Dad (said with a look of disgust): Griffin’s not the father?
Cleo: I don’t want to hear it.
Griffin: Pete?
Pete: Why didn’t you just tell me?
Mum (yelling at me down the landline): You can’t tell your father something like that and not expect me to find out.
Kitty: Slag.
Mr. Bennetts: Perhaps you should think about taking some time off school.
Dad: You’ve never even mentioned a Pete.
Griffin: It hurts so much, Bird.
Mum: You have to talk to me. I’m your mother.
Dad: And to think I was so angry with Griffin—it took every ounce of strength I had for me not to go over and kill him when I found out.
Kitty: Whore.
Cleo: I don’t want to talk to you.
Pete: It’s really my baby?
Griffin: Why him?
Mum: We can’t go on like this.
Dad: I’m so … so disappointed.
Cleo: Just leave it for a while, Bird.
Pete: Don’t walk away from me when I have the right to …
Griffin: I don’t ever want to see you again.
Kitty: Slut.
Thurs 19 May
Dear Miss Take-Control-of-Your-Life,
Hi. I just turned 15 and I’m worried about my friend. We’ve been best mates for ages but recently hes started hanging out with a different group of friends and ignoring and making fun of me when he does. They have a reputation for smoking a lot of dope and I think my mate has started … to fit in. I dont know if he is doing anything else but he seems all different. I dont really have any other friends and dont know what to do—perhaps I should try and b more like his new friends. He says such horrible things about me, I don’t know if we’re even friends anymore.
Ben
Dear Ben,
You and your friend seem to have gone in different directions recently. You say you don’t really have any other friends, but perhaps if you turn your attention away from this friend, you might see there are other people who are more fun to hang out with. Are there things you enjoy doing outside of school where you can make new friends? You might feel shy but I bet there are loads of other people who would like to get to know you. As for your best mate … well, it sounds like he’s trying out stuff that is making him change.
Tips to Take Back Control
Talk to your friend about your concerns.
But don’t try to be like his new crowd of friends—trying drugs to please someone else makes no sense.
If talking to your friend doesn’t change anything, and it might not, let him be for a while.
Try to meet new people and find your own path by doing things that interest you.
From one teen to another …
Miss Take-Control-of-Your-Life
THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS OF MAY WERE THE WORST WEEKS OF MY life. I hadn’t realized just how much Cleo had been there for me through all this. She was the only real friend I had left and now I’d screwed things up with her. I felt like crying all the time, but instead I kept my eyes down and got on with things in my classes.
My days were strange and quiet, my evenings quieter. No one called me or chatted with me online. I remembered a time when I was friends, or at least friendly, with everyone in my year. No one spoke to me anymore. It was like I was the woman in that book we’d had to do for English in September, The Scarlet Letter. What was her name? Hester? The one who wore the red letter A around her neck so people knew what she’d done and could judge her. My baby belly was my own scarlet letter.
When I woke up one gloomy morning at the end of May, Dad was standing at the door telling me it was time to go to school. Most of the time he hardly spoke to me, so I was surprised to see him. I half sat up, pulling the cover around me.
“Dad?”
He was quiet and frayed around the edges, like a worn piece of fabric ready to be thrown out. He told me one more time to get out of bed and then paused as if he had more to say. I thought about how we were so far from where we had been as a family six months ago. There was me, moving like I was swimming, pregnant, self-absorbed, hating school, hardly the daughter of his dreams. And then there was the absence of Mum: there was almost a Mum-shaped hole next to him where she should have been. She’d made him louder and larger than life. Without her he was like an unplugged TV. He pressed his lips together.
I asked, “Are you going to work on your solar-brick business today?”
“I sold the business.”
“When? Why?”
“I’ve been kidding myself for years. No wonder your mother left me.”
“That’s not true, Dad.” As I spoke, I felt as if a tiny pebble had dislodged from my throat and was tumbling down.
“It was too much for me. I need to have smaller dreams.”
He shook his head. “You need to get up,” he said.
“What are you doing instead?” I asked.
“Bird, you’re late.” He left.
I hauled myself out of bed and stared at my blank corkboard. I knew with a sickening certainty that I really was going to give up the baby. It was the right decision. It was the only way to get my life back in my control. The only way. I wanted to go to Oxford University, right? I wanted to take photographs of ancient spires and cobbled streets, or people boating down the river. I wanted to sit in seminars and listen to professors talking about intellectual things.
The plan had been to go to Oxford with Griffin. That was when the two of us had been in love. Then the realization punched me in the gut: Griffin and I had never been in love. We just went from being friends and neighbours to dating … but along the way I forgot to fall in love with him. I wanted to call Griffin and chat like we used to. More than that, I wanted to go and see Pete. He’d tried to talk to me when he found out about the baby, but I’d shut him out. Perhaps that was a mistake—perhaps he would understand; perhaps he would be someone who could listen to me through all this. I rested my hand on my swollen baby bump. The baby kicked. I fingered my phone. I was about to dial Pete’s number when I stopped myself.
Instead, I switched on my computer and stared at the empty screen. I wanted to write a letter to the baby, a letter that explained why I was giving him away, a letter that gave him some hint of who I was and of how I wanted him to live.
Not a single word came to mind.