Non Pratt - Trouble

“I love you, Gran,” I sobbed, but Mum was hovering close, beckoning for the handset once more.

At least Mum and I are talking, if you can call screaming matches talking. Robert and Jay aren’t speaking. Jay’s still at his mother’s — Robert told him that if he ran back to university he may as well stay there and, like me, Jay’s not prepared to put that threat to the test. And Lola, my rock, is gone. No one knew how to tell her what was happening, so they’ve sent her to Robert’s parents until everyone stops shouting at each other and we’ve worked out how to patch up our fallen-apart family.

None of them seem to realize that, for me, Aaron is family too.

I am here to do an exam. I am not here to worry about Hannah, or think about what’s happening between us.

I look down at my paper.

I’ve to bisect an angle.

Best get on.

It’s the end of the exam and I reckon I’ve done worse than I did in my mocks. I’ll be lucky if I don’t get a minus grade. So much for my mum’s theory about distractions.

Sitting this close to Aaron, not being able to speak to him, is killing me. As soon as my paper’s collected, I’m ready to leap up and out of my seat. Now is the only chance I’ve got to see him, to talk, to explain…

My bump knocks into the edge of the desk and I bounce back into my seat awkwardly. Shit. I’m wedged now and one of my flip-flops has come off. Fuck the flip-flop. Aaron’s already walking up the aisle. I’ve got to get out of here. I twist out of my seat and hobble after him with only one flip-flop on.

“Hannah Sheppard,” Prendergast calls out and I’m forced to turn back and collect my flip-flop. And my bag of pens. And my calculator. And my bottle of water.

I scuff my way out of the hallway, trying to slide my foot into my footwear, because I can’t bend down to do it or I’ll never get back up again, and I’m searching the crowd for him…

There’s no sign of Aaron, just my mum, standing outside the school doors, waiting to pick me up and take me home.

I walk slowly. Very slowly. I walk so slowly that Gideon and Anj have reached the end of the road before I’m even halfway up the hill. They get so bored waiting for me that they turn back and meet me halfway.

“What’s wrong with you? It’s just a Maths exam,” Gideon says, but I see the look Anj gives him. I haven’t told them what happened at the weekend — it’s definitely Hannah’s place to tell them about Jay and the baby — but Anj noticed Hannah’s absence pre-exam and she knows it’s not a good sign.

A car drives past and we all watch in silence as Hannah’s mum’s car stops at the end of the road and pulls out into the traffic.

“Could’ve at least offered us a lift,” grumbles Gideon and he starts trudging up the hill with Anj once more. I stand there for a second, mastering my disappointment, before I follow them.

Surprise, surprise. I am awake. It is…

…late o’clock (or early o’clock, if you like) at night and everyone is asleep except me. And I need to pee. Padding quickly across the hallway, I sneak into the bathroom. I hear something over the noise of the flush, but I jump when I step outside and see a shadowy figure in the hall. Instinctively I lash out with a slap, batting whoever it is away, my mouth open ready to scream—

“Shut up, Han!”

It’s Jay.

“What are you doing here?” I hiss, but he shakes his head and guides me back to my room, where I elbow his arm away and step back to face him across the carpet. He looks rough, his eyes are small in a tired-looking face and he hasn’t shaved since Saturday. This time nine months ago, I’d’ve wanted to reach out and brush my thumb across the stubble on his skin. Every part of me would have wanted to get close enough to tilt my head up to his, to feel the promise of what might happen before I touched my mouth to his. There is nothing I wouldn’t have done for him to notice me. Now I mostly want to punch him. Repeatedly.

“I’ve got to go.”

“Robert doesn’t know you’re here, then?” I say, crossing my arms over my chest, aware that my ugly maternity bra is visible above the neckline of my vest. I try and tug it out of view.

When I look up, I catch Jay watching me and I see a shadow of the boy I fell in love with. Still want to punch him though.

“I wanted to see you,” he says, surprising me by coming closer. We’ve not been alone since he came home — every conversation has been uncomfortably played out in front of one of our parents, with both of us desperately skimming over the details of what actually happened between us.

Jay reaches out slowly and rests his hands on my shoulders so that I can feel him tilting me into the light that falls in through the gap in my curtains. He’s watching me closely and a more romantic me would dream of him sweeping in to kiss me like I’m the only thing he wants in the world.

The fat, pregnant, permanently disappointed me expects no such thing, remembering exactly how Jay’s kisses turn out. But she’s a little less punchy.

“I didn’t know,” Jay says, quietly.

“What? Could you start making sense sometime soon?”

“That I was, you know… your…”

Oh. That. I shrug. “First. Yeah.”

“But you were so…”

“Amazing?” I give him a cheeky grin and he shakes his head, letting out a quiet laugh.

“You’re impossible.” Jay looks at me, serious once more. “The way you talked I just assumed… But if I’d known…”

It’s not really important. I know everything is fucked. My life. His. But that night with him was something I wanted. Not that I wanted it to turn out like this, obviously. Jay’s hands are still on my shoulders and I wonder what he’s here to say — or is that it?

“Shit.” He takes his hands away to press them over his eyes and rub his face. “Hannah. I’ve got to go.”

“You said that already.”

“Back to Warwick.”

“What? When?” My brain can’t process this.

“Tomorrow.”

I can’t find the words to express the way I’m feeling. “Get out.”

“Let me explain—”

“Not much to explain — you’re running away!” I push him towards the door.

“I am not running away, not this time. Me being here isn’t helping anyone. My exams start the day after tomorrow and what good will it do if I fail the year?”

I stop, giving this pause for thought. But he hasn’t stopped trying to convince me.

“What good will it do the baby?” Which is so the wrong thing for him to say.

I grab the nearest thing I can find — a lever-arch folder of Biology notes — and hit him with it. “Don’t you start talking about what’s good for the baby now! You’ve had months to do the right thing.” I hit him again. Harder. “Months!” I’m screaming and he’s desperately trying to shush me, too much of a coward to face his father if I wake him.

“Hannah — stop — ow!”

I swing again and the clips burst, sending sheets of paper flying across the floor.

“Get out!” I use the half-full folder to bulldoze him out onto the landing, as our parents emerge from their bedroom. I carry on pushing Jay towards the top of the stairs, where he turns and hurries down, pausing halfway.

“I wanted to tell you myself!” he shouts up at me. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“No, it fucking doesn’t!” I hurl the folder at him and it cracks against his shoulder.

It doesn’t count for anything whatsoever.

When I get up there’s a letter for me on the table. It doesn’t have a postmark and, anyway, the post hasn’t been yet. I pick it up and turn it over.

“Normally people open them to find out what’s inside,” Dad says from his spot leaning on the counter.

“Just testing my prescience.” But in all honesty I have no idea who could have delivered this to my house. Tucking my finger under the corner, I tear it open. There’s a second envelope inside with a Post-it note on the front. I peel the note off and see that the second envelope is addressed to Hannah.

I hold the sealed envelope in one hand and tap it against the table thoughtfully.

I am holding Jay responsible for the fact that we are running so very late, disturbing Mum and Robert so that both of them slept through the alarm. Mum is so flustered about getting me to my exam that she actually runs through an amber-to-red light and spends the next three minutes of the journey worrying whether she’ll get caught. I twist in the too-small space in the passenger seat, trying to stop my back from feeling so bruised and tell her not to worry, loads of people do it every day and never get caught — she’d be very unlucky to get nabbed the one time she did. When she mutters something about having the worst luck of any woman she’s ever met I fall silent.