‘Lucy?’
‘Hmm?’ I look up and see Lily looking at me, carrot stick still caught in between her fingers.
‘Did you hear a word I said?’ she says, finally taking a bite.
‘Oh. Sorry, did you say something?’
‘Only for the last ten minutes!’ Mollie giggles and splits her sugar packet, half the contents spilling out on the table around her latte. She mutters under her breath then gets up to find more.
‘Are you feeling OK?’ Cara asks.
‘Yeah, why?’
‘You just look a little pale. Still hungover from Saturday night?’
‘Actually, I’m not feeling a hundred per cent. Maybe I am still hungover,’ I say, knowing that I spent all night with only apple juice in my wine glass, just in case – wait, just in case? What does that mean? ‘Um, I probably just didn’t sleep well last night or maybe I’m coming down with a cold.’ A plate of mashed potatoes and buttered beans sits in front of me, steam no longer rising. I’d thought I’d wanted it when I sat down to eat it, but now I suddenly couldn’t remember why I was craving it in the first place. Just the sight of it made me want to throw up. And that smell. My mouth waters and I feel nausea surfacing.
‘You didn’t eat much today,’ Cara points out, nodding to my plate.
‘Yeah, I’m not surprised. Who orders mash and beans for lunch?’ snorts Mollie as she plops down in her chair with a large handful of small brown sugar packets. She must be anticipating several more attempts at opening one.
‘I thought it looked good but it’s actually gross.’ I slide the plate away from me. Something pink and sparkly catches my eye and I think I see Trina Davis at the other end of the room. I instantly feel the blood boiling inside me and squint to look again. But it’s not. As I turn back to my tray, she appears from behind a large crowd of fifth-years.
‘And I thought you looked rough,’ scoffs Cara.
Trina perches on the edge of a long table, her tray empty except for a takeaway cup of coffee. Her face is red and puffy, and her hair is scraped back in a low bun. She’s swallowed up in a baggy navy jumper and leggings that make her legs look like sticks. I barely recognise her from the Trina from Saturday night. The one that danced wildly, and swigged vodka from the bottle, and flirted with Rhys at the party – the one that almost risked everything. As if he can hear my thoughts, he appears from behind the fifth-years too and immediately heads for her table. I want to rush over there and yank her off that bench by her hair before he reaches her. Maybe no one will notice, and I can go on pretending that there’s a real chance that Rhys and I will get back together.
Like there’s any chance now.
Not now. Not with—
‘Is that Trina with Rhys again?’ blurts out Mollie, another sugar packet spilling out between her fingers. Why is it so difficult for this girl to open a small paper envelope of sugar?
Cara and Lily both turn in that direction and a couple of nosy girls at the next table look over too. Mollie’s voice tends to carry far, even in a busy cafeteria.
‘What is he doing?’
‘Doesn’t he know you’re right here? You can see them. We all can. That’s so disrespectful.’ Cara looks at me, waiting, her eyes wide.
What does she expect me to do?
Lily waves another carrot in the air, gesturing towards their bench.
They clearly all expect me to do something. And if I don’t, they’ll know something is different about me.
They’ll know about It.
Before I can stand, I see Rhys and Trina get up from the table. He’s trying to say something to her but she’s backing away from him, not waiting until he’s finished talking. Maybe they’re fighting. That’s perfect. Then I don’t have to do anything at all, I can just – oh no, she’s coming this way. I feel it again. Blood. Boiling. Some kind of weird sensation in my belly – what is that?
‘Well?’ Lily says, turning around to see how far she is from our table.
She’s close. But I wait until she gets a little closer…just a little closer…there. I jut my foot out sharply, cracking into her ankle and through her legs. She grunts and goes down, fast and hard, to the ground. Her shoulder bag slides out in front of her, contents spilling out everywhere. When she peels herself off the ground, I’m impressed to see she’s still holding her coffee cup. Even though the entirety of its contents is on the ground. And all over her jumper. It soaks through the fabric and clings to her chest.
Mollie starts squealing, followed by Cara and Lily. Then most of the cafeteria.
I hadn’t meant to kick her that hard. I watch as she slides onto her knees and starts frantically shoving everything back in her bag, her cigarettes the last to go in. She inches up to standing, careful not to drop anything in front of me again. Her right knee is slightly bleeding, having hit the tile floor first. A twinge pulls at my stomach, but I push it away.
She deserved this.
I don’t know why, but she deserved this.
Her cheeks are red, and she takes a step towards me, but doesn’t follow through. Her eyes drop to the ground and she pushes past me. She rushes out the door, bag smacking off the handle as she flees. I hear a noise escape her lips before she disappears round the corner. Is she crying? I don’t think I kicked her that hard…did I?
‘Bye Trina!’ Cara yells after her. I force myself to smile along with her, with my friends, even though I don’t feel victorious in any way. Glancing over at Rhys’ empty table, I take a deep breath. If he’d been here, if he’d seen, I’d have lost my chance with him forever. Which could still happen if…if… ‘I’m skipping the rest of the afternoon,’ I announce, swinging my bag over my shoulder. I can’t go on like this. I need to know. I need to be sure.
‘Ooh, can I skip with you? Shopping? Cinema? I’m dying to see the new Zac Efron movie. I hear he gets shirtless like ten minutes into it. Bonus!’ Mollie claps.
‘He’s kinda old now,’ shrugs Lily.
‘Sorry not today…I’m meeting my mum in town.’ When I slide off the bench, I see Trina’s pink lipstick still lying on the ground by the table legs. I don’t know why but I pick it up and drop it into my bag.
I walk out the same door Trina ran through and take the same path. But while she probably took a right through the woods to go smoke in the clearing by the chemistry lab, I go left towards the main centre.
I walk past the chemist on the high street and cross over to the bus stop. I can’t go in there for what I need. I can’t risk seeing someone that recognises me. So I wait for the 67 bus.
A cold breeze stabs through my coat as raindrops start to fall all around me. I haven’t brought an umbrella, so I step back under the shelter. But I suddenly don’t want that dry comfort. I want to feel the rain. I want to feel it on my hands, my fingertips, on my cheeks. It tangles in my hair and trickles down the strands, finally resting on my shoulders. But it doesn’t cool me. It doesn’t extinguish the heat searing in my stomach. The only thing that can do that is a Negative sign on that pregnancy test.
When the bus arrives, I drop a couple of pounds into the red plastic tray and weave my way to the back, avoiding curious faces and watchful eyes. It only takes eleven minutes to get to the next town, through a winding maze of country lanes, ‘bend ahead’ signs and single-lane roads. I don’t look out the window. I don’t see the fields go by, or the sheep grazing, or the cows sleeping. I don’t count the red cars like I used to with my dad when I was little, that I still do now when no one is watching me. No. I stare at my hands the entire eleven minutes. I squeeze patches of skin with my fingers and watch as the skin whitens then goes red. And I try to calm the volcano that’s erupting inside my mind.
I try to coax it back to the Glen Affric camping trip. To the ochres of deep oranges and rusted browns that meet overhead. To the sizzling hot grill awash with hot dogs and salted corn on the cobs. To my parents sitting side by side under the crystal clear night sky, exchanging the occasional romantic glance when they think I’m not watching. I try to ease my thoughts back to those simpler times.
But my mind fights back. And when we pull into the main centre, I claw my way to the front and escape back into the rain, feeling it once again trickle over me. Then I cross the street, take a left up Upton Road, and a right through the door of Superdrug. I pass the tiny glass bottles of shimmery nail varnish, tall tubes of stronghold hairspray, multi-coloured coiled hairbands, pin-like kirby grips, and feathery wands of jet black mascara. I go to the back. The very back.
It’s funny how shops always place the pregnancy tests at the back. Is it for privacy? Or is it to shame the young unwed girls who have to walk through the entire store to get to it, with their heads tucked to their chins, cheeks a warm red, repeating a silent prayer that no one will see them, that no one will notice their sins?
I’m doing that walk of shame right now. My head is tucked to my chin and my cheeks are no doubt as red as those crimson nail gels up front. Rectangular boxes loom over me. Loaded onto shelves that reach from the ground near my toes up to the ceiling where a too-bright fluorescent light burns my retinas. Dozens of boxes neatly packed, some with smiling (married) couples, one with a blue bird soaring over the pink label, and another with a small white house in the corner. Each cover represents something I don’t have. Something I won’t be able to give…It. A parent. No, two parents. A house.
What does the bird represent? Freedom? (Bit ironic isn’t it?)
There are just so many options. Which do I get?
One shows a smiley face if it’s Positive so I quickly push that one aside. Another is triple the cost of the rest, so I choose the one with the biggest display sign. That must mean it’s in high demand, which means it’s the most accurate. And I need accuracy. I need a hundred per cent accuracy.
My hands tremble when I slide over the ten-pound note, but the cashier doesn’t even look at me. Perhaps she knows my dilemma all too well herself. She looks a little like Trina which makes me blush even more. She has the same hair colour as her, wears the same shade of lipstick – too shimmery for daytime. Perhaps this is where Trina will be in a year. While we all go to university, she’ll be here, selling girls like me pregnancy tests.
Or maybe it won’t be her standing behind that counter. Maybe it will be me. And maybe I’ll have a baby inside my belly.
‘Your receipt.’
I shake my head and glance up. Now she’s looking at me. Right at me. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’
‘Do you want your receipt?’ she says again.
‘No.’ I snatch the box from her. ‘Thank you.’ I can’t have any evidence on paper that I was here. Nothing that anyone can find. And use against me.
When I get home, it’s stopped raining but the dark clouds still hover high above. Clusters of charcoal grey and swirls of white tell me that it will probably shower again tonight. My mum’s car is gone from the driveway, which is odd but I don’t question it too much right now. I’m glad to get the privacy. I know I’m safe to do this, for now.
The first thing I do is drink two large glasses of water.
But when I’m on the toilet I can’t go. I’m too nervous.
So I go back downstairs and drink another glass of water. Then I jump up the stairs. Run around the coffee table. Push my stomach with cold fingers. Soak my hands under a warm tap. But it’s staring at the running tap that finally does it.
I dangle the stick in the toilet bowl, feeling the warmth graze my fingers. But it doesn’t gross me out. It’s too late for that. I wash my hands and set the timer on my phone, balancing it on the edge of the sink.
Then I wait.
And wait.
What now?
I grab the box for instructions, but my fingers are clammy and it slips out dropping on the floor. Collapsing onto my knees, the words on the back jump around so I have to focus my eyes and read the sentence over and over again.
One vertical line = Good. Not Pregnant.
Two vertical lines = Not Good. Definitely Not Freaking Good. Bad. Very Very Bad.
Please not two lines.
Please not two lines.
I turn the stick over in my hand, my eyes still up towards the clock. Slowly lowering them, I see the shelf above the bath with the small apothecary jars of lavender bath salts and rosehip bath oil. Then the tip of the bathtub. Then the bottom. The black tile, the white tile, the black tile…the…the…
Two vertical lines.
Two.
Not Good.
Definitely Not Freaking Good.