Welcome to Sugartown (29 page)

“
Listen, I’ve
been thinking about you, about us. I made so many goddamn mistakes,
baby girl, if I could take them all back I would,” he sighs. “Ah,
shit. I’m going crazy without you, Ana. I need you to come see me.
I have to see that you’re okay. I have to be able to touch you
again, just for a minute.”

“
I don’t … I
don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“
Ana—”

“
I have to
go. I’m running late.” I can hardly breathe with the weight of the
things he’s saying. The guilt consumes me every night, as I lie
safe in my bed while he’s locked away in a cage. He’s there because
of me, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive him for what he did
and the pain he caused and that terrifies me. I take a deep sobbing
breath. “I’m so sorry, Elijah.”

I hang up the
phone and cry until there’s nothing left. Then I drive my scooter
to Holly’s and pretend as if nothing happened. I know she can see
my puffy, tearstained face for what it is, but I won’t dump this on
her today. She opens her mouth to ask but I just shake my head and
walk over to her Peugeot.

“
You wanna
drive? Concentrating on the road that hard makes me want to blow
chunks.”

“
Sure,” I
say, and bend over backwards to catch the keys she just lobbed in
the air before they fall in a puddle.

“
How you
feeling?” I ask as I climb in the driver’s seat.

She lets out
a short humourless laugh and glances at me across the centre
console. “Like a horny teenager who went and got herself knocked
up. You?”

“
Like a rape
victim who might die without ever once having had good
sex.”

“
Wow. How did
our lives get so sucktacular?”

“
Just lucky I
guess,” I mutter, and take her hand in mine and squeeze hard. “This
isn’t your fault.”

“
Yes, it
is.”

“
Coop is just
as much to blame in this situation. He should be here with you
too.”

“
Yeah, well,
you know what they say about rock stars? A kid in every corner of
the world, right?”

“
Rock stars
maybe, but Coop? Come on, Hols, he was crazy about you.”

“
Apparently
not crazy enough. Now come on, this baby isn’t going to abort
itself.”

I’d give
anything not to have to be here right now. The smells, the sad
looking roses in the reception and the desperate looks on the
women’s faces as they contemplate what they’re doing here and
wonder if they’re making the right decision.

Poor Holly is
a shaking mess. Every two minutes she fusses with her hair and
holds it in place so I won’t see her cry. I know why she’s so
upset, and I also know she hasn’t entered into this decision
lightly. A baby at our age, in her current situation, just doesn’t
make sense. She’s not financially stable, she could work for my dad
until the baby comes screaming and tearing out of her right there
on the shop floor, but it still wouldn’t be enough. I’d help her as
much as I could, but when it really comes down to it, she’d be
alone.

I squeeze her
hand to let her know I’m here and a nurse comes into the waiting
room with a clipboard and calls her name. Holly stands. Her legs
are shaking. She begins to follow the nurse but then stops and
looks back at me. “Can my friend come back with me?” she asks the
nurse

“
She’s
welcome to stay throughout the consultation, however she won’t be
able to be present for the procedure.” I stand and follow close
behind, holding her hand all the way.

We’re led
into a small room where the nurse closes the door behind us and
checks all Holly’s vitals before telling her to put on a paper gown
and lay down on the bed. The smell of the antiseptic burns my nose.
I let out a deep breath.

Holly goes
behind the curtain and removes her skirt and t-shirt, but when she
gets to her shoes she curses and has to sit down on the chair in
the corner of the change room. She begins to cry and I tentatively
take a step forward, not sure if I should say something or hold her
or what. Then I think about what I would want if it were me in her
situation and I ease past the curtain and drop to my knees before
her to undo the laces on her Wonder Woman Converse.

She’s sobbing
so hard I’m afraid she’s going to choke. Once her shoes are off I
pull her into my arms, and we stand like that, talking. “You don’t
have to do this you know?”

“
Yes, I
do.”

“
I know I’m
not Coop, but I’ll help you any way I can. We’ll move in together
and raise this baby ourselves. To hell with men.”

“
I can’t.
Imagine what my parents would say, imagine the
disappointment.”

“
Hols, you’re
a grown woman. You haven’t been a teenager for years. Neither of us
have. You have to make the decision you can live with. You can’t
make it for your mum and dad, and you can’t make it for Coop. This
is your decision alone. If you want to keep this baby then don’t
you dare let any one stop you.”

“
No, I have
to go through with this.”

“
Okay.” The
woman comes back in. She doesn’t make a face when she finds us
wrapped up in one another’s arms. Not that I’d really care if she
did.

“
Do you need
a little more time? We still have a few minutes if you’d like to
talk a little more?” She’s really very sweet, and I’m so thankful
for that. I can’t imagine the heartbreak she must see on a daily
basis.

“
No. I’m
good,” Holly says, though I know she’s not.

“
Alright
then, let’s get started.” The nurse talks us through the procedure
and most of it goes straight over the top of my head, but soon
she’s helping Holly up onto the bed and politely asking me to
leave. I give my best friend a gentle squeeze before walking out
the door.

I wait until
I’m in the waiting room to completely fall apart. One of the women
gives me an odd look, but the rest of the people ignore
me.

I saw in
Holly’s eyes just how much her heart was breaking and mine breaks
for her. I wish my mum were here. Holly’s parents have never been
overly affectionate with her. They pushed her to get good grades
and, as far as providing for their child went, they ticked all the
right boxes, but emotionally they’re somewhat stoic people who
forget that kids need the emotional support a parent provides
too.

My dad is
surprisingly astute at knowing when his kids need a cuddle and yes,
he certainly can be a boar of a man but underneath the fleshy,
frightening exterior, he’s a big old teddy bear. Still, only a
female would know how to really deal with this situation, and right
now I wish to god Holly wasn’t lumped with some inexperienced
nineteen-year-old who has no idea what she’s going
through.

I feel,
rather than see, someone sit down next to me. I’m so lost in my
thoughts that I don’t even think about the fact that they’re
sitting too close for normal personal space boundaries. I don’t
give them much thought at all until I hear Holly say, “Are you
about done with the waterworks, because I could really go for some
Baskin-Robins right now?”

“
What are you
doing—”

She shrugs
like she hasn’t just made the biggest decision of her life. “I
couldn’t go through with it.”

“
You’re not
alone in this, I’ll be there. And if your parents won’t help you,
we’ll move in together. Dad told me this morning that Jackson’s
coming to stay with us for a while. He can’t stand being in that
big old house in Tenterfield all alone after my aunt died, so he’s
selling and going to be crashing on our couch. Maybe we can get him
to move in with us someplace and it will cheapen the
rent.”

“
Oh joy, your
hot cousin whom I’ve slept with exactly twice—the same amount of
times, in fact, that he’s been to Sugartown—is coming to stay, and
you want me to live with him while I’m pregnant with a fat arse?
Geez, Ana, you couldn’t have told me all this before I got myself
knocked up? Jackson Rowe moving to Sugartown is fucking
monumental!” she yells, and everyone in the room turns to look at
us. “Oh, go back to reading your magazines and pretending like you
aren’t all here to kill your babies.”

I blink up at
the madwoman formally known as my best friend, and she waves her
hands at me to hurry up and get out of my seat. She starts to move
toward the door, but before she turns completely, I see her hands
briefly rest on her stomach.

She turns
around to glare at me for taking too long. “Come on, woman. I want
ice cream before you drive me home, and I need a whole damn pint of
chocolate-chip cookie dough.”

Chapter Twenty
Nine

Ana

The following
day I sit at the kitchen table sulking over my cereal. I’m in one
hell of a mood, thanks to sleeping on the lumpy couch all night.
Holly’s occupying my bed at present, and is the reason for me not
getting a whole lot of sleep last night—her pregnant arse
snores.

After we got
home yesterday, she came clean to her folks and the bastards gave
her a pretty hefty ultimatum: destroy the life inside her that was
going to “ruin her life”, or ship out and pretend she has no family
left. I swear it took a freaking miracle to keep me from punching
them both in their snobby, bitter faces.

I threw
together a bag for her and dragged her out of that house before
they could change her mind. This was her decision to make; how dare
they not support her in this? That was their grandchild they were
talking about offing.

Now, my dad
runs around the kitchen, tearing the place apart in an attempt to
find something he’s lost. Probably just the number for Gary’s Pizza
Palace down the road.

“
Dad, can I
talk to you about something?” I hadn’t told him yet that Holly was
pregnant and would be crashing with us until the two of us could
find our own place. Not that he’d care; Holly is like the daughter
he never knew he wanted to have. I’d just rather he hear it from me
first, than the rumour mill in town.

“
Can it wait,
sweetheart? I’m running kinda late.”

“
Yeah, okay,”
I mutter then frown, because it dawns on me that it’s only 10 am on
a Sunday and my dad never goes anywhere this early on a Sunday,
unless it’s to the shop to buy more bacon. Assuming that this is
what he’s looking for, I fish the keys to his Harley out from under
the paper and hold them out to him. “Where are you
going?”

He glances at
me briefly and takes his keys from my outstretched hand, then
averts his eyes like he’s guilty of stealing the last slice of pie
from the fridge. “I’m visiting a friend.”

“
Okay, cool,”
I mutter and go to sit back down, but my dad’s staring at me with
an odd expression that makes me rethink what he just
said.

He’s not
visiting a friend at all.

I narrow my
eyes on him. “You’ve been going to the prison? For how
long?”

“
Since he
went in,” he replies, and he at least has the good grace to look a
tad bit sheepish.

Suddenly, I
want to be sick. Knowing my dad has been visiting Elijah behind my
back brings all the guilt rushing back to the surface. He’s just
Dad’s employee, but he was everything to me. It hurts to know my
father’s had that kind of interaction with him, even though I’m
still not sure I’m ready to.

“
He never
mentioned seeing you.”

Dad’s brows
shoot skyward. “You spoke to him? When?”

“
He called me
yesterday, while you were out.” I think back to hearing the
surprise in Elijah’s voice when I answered the phone, and then I
look at my dad and the realisation hits that he wasn’t calling me
at all—he was calling my dad. “
You’re
his weekly phone
call?”

“
He has no
one else, Ana.”

“
That’s why
you asked me to take Sammy to rugby on Saturdays, isn’t it? To get
me out of the house?”

“
I knew you
weren’t ready to talk to him, but the kid’s all alone in the world,
Ana. We’re all he has left. I gotta get going. I’ve got a two hour
drive, and if I don’t haul arse I’m gonna miss visiting hours.” Dad
sees me wince and his whole face softens. He steps toward me and
takes my hand in his. “You could come, too. He’d love to see
you.”