Hannah
My day starts with a text:
Hey Hannah, u might want 2 check FB.
Hope ur OK, Anj
A text from Anj that does not contain a question about French homework is big news.
It takes me about ten seconds to log in to Facebook.
Fifteen minutes later I’m still there. I don’t think I can move, let alone put my clothes on. It’s like my body’s in shock or something. Even my brain seems to be broken – I actually can’t believe what I’m seeing. I keep hoping that I’m having one of those dreams where you think you’ve got up but you haven’t.
It took me a while to work out that a lot of the comments on my newsfeed were about me. Then I clocked the posts on my wall – some nice, some not so. I’ve got a few messages too. I don’t read them.
There’s another text on my phone. It’s Gideon.
Not sure if congrats is what ur after, but JIC – yay! Gx
My throat catches as I read it, but I grind my teeth together and tell myself to focus. I need to know how this happened. I only told . . . and she . . . she couldn’t? She wouldn’t . . .
I open Katie’s profile. She’s changed her picture – it’s now a close-up of her cleavage with faces drawn on each boob winking at each other. It used to be a photo of me and her dressed up for Jay’s party. I check out her status, but it’s the same as when I last checked.
No longer an airplane blonde
Comments are split between people who get the joke and people who don’t. I notice that Marcy has liked Rex’s comment – about having first-hand experience [pun intended] – and I go through to her page. Marcy hasn’t bothered sorting out her privacy settings so it doesn’t matter that we aren’t friends.
And it means that the whole world can read her status:
OMG. Hannah Sheppard is 4 months pregnant. Hands up who saw that one coming!
Aaron
There’s something in the air. I missed registration because the car wouldn’t start, and the people I share a bench with in Chemistry wouldn’t know what was on the grapevine unless someone plucked the information off and turned it into a smokable substance. I hurry to Geography, hoping to catch Anj before the lesson starts.
As I turn the corner I see that she’s standing with Gideon, who should be the other side of the school in my dad’s class.
‘I always thought she was exaggerating . . .’ Gideon is saying when he sees me coming and shoots me a grin.
‘She was. You only have to sleep with one guy to get pregnant.’ Anj has her back to me, but I heard her loud and clear.
‘Who’s pregnant?’ I say, breathing a little too heavily after my semi-sprint from the Science block.
It’s Anj who tells me.
‘Hannah’s pregnant.’
‘Hannah who?’ says my mouth because it’s not actually connected to my brain.
‘Sheppard.’ But I knew that.
‘How?’ I say. Which isn’t what I mean. I wish my mouth and brain could communicate. Gideon gives me a cheeky smirk and says something about a ‘special cuddle’, but Anj elbows him.
‘It’s all over Facebook,’ Anj says.
‘He’s not on Facebook,’ Gideon tells her before I can. It’s the first time I’ve heard someone’s looked for me and I feel awkward. Best to focus on Hannah.
‘Is that how she told everyone?’ I can’t believe this is true.
‘Not exactly . . .’ Anj looks uncomfortable.
Gideon fills me in. ‘Apparently Katie told Marcy whilst they were out last night. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t meant to be a global announcement, but then Marcy put it as her status and now everyone’s talking about who the father is.’ He slides a glance through the open door at Fletch, who’s at his desk, head in hands, but it’s me that Anj is looking at.
‘Anyone tried asking her?’ I say.
‘No one’s seen her,’ Anj says, getting out her phone. ‘I texted this morning . . .’
‘I think she might be lying low. There’s loads of people posting on her wall and saying some pretty harsh stuff,’ Gideon says.
I wish I found this hard to believe.
Anj taps on her phone, breaking school protocol, before emitting a shocked, ‘Oh my God!’ We look at her and she turns the phone towards us so we can see the screen.
It’s a Facebook page called ‘Whos the Daddy? Yous the Daddy?’ Normally I’d be appalled by the terrible English, but for now I’m more horrified by the content.
There’s a picture of Hannah in her school uniform and someone’s drawn a cartoon bump over the top with a question mark inside. There’s loads of members – presumably all from our school – and people have already started posting suggestions as to who might be the father. One of the posts near the top catches my eye.
Whoever suggested Mr Tyler is way off – his son’s deffo the daddy!
I don’t know the kid who wrote it, but he looks about ten in his profile pic. Nice.
Anj clicks on the pictures page and I glimpse a few familiar faces badly Photoshopped onto some less familiar bodies doing . . . well, doing the nasty. Why would anyone do that?
Hannah
I’m all cried out for the moment and I feel sick. Mum offered to miss her hair appointment and stay home with me, but what’s the point? It’s not like her being here will change anything. I’ll still be pregnant. I’ll still have a giant knife wound where my best friend stabbed me in the back. No need for Mum to have crap hair as well. This is the first time Mum’s ever let me stay off school without taking my temperature. She’s beside herself with rage about Katie telling Marcy – I’m guessing that’s what happened, anyway; I can’t imagine it was anyone in my family.
The doorbell rings.
‘Go away,’ I whisper.
It rings again after a while. I risk peering out of my bedroom window and see Aaron at the front door, fiddling with his phone. If he’s ringing me, he’ll be disappointed. I turned my phone off an hour ago. I head down and open the door though.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
I open the door wider and he steps inside. He smells nice, safe.
Then he does something unexpected – he hugs me. As I lean into him and rest my head on a shoulder broader than Mum’s, I think how strange this is. We’ve not hugged before today, we’ve not really even talked that much, but Aaron’s the only person who’s hugged me during all this without being pushed.
‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’ I say into his blazer.
‘Shouldn’t you?’
‘Point taken.’ I let go and walk towards the kitchen. ‘How’d you know where I live?’
‘Anj. And Fletch asked me to send his love. Well, something like that. I think he’s convinced himself that he’s about to become a dad.’
‘Oh God,’ I mutter and shake my head as I offer Aaron a drink from the fridge.
‘How are you?’ Aaron asks, as he cracks open his can of choice (Diet Coke – huh).
‘Pregnant,’ I say. This is so weird. I feel like I’m having tea with the queen or something.
‘So I hear. How’s that working out for you?’
I look at him. He’s a funny one. I can’t figure him out. He’s so direct about stuff but at the same time it’s as if he’s far away from it all, not a part of things.
‘Pregnancy’s fine – it’s just my friend that’s a bitch.’ I sip a glass of milk. MILK. I used to hate milk, but these last few days I can’t get enough of it.
‘You know most people are just curious, they’re not actually hating you or anything.’ He looks away, embarrassed almost. ‘I guess you’ve seen the Facebook page?’
‘What Facebook page?’
Aaron
I show her on her laptop upstairs, hating myself for it, figuring it’s worse not to know something like this . . . but I’ve seen more expression on my dad’s face when he’s checking the BBC weather page.
She clicks off the page and shrugs.
‘You OK?’ I’m the epitome of lame.
‘Not really.’
‘As I said, most people . . .’
‘ . . . are just curious,’ she finishes. ‘Well, it’s none of their fucking business, is it?’
Hannah gets up and kicks the chair out of the way before storming downstairs and, since I don’t know what else to do, I follow her. She’s opening the back door and rushing outside, then she’s standing in the middle of the lawn and screaming so loud I think her voice will break.
‘I’m pregnant. All right?’ She spins round to look at the neighbours’ twitching curtains. ‘ALL RIGHT? And I’m fifteen! Fuck off!’
‘Hannah . . .’ I say, edging closer, not sure if now’s the right time to point out that she’s still in her pyjamas and slippers.
‘FUCK OFF!’ She screams right in my face before collapsing forward so fast I nearly drop her, and she’s kneeling in the cold, wet grass, sobbing and screaming and growling – actually growling. We stay like that a while, me crouching awkwardly, treading the corner of my blazer into the grass, Hannah contorted into my arms, crying herself into silence. I wonder what the neighbours are making of this and I look up to see an old lady and her husband staring out of one of the windows. I give them the finger and enjoy their outraged reaction. They shouldn’t be looking. This is private.
‘I’m wet,’ Hannah mumbles and staggers to her feet. ‘Got to shower.’
I follow her indoors and stand in the hallway where she turns, halfway up the stairs, and asks me if I’ll stay, apologizes for being mental. I tell her not to worry and that I’ll wait in the kitchen. There’s a book in my blazer pocket, one I’ve read before, but since I don’t have anything better to do I start at the beginning once more. Maybe it was a mistake to come here – it’s not as if I was invited. But Hannah needs someone and that someone may as well be me . . .
‘Hi.’
I jump.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ I say, putting my book down.
Hannah smiles, picks up the book to look at the cover and wrinkles her nose. ‘Never heard of it,’ she says before pouring herself another glass of milk and digging out a pack of ginger nuts. I decline the offer as she sits down next to me – she smells of coconut and her hair’s still wet. When I look at her, I see someone I recognize: myself, I think. Not in a literal sense. I don’t wash my hair with coconut shampoo and I have certainly never worn a Little Miss Naughty T-shirt. But she looks soul-weary and I know about that.
‘Thanks,’ she says and meets my eyes. ‘I mean it. It takes guts to tell a person what they don’t want to hear. Most people would be too scared to face up to it.’
‘You’re not,’ I say.
‘Wrong. Facing up would have been telling Mum sooner, or my best friend.’
‘You didn’t tell anyone?’ I say, surprised.
Hannah smiles. ‘I told Gran.’
I smile too, but hers has turned into a sigh and she slumps forwards, her forehead resting on the tabletop.
‘Fletch isn’t the dad,’ she tells the table.
‘Thank God for the baby. Anybody would make a better dad than him.’ It’s meant to be a joke, but something tells me she’s a long way from finding it funny.
‘You think I don’t know who it is, don’t you?’
‘I never—’
‘That’s what my mum thinks.’ Hannah lifts her head to look at me, the imprint of the tablecloth on her forehead.
‘I don’t think anything.’ I should leave it there. ‘Except—’
‘Except what?’
‘Whoever it is has a right to know.’
Hannah winces at this. ‘He will not want to know. Trust me.’
So she does know who it is. ‘I would,’ I say.
‘Well, he’s not you.’ She looks at me with such intense sorrow that any suspicion we were talking about Tyrone dissipates. ‘Can we just leave it?’
‘OK.’ Hannah obviously has her reasons. ‘Consider it left.’
She looks at me for a moment longer, her face softening before she puts her head back on the table. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ I finish my can and look for a change of topic. ‘Can I have a ginger nut?’
She pushes the packet towards me and then waggles her fingers for one, still face down on the tablecloth.
‘Anything else?’ I ask, wondering if she needs a top-up of milk.
‘A dad for my baby?’ she says with a laugh.
Hannah
My joke wasn’t exactly funny, so I don’t think his silence is rude as I sit up and down the dregs of my milk. It’s only when I start to stand, turning to offer him another drink, that I realize he’s watching me.
‘Me,’ he says.
‘You what?’ I say, caught somewhere between sitting and standing.
‘I could do it, if you wanted.’
I sit down with a thump.
‘You could say I was the father.’