Trouble (30 page)

I gnash my teeth to distract myself from the thoughts running riot around my brain. The woman next to me must have heard – she’s looking at me oddly.

“Hannah, isn’t it?” the midwife asks me and I nod. “Is your birth partner on her way?”

Birth partner?
Lame.

“My mum can’t make it today. My sister’s sick.” I bite my nail and stare at her, daring her to say anything more. I can almost see her thinking that my mum’s a single parent and look where it got me… “My dad’s on a business trip.”

I can’t believe I just said that. I just called Robert my dad. The rush of love I feel for him overwhelms me. I do love Robert. Loads. I moan about him all the time. I’m jealous of how he’s always boasting about Jay and Lola’s school stuff… But I’m starting to get how he loves me too: when he gave me the money for new clothes; how he’s never once said a word about me supporting myself or moving out; that time he came with me for a midwife appointment I’d forgotten to tell Mum about; driving me and a vomit-covered Aaron back from the Duchess. I think about the closed account in my heart that used to belong to my father and I realize that without noticing, I’ve been transferring all that credit to Robert – and some.

The midwife claps her hands and the murmuring of mum-to-be bonding quietens down. I shift in my chair and it makes a farting sound. Charming. Even the chair is against me. I shove in a biscuit and glare at anyone who dares make eye contact.

Ten minutes in and I’m tempted to walk out. So far I have heard too many men ask questions about lady parts that make even me – the owner of actual lady parts – feel queasy. How are these people ever going to have sex with each other ever again? Not that sex is the first thing on my mind when I see the midwife push a plastic doll through a frighteningly life-sized rubber vagina.

One of the men actually asks if the doll is to scale.

It can’t be. Babies aren’t that big except in hospital shows where they don’t have minutes-old babies on standby for the end of a birth scene.

You can almost hear all the women let out their breath when she says no.

“This doll’s head is proportionally smaller than a baby’s.”

Shit.

In that silence there comes a quiet knock on the door. The midwife looks up, pleased to have something to distract the fifteen women who want to tear her face off. I don’t bother turning round as it would be way too much effort – instead I watch her frown and say the name of the class like she thinks the person there is lost.

“What is it that you’re looking for, love?”

“It’s OK, I’ve found it, thanks.” I recognize that voice, but before I have a chance to turn, Aaron’s sitting in the seat beside me and giving me a hug. “Your mum texted me.”

That boy. Best. Fake. Baby Daddy. Ever.

Fact.

AARON

There are some things it is best not to repeat. I think I heard most of them in that antenatal class.

SATURDAY 8
^TH
MAY

HANNAH

He calls at 11.17 on a Saturday night. I shouldn’t answer it.

“Jay?”

“Did you tell Katie?”

I don’t understand what he’s going on about and my brain’s too slow to form the right questions.

“Did you tell her?” He’s almost shouting and I don’t like it.

“Of course not! Do you know
anything
that’s happened in my life the last six months? We fell out. And stop shouting,” I add as an afterthought.

“Well, she sent me a text saying she knows I’m the dad.”

That makes a twisted, Katie-Coleman kind of sense. Her plan with Aaron backfired, so she’s come back to the identity of the dad. She knows it’s not Aaron, not Tyrone … somehow she’s finally worked her way round to Jay. Good job she didn’t start there. I wish she’d just leave me alone, but that isn’t Katie’s way – once she starts, she finishes and she hasn’t finished with me yet.

“Katie knows nothing,” I say, although there’s a little niggling doubt in the back of my mind. After all – she’s right. Maybe she’s just trying to get a reaction out of him and then she’ll
know
… “You haven’t replied, have you?”

“No. Why do you think I’m calling you?”

That sentence is so disappointing. Why would I think he’d call? He hasn’t so much as emailed since I saw him at Easter.

“Just tell her she’s mental or something. No one else knows.”

“Aaron does.”

I close my eyes. Jay can be so difficult. But when I picture him, I still fancy him. Hate my stupid hormones – now is not the time to get horny again. Besides, why am I giving him advice on how to hide the truth when I want him to face up to it? I’m such an idiot.

“I don’t care what you do, Jay. Goodbye.”

“Wait.” And like a muppet, I do. I shouldn’t. I should hang up right now. “Hannah?”

“Yes?” I try to sound like I don’t care, but he knows he’s scored a point.

“She really doesn’t know?”

“Not unless you tell her.”

“Good. It’s Dad’s birthday coming up and I don’t think he needs to find out like this…”

“It’s not like he’s ever going to find out, is it?” I say viciously and hang up before I can hear him tell me not to.

Jay calls back instantly but I reject it. He sends a text.

Ure not doing something stupid right now ru?

I text back.

Did something v stupid a long time ago. ANYTHING is a shitload more sensible than that
.

He texts back:
Dont tell them now, Han. Not now
.

When?

But he has no reply to that.

And neither do I.

TUESDAY 18
^TH
MAY

AARON

There’s something in the air as we gather outside the hall. No one’s in uniform and it’s interesting looking at some of the people I’ve never seen at the park or a party. There’s one guy who’s not in any of my classes, but I’ve seen around and always thought he looked pretty cool – the kind of person that in another life I might have ended up mates with. Judging solely on his faded Joy Division T-shirt, I come to the conclusion I was right.

Katie is wearing something that is meant to be Juicy Couture – only “Couture” is spelled with a double “O”. For a moment I feel sorry for her. She isn’t the person she wants to be and no matter what she wears or who she sleeps with, it’s not going to change that.

“What you looking at?” Katie mouths off and all my pity evaporates. I heard she tried to tell Nicole that Hannah’s stepbrother was the father. Nicole told her she was pathetic – oh, how the bitchy have fallen. It doesn’t matter that she’s telling the truth.

Everyone turns when the front door bangs against the wall as someone pushes it with too much force. It’s Hannah.

The word “radiant” springs to mind. It’s a pregnant woman cliché for a reason – Hannah is glowing. Her skin is clearer than Marcy’s and her dark hair looks model perfect. Everyone’s used to seeing her in an oversized school shirt that makes her look blousey and fat, but today she’s wearing her favourite outfit – a skin-tight khaki dress that displays her curves to full effect. Flip-flops show off perfectly painted toenails (courtesy of Anj) and pale curved calves lead up to her half-length leggings.

I watch other people as she approaches, the way they reassess the girl they’ve been sidelining since January. Fletch’s eyebrows hit his hairline and even Joy Division boy frowns, pondering a moment before remembering who the pregnant girl is.

“I’m bricking it.”

The spell is broken. This isn’t some fecund goddess. This is Hannah Sheppard. Only the Hannah in front of me isn’t the same one I met back in September – that one would have been hyper-aware of the glances her way, would have swung her hips a little and made eye contact with a minimum of three boys before reaching me.

Dad pulls open the door to the hall and calls us inside. There’s a pause, a gathering of breath, a steeling of minds and then the rustle of nerves personified as plastic bags and pencils as we make our way into our first exam. As we pass Dad, he winks at me, then at Hannah, who gives him a nervous smile.

On the way to our desks, I manage to catch her hand and give it a squeeze.

“Good luck,” I say.

“I’m gonna need it!” Hannah says in a rush. “Do I have to wish you luck too or can I keep it for myself?”

“You can keep it.” I squeeze her hand one more time, my fingers brushing across her palm as we part.

SATURDAY 22
^ND
MAY

HANNAH

Week one:

English Lang
.

Biology

French x 2 (Reading and Writing)

I’m finding this harder than I thought I would. Not the papers – which are exactly as hard as I thought they’d be – but the being pregnant at the same time. I thought all that stuff Mum said back in January about deferring was her hoping to give me more time to cram and the “You’re going to be very uncomfortable by then … won’t be getting much sleep … feet will swell up…” were all just excuses.

I was wrong.

Every night I wake up to go to the loo three times.
Three
times! I wouldn’t mind peeing all night if it meant I got back to sleep right away – only after piss-take-two I usually stay awake for ages. I can’t switch off. If my brain isn’t whirring over all the things it doesn’t know about whatever exam is coming next, then it’s wondering about Jay.

It’s a ticking time bomb of a problem that different parts of my brain keep chucking about faster and faster and faster, until I feel dizzy with worry. Then I think something like, “Stress isn’t good for the baby”, and I kick off another whole world of worry. I’m petrified of what happens next. In a month’s time I’m going to give birth and all the antenatal class taught me was that giving birth is the most painful scary thing in the whole entire world and I might die from it. (That and the importance of doing your pelvic floor exercises.) But that’s not the point because it’s not the giving birth I’m stressing over – it’s the bit that happens afterwards.

I, Hannah Sheppard, will be responsible for another human being. Not one I get to carry about conveniently in my tummy, but one that can wriggle and cry and be dropped (I’m
so
scared of that), who will want to eat
all
the time – and eating is breastfeeding because bottle-feeding sounds like a lot of faff and they say if you breastfeed you lose weight but the idea is totally freaking me out because that’s just not what I think my boobs are for, except they are and…

That’s usually when I fall asleep. I think it’s my brain short-circuiting and making me pass out.

Then I wake up for wee number three and pick up where I left off.

I nearly fell asleep during my first French exam on Tuesday. You know when you’re reading something and you just totally haven’t taken it in? So you start again and then you just sort of zone out? And you think, “I’ll just close my eyes for a sec. I’m not gonna sleep, just rest and then I’ll be fine.” Only you don’t rest. You fall asleep and slump forward and hit the desk with your face… Unless you’re so fat that this is a physical impossibility so you end up sliding down the gap between your chair and the desk until you get wedged.

I woke up when someone threw a ruler on the floor. It was Gideon. He’d seen me snoozing.

Katie would never have done that. She’d’ve just told me later about how I drooled out the corner of my mouth or said something embarrassing in my sleep. If phones had been allowed in then she’d have taken a photo and put it on Facebook. She used to do anything for a laugh – I never realized I’d only ever be the butt of her jokes.

But I miss her. Or I miss the Hannah I was before all this – the one who went out drinking and dancing, the one who was allowed to be hot. I miss being sexy. I really do. No one finds a pregnant person sexy, not even the person who’s pregnant. After this what will I be? A saggy bag of stretch marks and pregnancy weight with lady parts like an over-stretched elastic band?

Will I be someone anyone wants?

SUNDAY 23
^RD
MAY

HANNAH

There’s been a lot of thumping and banging going on downstairs and it’s totally ruining my concentration. I slam the book shut and look at the cover.

Fuck it. If I don’t know the difference between centrifugal and centripetal by now I’m never going to. Besides, I’m hungry.

When I get downstairs I see several pairs of shoes in the porch – one of which looks suspiciously like Aaron’s. I walk towards the kitchen like a girl in a horror movie only, when I push open the door, I’m not greeted with an axe murderer, but the sight of Robert and Lola and my three best mates arranging a tower of presents.

My hands fly up to my face to cover my mouth, but I’m grinning so wide I can barely hold it. As everyone comes in for a hug, Lola tells me that there’s a cake, but we can’t cut it until Mum gets here.

“Where is she?” I ask.

Robert looks at his watch and tells me she’ll be here in a minute. I don’t know where she’s gone, but a little voice suggests something I really want to be true, but suspect isn’t.

Maybe she’s picking Jay up from the station?

Ssh, voice. That’s just silly.

You know what he’s like about grand gestures. Maybe he’s going to step through that door and give you a big hug and then, with all your friends here, he’ll hold your hand and say that the time for pretending is over and that he’s the father of your baby
.

He wouldn’t do that and, anyway, why would Mum be the one to pick him up?

Because you’d guess if Robert was missing, duh
.

I swallow and smile at my friends and try not to listen to that little voice.

That’s the sound of keys in the front door! I turn, not looking too excited, not looking too hopeful. Mum walks in, smiling, and says she hopes we haven’t started without the guest of honour and I hold my breath, not yet able to see him.