Crashing Down (6 page)

He raised an eyebrow and she nodded. He slid his underpants down and stepped out of them, sliding into the narrow bed with her. She was surprised by the size of his penis. It was huge. And even though he started stroking her and kissing her, she couldn't help thinking that a thing that size was never going to fit into her. She remembered the first time she'd used a tampon and how difficult it had
been to insert. This thing was longer and at least ten times wider. But he was gentle and slow, as always. Running his fingers over her, making her relax. All the while, she could feel his penis against her leg, throbbing like it had a life of its own.

‘Shall we?' he asked finally. Her eyes were shut but she felt herself nodding. Why not? She felt him get out of the bed and took a peek. He was standing side-on to her, his massive boner like a flagpole in front of him, studying the condom. She watched him nervously as he fitted it on, taking his time and adjusting it, and then he was back in the bed with her. He lifted himself onto her, supporting most of his weight, and began kissing her. Then she felt it pushing against her. She tried to relax, but it didn't seem possible. The next minute the pushing gave way and she felt it sliding in. Not painfully but completely filling her. He gasped, and she turned her head away. Whatever sensation he was feeling, she knew it was different to hers. She felt invaded, and slightly clinical as she considered he was not only on top of her but also inside of her. The idea seemed suddenly ludicrous and she had to stifle a laugh. He began thrusting. That wasn't painful, either, but
she wasn't sure what the effect was meant to be; it seemed a long way from the centre of her action. It was relatively quick and she knew it was about to happen. Two massive thrusts, a bit of groaning and then he sank down on her, still inside.

‘I love you, Luce,' he said, kissing her.

‘Love you too,' she said. It was actually done.

Afterwards, in the shower, she knew there was no going back to just holding hands.

It's the last real day of high school, even though there are still the exams to come. Lucy feels restless. Let down. This was never how she imagined her last day would feel. Other Year 12s are running around, signing school uniforms, but she just can't get into the frivolity of the day. There is a Carnivale on the oval — sumo wrestling, a dunk-the-teacher stand, music pumping — but she just wants to be out of there.

‘I'm going, guys,' she tells Lydia and Georgia, who are standing in line for fairy floss.

‘You okay, hon?' Georgia asks.

Lucy knows they have both accepted her distancing herself. They are far too good friends to
push her on anything. But she is just unable to talk about that night, unable to face the reality in front of her.

She nods, despite the fact she is so not-okay. ‘Just want to go home.'

‘Sure.' Lydia hugs her. ‘I'll call you later, babe.'

On the way home, she feels an eyelash away from hysteria. But she can't contain it any longer — if she does, she might burst. The idea makes her laugh — then it's problem solved, she thinks, as she knocks on her mum's office door. Lucy has noticed that since the crash her mum is working a lot more from home and leaving Suzie mostly in charge at the shop.

‘Can I talk to you?' she asks, sitting.

‘Everything okay?' Her mum puts down her pen. ‘Have you heard something?'

‘No, everything is the same. I need to tell you something. And I don't know how. I think you're going to be really disappointed in me.' Lucy feels the tears from the last week welling. She realises that, except with her sister, she hasn't actually cried; is there something wrong with her?

‘You could never disappoint me,' her mum says.
‘I'm so proud of you. Of everything you do.'

‘Don't, Mum,' Lucy warns, her voice almost breaking. ‘Let me tell you first.'

Her mum nods, but Lucy sees a new anxiety settle on her face.

‘I don't know how to say it. So I'll just say it,' Lucy begins. ‘I think I might be — well, I'm pretty sure I am — pregnant.' There, the words are out — but they still don't sound real. They sound dramatic and silly.

‘Oh, God,' her mum says.

Lucy starts to cry, and the tears are fast, the sobs heavy.

‘Lucy, don't.' But her mum is crying, too. ‘It's okay. We'll be okay.'

Any other time, her mum's use of
we
would have caused Lucy to argue —
But it's not us, is it, Mum? It's me.
This time she takes comfort in it.

‘I don't know what to do,' Lucy says into her mum's shirt. ‘I've stuffed everything up, and I don't know what to do now.'

They sit for a while, consoling each other, and then her mum, as Lucy knew she would, swings into action.

‘You did a test?' she asks, almost clinically.

‘I did — but it was negative. I thought that was good. But nothing since. And my boobs are huge and they hurt. And I've been vomiting.'

‘If you are, then how far along do you think you might be?' Her mum pulls out a calendar.

‘Must be six weeks. I did the test yesterday, my period was then a week late.'

‘Okay' — her mum makes some calculations — ‘we should do another one.'

‘Can you get a false negative?' Lucy feels totally despondent.

‘I think so.' Her mum shrugs. ‘I'm pretty sure you can't get a false positive, but the other, yes, I think it happens.'

They go to the bathroom and her mum waits outside the door. Lucy pulls out the remaining test. When she's finished, her mum comes in and sees it sitting on the foil wrapper on the vanity.

‘I see you've done this before,' she says lightly.

‘Only the once.' Lucy sits on the toilet lid, her eyes already puffy from crying. ‘You must think I'm some huge slut.'

‘No,' her mum says, grabbing her hand. ‘I know you're not. Never think that. I did wonder if you and Carl were …' She nods her head. ‘But I didn't want to ask. I thought if you were, you'd be using protection.'

‘We were, Mum,' Lucy says, suddenly glad to be telling someone. She hadn't even told Lydia any of this; Lydia had guessed they'd done it but Lucy hadn't gone into any details about her sex life. It was just too personal. ‘We only did it a few times — five — but obviously something went wrong.'

‘I wish …' her mum says, and then shakes her head. ‘Doesn't matter now. Okay, is it time?'

They both eye the pregnancy test warily.

‘One more minute,' Lucy says, even though she knows it's time. But she wants one more minute of being a kid, talking to her mum like a kid, before everything changes forever. She looks away. The situation is surreal. ‘I'd been thinking I should be more careful — go on the pill.'

Her mum frowns, thinking it through. ‘So Carl doesn't know anything about this.'

‘No. Although I'm pretty sure I know what he'd want if I was pregnant.'

‘Marriage and babies?' her mum offers.

‘Yeah — that's freaking me out too. I guess, I was feeling trapped and the idea of being with him forever was like a reality check. I knew I didn't want that future. But then he left and I didn't get to say any of that. And now …' Lucy wipes her eyes. ‘This sounds like an episode of
Offspring.'

Her mum picks up the stick.

‘Mum?' Lucy says, pleading.

Her mum drops her bottom lip. ‘Positive.'

They talk into the early hours of the morning. And Lucy begins to feel lighter. She has options, there are choices she can make. She knew that, but to have them spelled out for her makes the future seem possibly brighter.

‘The way I see it, there are three possible decisions. Keep it.' Her mum is ticking off her fingers. ‘Never thought I'd be a granny at forty-four — but there you go. I'll help you financially, we'll look at school options later. I don't see any reason why you can't still go to uni — maybe a little later than expected. Adoption. There are plenty of childless couples desperate for a baby. A closed adoption, so that's it. Or abortion.'

Lucy bites her lip. ‘I don't know — what's the right thing to do?'

‘There's no right thing, babe. It's a matter of figuring out what's really best for you and the baby. Not Carl. You have to be the priority.'

‘It's a baby,' Lucy says suddenly. ‘I've been thinking of it as a pregnancy — but at the end there's a baby.' She feels foolish and naïve. Of course it's a baby. She'd only got as far as nausea and getting fat and everyone knowing and judging her. She hadn't considered nappies, sleepless nights, feeding, a baby seat in the back of her P-plate car. The birth. ‘Oh, God.'

‘Don't panic,' her mum says firmly. ‘We can work this out. We need time. Dad will have some ideas.'

‘No,' Lucy says, putting her hand on her mum's arm. ‘Please don't tell him yet. I don't want him to think of me differently. I don't want not to be his Rabbit anymore.'

‘You'll always be his Rabbit, even when you're grown up. That will never change.'

‘Please, Mum.' Lucy's crying again. ‘Please don't tell him yet.'

‘Okay, we'll wait a while. We've got plenty of time.'

The phone rings at 6 a.m. It's Mrs Kapuletti.

‘Lucinda! Carlo — he is awaken!'

‘What?' she says, still wiping her face after her morning vomiting ritual. ‘Carl? Is awake?'

‘Yes, two hour ago. He awaken. Just like that. He speak — he is okay. He is fine. Carlo is awaken.'

‘Can I see him?' she asks nervously.

‘Yes, you come tonight. I call you later. I tell you where to come to.'

At work Lucy sends a bag of elastic bands to the office instead of hundred-dollar notes. When the office calls her, she panics, then finds the missing money in the elastic band compartment.

Al is coming to take her to see JD, and then later she'll see Carl. The prospect of finally seeing them both after nearly a week — although it's felt like a lifetime — terrifies her. She doesn't know what to expect.

Al pulls into her driveway at five to two, and she kisses her mum goodbye.

‘See ya,' she says, like she's off to the beach, not to an intensive care unit.

‘Okay, I'll be at the shop, but call me if you need me. Everything's done and Suzie can manage on her own. I have my phone on vibrate.' Her mum pats her pocket, making Lucy laugh. Her mum, for years the technophobe, now connected to her mobile day and night.

‘You're not a teenager, Mum,' she calls, leaving the house.

It doesn't take long to get to the hospital, and the grounds are beautiful. Sunlight dapples the tree-lined walkways, heavy-headed hydrangeas bounce in the light breeze. In the hallway she is surprised by the smell, a slightly musty odour — more like an old people's home than a hospital.

Ben smells it, too. ‘Lots of old people here,' he says. ‘Rehabilitation unit, mostly for hips and stuff. JD's this way, he's still in the intensive care ward. They'll move him into a rehab room any day now.'

Outside a closed door sits Mr Tan. Lucy has never met him before, but he springs to his feet when he sees them approach.

‘Alan, Ben, Lucy,' he says. Like JD, despite his very Asian appearance, he has a strong Australian accent.

‘JD wants to see you, Lucy. Alone.' He gives her a small hug and she feels so tall next to him. ‘He's asked not to wear his oxygen mask for the visit. He wants to talk.'

‘Okay.' She smiles but is petrified.

She walks into another room, where a nurse sits in front of a computer, overlooking a glass window into the next room. Lucy glances at the window. Inside is a giant white-sheeted box. ‘Through there?' she asks the nurse. The nurse nods and returns to her typing.

‘Five minutes,' she says, without looking up. That suits Lucy fine.

Inside it's all white tiles and humming machines;
Lucy is reminded of that Monty Python skit, ‘This is the machine that goes PING.' She rubs her hands nervously down her sides, realises she's holding her breath. It smells sterile in here.

She approaches the box cautiously. It's a bed, with some sort of contraption over it and a sheet over that. She spies JD's black hair poking out of one end and stands next to him, putting her face in the space above his. His face is white. There is a bandage taped to the left side of his head.

‘Hi JD!' Her voice sounds overly bright and almost obscene in that room with the machine that sporadically pings. ‘How are you?' She cringes immediately — what a stupid question to ask.

His eyes meet hers and he attempts a smile. ‘Not too bad — aside from a broken neck.' He laughs but she can barely hear him.

She joins in, but her laugh is too loud. She realises his head is being held fixed by giant screws, with rods and elbows embedded in his skull.

‘Honestly, JD, you okay?' she says softly.

‘Yeah, the drugs round here are pretty good. I'm off my face most times. Have you seen Carl?' he whispers.

She shakes her head, and then feels embarrassed she has. ‘No, not yet.'

‘He's dead, isn't he?' There's a sudden harshness to JD's whisper. ‘They keep saying he's not, but I saw him. He was dead.'

‘No.' She raises her hand, even though he can't see it, and makes sure her face is over his. ‘He's not, I promise,' she says hurriedly. ‘He's been in a … asleep. And he woke up this morning. I'm seeing him tonight.'

‘Promise?' And he starts to cry.

‘I promise, JD. Don't.'

But he won't stop crying. She panics and hits the bell.

The nurse runs in, checks him, calms him down. ‘Time to go,' she says.

Lucy nods, mournful, and goes to leave but hears JD's weak voice.

‘Lucy, wait.'

She walks back into his line of vision.