dance floor is. The costumes make it harder to pick out faces I know. Most people are happy in their own cliques now, dancing, drinking, chatting, and no one turns to say hello as I thread through the crowds.
The dry ice smoke swirls, catching the amalgam of lights—dazzling blues, perky greens, loud reds—that are clashing and dashing through the hot, fused bodies. The DJ knows what he’s doing, the songs he’s picking are clear favorites with Emily’s friends, who are all on the dance floor and thrashing their bodies around with wild abandon. Logan’s friends look less sure, many lined up around the edge of the tent, trying not to look self-conscious and therefore looking exactly that. I spot Jake and Logan by the cake and make my way closer. The music blasts at a volume I’ve long since identified as too loud. It reverberates through my chest and spine.
I drop a kiss on Logan’s head. His scalp is sweaty and familiar. He looks about him, checking none of his friends have seen me. It’s just a truth universally acknowledged that parent affection is uncool. I have no idea why being loved is deemed embarrassing. In my experience, loving is the thing most likely to lead to humiliation. I look around for Emily and don’t see her. “Where’s Emily?” I ask Jake.
“What?” he yells back.
“Have you caught up with Emily yet?” I yell again, louder this time. A flicker of annoyance skitters up my spine when Jake just turns to me with a broad, obviously drunken smile.
“Not for ages.”
“You should be keeping an eye on her,” I snap.
“Why?”
“She was drinking earlier.”
“All the kids are drinking.” Jake makes a big, benevolent gesture with his arm, which takes in the entire area. He’s right, no one is sober. Me included. The beer he is holding slops over the glass rim and splashes on the floor.
“Yeah, but it’s her first time. She won’t know when to say when.”
“Anyway, where have you been?” he asks.
“What?” I am playing for time; I can’t tell him the truth. He would never understand why I had to say goodbye to Toma. I hardly understand myself. The memory of the man stroking my forehead with his thumb scalds. I can still feel his fingers tapping on the back on my hand. I rub over the spot he touched, as though trying to wipe away words off a blackboard. Jake doesn’t even know Toma’s name. I really need to tell him about the three million pounds. I’ll do that tomorrow, after we’ve cleared up from the party.
“I saw you take off a few hours ago. I’ve been looking for you all night. Where have you been?” Jake is showing an interest in me that has been lacking of late. However, it doesn’t feel as though it’s coming from a place of concern.
“Oh, we ran out of limes. I thought I could go and get some.” I stop. It’s nonsense. If we had run out of limes—which is unlikely as Sara thought of everything—then why would I be the one to go for them? It’s not that sort of party where the hosts pop out to the corner shop to get more crisps and alcohol, something that did happen fairly regularly at our old parties. We have staff now.
Jake is incredulous, too. “Limes.”
“For the margaritas.” I’m bluffing. I’m not even sure they are serving margaritas. I’m not just bluffing. I’m lying. I’m a liar. “Where is Emily, do you think? I need to speak to her.”
Jake shrugs. “Have you called her?”
“Straight to voice mail. And I have texted now, three times throughout the evening. Nothing back.” I pause. “Will you call her?”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve just said you’ve tried,” he points out. I glare at him.
For all his incredulity, I know he understands perfectly. I think she might be blocking me. Ignoring me specifically because I am the parent most likely to call time on drunken exploits. I’m the one who will want to know if she’s cold, and if she is, then I’ll be the one to make her change into something warmer. Her outfit is ridiculously skimpy, and whilst I’m not an idiot I realize most of the girls’ outfits are equally tiny and I get the importance of making an entrance. I also think being comfortable enough to have fun is important, too. I insisted she pack a pair of leggings and trainers to put on as the night wore on. I just think heels, a skimpy, plunging leotard, alcohol and fair rides are a combination that amount to an accident waiting to happen. The leggings and trainers are purple and sparkly and go with her costume, but still she wasn’t keen. They remain in a bag behind the bar. I know, I’ve checked. The fact is Emily is more likely to take Jake’s call than mine—she might think he’s calling her about some party-planning issue. He smiles obligingly and presses her number. We both listen as it rings and rings.
I look around me at the crowded dance floor and spot the three girls who got ready at ours tonight: Scarlett, Liv, Nella. They are dancing with a bunch of boys, writhing around like eels in a bucket. I think the boys must be from the new school because I don’t recognize them. They are all tall, handsome. They have floppy hair, loud laughs and ooze confidence as though their raison d’être is to fulfill the stereotype of what it means to be a private schoolboy. I realize that if I go and talk to them I’ll be killing their mood, but I do need to know where Emily is. It’s after midnight and I’m not sure when anyone last saw her. Apprehension skitters up my spine.
I squeeze my way onto the dance floor, and although it is rammed, somehow a space opens up for me. The girls are all shiny and sticky, their makeup has run and smudged, but they still look gorgeous because they are young and are clearly having a lot of fun. That combo makes for gorgeous. I’m glad for them. “Have you seen Emily?” I yell above the music. They exchange a look that tells me they have, but are weighing up whether to tell me. My first thought is relief.
“She’s not in trouble, I just haven’t seen her for a while,” I say to encourage them.
“I think she went off with—” Liv doesn’t get to finish her sentence because Scarlett nudges her in the ribs. It’s a forceful shove, effective but indiscreet.
“With whom?” I ask firmly.
Liv looks nervous. Her eyes drop to the dance floor. The boys snigger and then start to melt away into the crowd, not interested in girls who attract parental attention. Nella stares at them, something close to anguish in her pretty, plump face. I watch as she makes a quick calculation. She does not want to lose the boys—she needs to wrap up this conversation and get rid of me. “She’s probably just somewhere with Ridley,” she garbles.
I return to where Jake and Logan are standing. Logan is looking tired. Pale and shadowy. I suggest he go home. “One of the security guys could go with you in the taxi.” He just scowls at me, unimpressed by the idea. I know he wants to be here until the bitter end. We have a licence to play music until 1:00 a.m. I guess with all the sugar he has undoubtedly consumed, he’ll manage to push through until then.
“Her friends think she might be with Ridley,” I inform Jake. “I think she might have got back with him.”
He nods. “Most likely.”
“Why would she want to do that?” I demand, thinking about how Ridley stood by and allowed Megan and her monsters to beat Emily. I should never have agreed to him being here.
“Because she’s still in love with him,” replies Jake simply with a sigh.
“No, she isn’t!” I say this forcefully because I want to be right. “She’d have told me,” I insist. But would she? Emily and I haven’t been having many heart-to-hearts of late. “Did she tell you?” I demand.
“She didn’t have to. I know my daughter.”
It’s an accusation. I hear it loud and clear. When did that happen? When did Jake start to know what was going on in Emily’s head better than I do? I check my phone, but there are still no messages. “Have you tried that find my iPhone tracking thing?” We all have this app on our phones; I can’t tell you how many times it’s saved the day when one or the other of us has believed we’ve lost our phone.
