40 Things I Want to Tell You (13 page)

“What are you going to do?” She dropped her head into her hands. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you. You’ve always been so sensible. Well, at least as you got older.”

“It’s all under control.”

She looked up at me, her eyebrows lifted. “You’re having an abortion?”

“I can’t think about that now.”

“How far along are you?”

The space between us over the table stretched wide as an ocean. I muttered, “Thirteen or so weeks.”

“Oh, Bird. Is this because of me and your father?” she said.

“It’s just something that happened. Dad’s fine, by the way.”

“Something that happened? How could you and Griffin be so careless?”

“I don’t need a lecture from you.”

“A
baby.
Oh, Bird, I can’t begin—” She broke off and stared vacantly into a space I could not see.

I was reminded of how sad she used to be when I was young. It hit me. In every memory I had of her she was
always
sad. Her bottom lip trembled slightly now and I wanted to reach out and hug her. The waitress arrived and put a large yellow mug on the table before me.

When the waitress left, Mum turned her gaze on me and said sternly, “You’re a child.”

“Don’t patronize me. I’m seventeen. I can cope on my own.” Even as I said it, panic flooded my head. I didn’t have a plan, and every word Mum said made me feel more anxious.

“Exactly, you’re seventeen. You can’t cope on your own.”

As she said this, my anxiety switched to fury. “You should have figured that out before you left.”

“How did we get to be strangers?”

“We?”

“Bird—”

“You walked out on Dad. You broke his heart.”

She sighed and then said quietly, “You have no idea what my life has been like. Working for that crappy company just to
pay the bills so your father could follow his dreams. You know I quit, right? I’ve found a new job already, working as an assistant to a wedding photographer, so I’m making some money, although nowhere near as much. I have some savings and the experience is what I need right now. Maybe one day I’ll be able to, I don’t know, set up my own photography business. And I’ve found a small place to live. It’s much nicer than the little hotel I was staying in, and it’s really close. You’d like it.” As she spoke her cheeks got pinker. She sounded excited. Girlish. The job she’d just described sounded exactly like the sort of thing I wanted to do—maybe we were more similar than I wanted to believe.

I swallowed. “I don’t want to know.”

“All his dreams, all his plans, and they came to nothing, absolutely nothing, every time. There was never any money; there’s never anything left over for me, for you. And my dreams were … well, crushed.”

“He has plenty left over for me. He’s a great father.”

“He is. That’s true.”

“So why did you leave—?” My voice broke.

“I had to.” She turned away and gazed across the café. “Bird, you’re seventeen. You’re throwing away your life. You have such a great future ahead of you.”

“Doing what?” My voice was louder than I’d thought it would be. A couple of people turned around to look at us.

“You were going to apply to Oxford University and then you were going to get a great job, be stable, be happy, not living hand to mouth like Dad and I have been. I know you don’t love Griffin, not the way you wish you did. And if you keep this
baby you’ll be tied to him forever. You’re clipping your own wings—that stupid broken leg from jumping out of the tree made you scared of the world, my darling. I should have been braver myself, shown you it’s okay to get hurt along the way. Now look what’s happened.”

This was too hard. I tried to get the conversation back in control, saying, “I
am
happy.” The words were muddy and untrue.

“When did you start lying to yourself? I know you, Bird.”

“When did I start lying to
myself
? When did
you
start lying to me? Why didn’t you tell me how unhappy you were?” I blinked back tears. The hormones raging round my body surged up and frustration took the place of sadness. “You don’t know me or what I want or anything. I’m going to keep this baby. It’s the right thing.” Everyone was looking at us.

“Right thing?” she said softly.

I didn’t say anything. It seemed the room was still, eyes fixed upon us, even the whirr of the coffee machine had gone quiet. I slumped. “It probably makes no sense to you, and I know Cleo doesn’t understand, and Dad won’t either—”

“You haven’t told him?”

“I didn’t want to tell you.” I paused, refusing to cry.

“A child,” she whispered.

“I’m going to get a job, earn some money. I’ll make it all work out.”

“Bird, you need to listen to me. You’re not thinking. I’m your mother. You’re a child yourself. You’re being utterly naive. You need to think about all of this; you need to let me help you.”

It would be so easy to let her fix everything.

I thought of Dad sitting on the sofa, listening to opera and
crying. Mum had left me to deal with him, along with everything else.

I didn’t need any help from anyone.

This time rage surged up so swiftly I couldn’t stop myself. I jumped out of my seat. “Just leave me alone. And leave Dad alone too.” I pushed my cup away, not caring that people’s conversations had completely stopped around us. “I don’t want this coffee and I don’t want to see you again.” I put my hand to my chest. “I’m sick of the sight of you.”

These last words shocked us both, but I was so wound up it didn’t stop me from adding one final thing. “I’m going to be a better mother than you ever were.”

And with that, I turned on the wave of anger in my body and surfed out of the café blinded by fury, disappointment and the knowledge that I’d never be able to take back what I’d just said.

Griffin came into my room just as I finished reading the reply from AllTheAnswers, so I minimized the page.

He massaged my shoulders and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Oh, you know me, just working. Um, the essay for English.” The last few days at school had been a blur—the only relief was that Pete wasn’t there.

He leaned over and kissed me on the side of my neck. He whispered, “You’re lying.”

My whole body ran cold. He’d seen what I’d written. Oh God. Then a surprising shiver of relief went up my spine. Griffin
knew.
I didn’t have to tell him anymore.

I managed to croak, “What?”

“You were working on your website. I saw it before you closed the page.”

I spun round to face him, meaning he had to take half a step back. I said, cautiously, “You read what I was writing?”

“Wow, relax, Bird. I didn’t read it. I could just tell. You’ve gone all red.”

“God, sorry. I just …” So he
didn’t
know about the baby. He didn’t know anything about all the lies I’d been telling him.

He said, “I know it’s private and it’s important to you. Whatever. I promise I didn’t read a thing.” He sat on the bed. “I don’t even understand why you kept the whole thing a secret anyway. I had to find out from Cleo that you are this Internet advice columnist and you’ve been doing it for ages. I thought we were, you know, friends as well as you being my girlfriend. But then you don’t … well, talk to me anymore.”

“I do. I’m sorry.” I stood up and went over to him. “I haven’t had breakfast yet. Let’s eat. Let’s hang out. We can talk.” Time
to tell him. Time to break up with him. Time for me to take control.

Downstairs in the kitchen we ate toast and eggs together. He wrapped his arms round me as I was doing the washing up. I stiffened, wondering if he noticed my extra weight.

I slipped free of his embrace, feeling confused and worn out. I just couldn’t find the right words for now. I said, “Dad wanted to go over my CV for that job at the photography studio one last time. I’ve been working on it for days. All I need after that is to choose three photographs. It’d be fun being a photographer’s assistant.”

“I should go home anyway. Have my coffee.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m not, um, drinking coffee right now.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Detox,” I muttered lamely as we left the kitchen.

He kissed me long and hard as we said goodbye at the front door. I kissed him back, trying to enjoy the feel of him holding me, knowing it couldn’t last.

He said, just as I pulled away, “So will you be my Valentine tomorrow?”

I touched his cheek, feeling suddenly sad. “Of course. Sure, thanks.”

DAD HAD HIS LAPTOP ON THE SOFA WITH HIM, BUT HE WAS STARING AT
a photograph I’d taken of my mother, which hung on the wall. In it, her curly hair blew around her face and her sad eyes seemed luminous against the grey sky. I nudged him.

“I’m job hunting,” I said. “Remember, you told me you’d help with the last draft of my CV.”

“I wonder whether I could stop those geodesic domes from leaking if I redesigned them.”

“What?”

“Because that’s the problem. They leak and they’ve never been able to stop water getting in along the lines of the connections. It’s because the roofs of domes are
curved.
But if that could be fixed, if I could fix it, I could make a lot of money.”

“We don’t need a lot of money,” I said. “We just need enough to get by.”

He looked over at me with his hazel eyes and pity crossed his face. Then he laughed. “Get by? That’s not what I want for you, Bird,” he said.

“Anyway, could you look at this?” My pregnancy felt like a red balloon floating over my head—surely he could see it. I gave him a copy of the CV I’d printed out. He took it from me and read it through.

“Well, what do you think?” I asked.

“It could do with being a bit shorter. Tighter here. You need an Experience section. How about when you worked for the newspaper?”

“That wasn’t anything, Dad. It was a week of making coffee that I did only because school made us do a placement.”

“Bird, if I’ve learned anything in life, it’s to accentuate the positive. Make the most of yourself. Surely there’s a quotation about that somewhere, something like: No one else is going to love you if you don’t love yourself.” For the first time in weeks, he smiled.

N
AME:
Amy Bird

A
DDRESS:
203 Warmingtan Road, South Norwood, London, SE23 4RE

Contact: [email protected]

07777- 888776

E
DUCATION

First year of sixth form, studying for AS levels in Art, Spanish, History, IT, English (in order to complete full A levels next year) GCSEs from Harton’s High School, Forest Hill, London, SE19 3FJ, in Maths, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Double English, Spanish, History, IT, Art; 9 As, 1 A*

E
XPERIENCE

Baby Sitting—gave me experience of looking after others and tending to their needs, and experience of organizing finances Work Experience through school—one week at the
Croydon Advertiser
working in the photography department

W
HAT
I
BRING TO THE JOB

Enthusiasm, willingness to learn, good attention to detail and a love of photography

R
EFERENCES

Mrs. Teague, Architect at Teague Architecture

Mrs. Livermore, Head Teacher at Harton’s High School

I pulled out a selection of my photographs. My favourite was of my street in the snow. I’d staged Cleo’s white scarf on the
snowy ground and I loved the way it showed that the colour white was really made up of pale blues and pinks and yellows—the scarf and the snow were laced with shapes and shadows. I chose a photo of Griffin I’d taken six months ago. His face filled the frame, his blue eyes brimming with love. I studied them. I realized that behind the love was a look of disquiet. Huh. The next photo was of Mum sitting with both elbows on the table, her head resting in her hands. She had a faraway gaze, looking off into the shadows of the kitchen, her blonde hair catching the gloomy light. I felt a pang. Suddenly I wanted to cry—my photos showed me more about my own world than I’d been able to see with my eyes. I scooped up the three images and slid them into a black file ready for my application.

AS I WALKED TO THE PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIO, EACH STEP DRUMMED
with the realization I wasn’t going to be saving for a holiday to Jamaica with Cleo anymore. I was saving up for the
baby.
It made me dizzy trying to comprehend what I was doing. After dropping off my CV, I slowed to a stop. I noticed the cobweb of winter branches the trees made, catching the sky in their spidery grasp. What was I
doing
? I felt like I’d spent the last couple of weeks in suspended animation. I. Was. Pregnant. Was I making a huge mistake? Keeping a baby? A
baby
? A plane cut across the sky. I averted my eyes and was faced with the long, empty street ahead.

When I got home, my head was spinning. I
couldn’t
be a mother. I
couldn’t
look after a baby or give it the life it deserved.
What, I was going to work part time in a photography studio, probably making tea, and give up school to look after some screaming child? I wandered about the house in a fog, clouds of misery obscuring everything except my nightmare. And then I sat at the computer and slowly typed in

Adoption

One of the first pages I read told me to remember that adoption was permanent. With a weight in my tummy, I read the reasons a woman (a
woman!
I found it so hard to think of myself as a woman) gave up a child.

• Lack of money

• Lack of a partner

• Lack of experience—being too young

• Lack of family support

All
those reasons applied to me.

I flicked from page to page. I read through forums and noticed that another girl, Angela, in the same position as me, seventeen and pregnant, said:

I looked at photos of people waiting to be parents in California on a friendly U.S. site that made it all sound really easy. I looked at another forum, my heart jumping around inside me and my head spinning. One girl had written that it was a good idea to look at YouTube to see adoptive parent profiles. And there they were: Jane and Jake cuddling each other and smiling. Her doing yoga. Him at a baseball game. But all these families were in America, and when I tried to find a U.K. couple, nothing came up. I flicked over to a U.K. site for parents looking for babies and it all sounded really formal and scary. The legal stuff made me feel nauseous. After that, I read stories by people who had been adopted. Good stories and bad. I thought of Jake and Jane in the photos. I thought of Steph and Emmy on the forums. And of Mya and Rio, one day becoming two, two days becoming six weeks …

I had to give up this baby. If I didn’t, I might never:

• do my exams

• go to university

• travel the world

• fall in love

• have sex again

• finish my photography project

• be successful in a career

• skydive

• go in a hot air balloon

I had to give it up.
Had
to.

I held my hand to my stomach. It had popped a little more, but not enough for anyone at school to know yet that there was something inside me, growing.

I finger-combed my wild hair and slipped on a jacket. I had to get out the house again. I wandered without thinking about where I was going. I ended up in the park opposite the school. I sat on a bench and let my thoughts whizz around while I watched the ducks on the lake. It had become one of those February days when shafts of sunlight probe their way through the clouds to point down at the earth. My mind wouldn’t settle. I was thinking of Pete and of Griffin, of Cleo, of my mum and dad. Suddenly, I realized all I was doing was thinking about other people, not about myself. Not about the baby. Thinking about the baby, imagining it, reminded me I couldn’t give a child a good life, because I was too young. It would be better off with another family.

But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I could look after a baby—

My phone rang. It was Pete’s number on the screen. I waited a second, not sure what to do.

I answered.

“It’s me,” the voice said.

“What do you want?” I said.

“Where are you?”

I looked at the park, my eyes not able to avoid the leafy area where he and I had last kissed. “What does it matter?”

“I want to see you.”

“It’s not a good idea. I thought I’d, you know, made that clear.”

“I want to see you,” he said again. “And even if you don’t want to see me, I’m right here.” He started laughing.

As I heard him laughing over the phone, I heard him laughing in real life, the sound bouncing along the path and into my ears. He was walking straight toward me. His lean body, his sensual mouth, his gritty, unnerving gaze.

“Someone’s in a bad mood today,” he said, then the phone call was cut off as he put his phone in his pocket and sauntered over to me, smiling in that way he had.

“It’s not a good time,” I repeated.

He sat on the bench. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said, and as if nothing had happened, as if we were a
couple
, he slid an arm around me.

I found myself leaning into him slightly. My skin prickled under my clothes.

I said, “Why haven’t you been at school? I haven’t seen you around for ages.”

He shrugged. “I guess I’m not the school type.”

“But you said you were starting over.”

“So you
were
listening?”

“School’s important, Pete. It gives you a future.”

“And I’ve never heard that before,” he said sarcastically.

“Okay, okay. It’s none of my business.”

“What if I want it to be your business?”

“You don’t.”

He tightened his arm around my body and brought his face close to mine. He said, “Don’t I? Have you not forgiven me yet?”

“Pete,” I found myself saying. Heat crept up my spine.

He tipped my face up to his.

I was on fire.

He said, “I can’t read you at all. That’s what I like about you.”

“Pete, you have no idea.”

“Well, tell me, then.” He leaned in to kiss me and I almost let him, but then I held a hand up to his lips. He needed to know about the baby.

I said, “You don’t get it, do you?”

He sighed. “God, do we have to be so intense?”

My eyes narrowed and I shoved him off. “This is too intense for you, Pete? You stroll over here, put your arm round me like … like things are fine. I haven’t seen you for ages; we don’t even
know
each other. And you sit down and tell me you want to be my business. That’s your problem—you can’t be what you say you want to be. You make out you’re into me, then when I call you, you can’t commit to anything. You come and sit here, trying to kiss me like you own me, but when I try to talk to you, you think I’m being too intense. Well, get this, Pete Loewen, maybe I am intense. Maybe that’s what I’m
like.
If you want someone different, there’s always Kitty.”