‘Isn’t that a good thing?’
‘I’m not going to know …’
‘How’d you mean?’
‘Whether it turns out decent or … a criminal like its father.’
‘What?’ Adam has gone very still.
‘Someone raped me when I was passed out. That’s why I’m pregnant.’ She looks directly at him. The words feel numb and stripped to her, like they belong to somebody else. ‘I don’t remember any of it. It happened at that house party in Hampstead.’
Adam says nothing, his eyes just visible in the near-dawn light, wide and horrified.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he says, finally.
‘I think it was Scott … it was Scott who raped me. He tried to do something earlier in the evening but I didn’t want to. We did a pill instead and …’
‘And what?’
‘I woke up and I’d been … I just don’t remember anything. Scott was the last person I was with, I think he was there when … But I don’t know.’ After a few minutes have passed and Adam hasn’t spoken, Becky says, ‘I don’t even know if it was definitely against my will because I can’t remember, I just can’t … Like, maybe I said yes?’ Another minute passes and Adam touches her hand gently, unfurling it from its tight grip around her own wrist, like she has been trying to conceal something there.
The morning after the party, fingerprint bruises had come up on her wrist, gradually, like a series of little images appearing in a polaroid picture. The bruises have long since disappeared but she still finds herself holding a place that feels branded, laid claim to. Who had done it? Had she done it? Had she been the cause of her own pain?
‘Can you please just say something?’ She says eventually, turning to Adam.
‘Sorry.’ He is crying. ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’
She reaches for the bottle at her feet. ‘I shouldn’t have got so wasted. I was out of it. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t …’ She is gritting her teeth and trying not to cry when she hurls the bottle into a high arc. They both watch it smash across a steel upright of the junior swings.
‘I didn’t go to the police or anything,’ she says, a tear tracking her cheek. ‘I mean, what would I say? I got drunk and did drugs and blacked out. What are they going to do?’
‘Why didn’t you get rid of it?’ He catches himself. ‘Sorry. Fucking stupid question. Ignore me.’
‘I was six months when I went to the doctor. I can’t explain it totally. I didn’t want it to be real. But I can feel it kick.’ Now she begins to cry. ‘Before it was just like my period had gone but now I can actually feel it in me. I just want to die.’ A great wrenching groaning sound escapes her. It sounds alien. Her misery is absolute. After a moment, Adam puts his arm around her.
‘Do you think I’m disgusting?’ she asks him. He is shocked by the question. ‘It’s OK if you do. I just want to know.’
‘I don’t think you’re disgusting. I love you.’
She cries harder at that, at the dreadful kindness of his lie.
‘I want to kill him,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she cries.
‘You’ll be OK,’ he says.
‘What if I love it though?’
‘I don’t …’
‘I’m scared I’ll give birth and they’ll make me hold it and I won’t be able to get it away from me. I just want it to be over now. I want to die.’
‘Don’t. Please don’t say that.’ They are both crying now, holding each other. Months of despair flooding out of her. She knows how thick and toxic it is; she watches his skin fall away as it touches her.
Later she sits on one of the swings, pushing off the asphalt with the toes of her shoes, while he collects the shards of broken glass from the vodka bottle. This is Adam, who drops empty crisp packets on the pavement. She realizes that he’s worried a kid will cut themselves on the broken glass.
She has emptied out. Now she has a headache. The sun is not yet up but the sky is lightening. Her mum has called Adam again and they’ve spoken, Adam talking to her in calm, measured tones.
‘Do you think I said anything before it happened? What do you think actually happ—’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘In a way it doesn’t matter as much as what happens now.’
‘Do I go to the police?’
‘I think you have to figure out what is best for you. I mean, talking about killing yourself … a doctor, a …’
‘I don’t want to be in my body.’
‘OK, but you don’t want to die. This is … this is horrible now, but if you give it time, I know you don’t believe me, but you can still have an amazing life. You’re funny and you’re clever and you’re beautiful. You’re going to have great things happen. Not just this.’
‘I can’t do it. I can’t do any of it.’
‘I’ll help.’
‘Every day one of my parents asks me who the father is. My dad wants to know who’ll pay for it. My mum just— I don’t know, I think she just needs to know. And I just say, I’m not telling you.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want them to look at me like, like that … like someone who was stupid enough …’
Adam’s face stretches with effort and pain, his eyes fill with tears. ‘But Becky, none of this is your fault.’
‘I went to the party. I got drunk. I didn’t say anything. I did a million things that were my fault. And now look at me.’
‘It’s not like they’re going to throw you out. Are they?’
‘My dad … My dad thinks I just fucked anyone. He doesn’t say it but I know he thinks it. He thinks I don’t even know the father’s name, and
