Hellie was always straight to the point, her capacity for bluntness hidden beneath her blue-eyed, blonde-haired angelic veneer and the gently undulating rise and fall of her accent.
I sighed inwardly, knowing that if I saw Hellie I was going to have to be honest with Libby about it. But could I refuse to see Hellie? Was that a terrible thing to do after what had happened between us? After all, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, technically, I was still adamant that neither of us had done anything wrong, seeing as Libby and I – in my books at least – had no longer been a couple. But still, if I met with Hellie then Libby was bound to be upset. I couldn’t put my relationship back on the line.
“I just… I’m really sorry, I just don’t think I should. It’s just that me and Libby… it was kind of a misunderstanding and now—”
“I’m pregnant.”
I don’t think there has ever been another moment in my life when my brain has refused to compute in such a way. The processor whirred round and round but struggled to produce one single piece of output.
“Did you hear what I said?”
A stream of thoughts suddenly rushed through my mind, all of them desperately trying to lead me to the safety of denial.
She’s wrong. She’s lying. She’s joking. It’s someone else’s, she just wants me to know. Why would she just want me to know? For support, of course! You’re meant to be her friend. Maybe she’s got a boyfriend. Maybe they planned it. Would she have planned it? Probably not, given that she’s eighteen and at university…
“It’s yours,” she said matter-of-factly, “just to clarify.”
I looked around me, stupidly, as if the answer might lie somewhere nearby.
“But I thought…” I muttered, confused, “…you said…”
“Nothing’s a hundred per cent safe, is it? I was taking it every day, just like you’re meant to. But these things happen.”
These things happen?!
My heart started to pound, the information infiltrating its way into my brain. My legs suddenly felt numb.
This is a disaster! God, this can’t be happening! What does this mean? What am I meant to do? Jesus Christ, I only did it once!
“Take some time to freak out. I freaked out at first as well. But now I’ve got my head around it and, well, it’ll be okay. It’s not ace, but, hey, it’s manageable.”
“Not ace”? Talk about the understatement of the century!
But then it dawned on me what she was saying. It was manageable. Of course. For a moment the shock had overwhelmed me, but of course it was manageable. There was a way out of this. It would be all right. This could be fixed.
“O–okay,” I stammered, “erm… so what happens now? Do you… shall I come with you to sort it out? I mean, I’ll come with you, we… we can go together—”
“I’ve already been to the doctors, just to get it totally confirmed.”
“Oh right. Okay. And… so, what happens now?”
“Well, you know, you’ve got school, so you should probably just focus on that. And I’m going back to uni tomorrow evening. My parents want me to stay at home, but screw that.”
“You’ve told your parents?!” I asked, unable to contain the horror in my voice. Why had she gone and done that? There was no frigging way I was telling mine!
“Well, yeah, I figured I might as well do it now. They’re not thrilled, as you can imagine.”
I tried to visualise telling my parents about this, but all I could see was the excruciating moment when my dad cornered me in his workshop last year and initiated “the talk”. I’d been so desperate to escape that I’d mumbled I know, I know in response to every sentence he uttered, before practically shoving him out of my way and rushing back to the safety of the house.
No, there was no need to tell my parents about this. What would be the point? This was a mistake that was going to the grave with me.
But Libby.
What about Libby?
I couldn’t keep this from her any more than I could have kept the fact I slept with Hellie from her. I simply couldn’t live with the deceit.
But maybe it wouldn’t make a difference. She knew what had happened between me and Hellie anyway. Surely that was the worst of it. This… this was just a crappy, unfortunate by-product of something she had already forgiven me for. But it would be dealt with. It would soon be a thing of the past. God, surely after everything me and Libby had worked through this wouldn’t derail us now.
“Okay, so look,” I said, sudden determination in my voice, “this is my responsibility too, so just tell me when you have an appointment and I’ll come with you. You don’t have to do any of it on your own.”
For a moment I felt almost like a grown-up. I was owning up to this, taking responsibility, being supportive.
“Okay,” said Hellie, her voice softer, appreciative, “that’s good. I mean, like I said, I wasn’t expecting anything from you, but actually that’s kind of nice to hear. God, most boys your age would probably run a mile. Most boys my age would probably run a mile. But then I’ve always thought you’re really mature. And in the long term you can be as involved as you want. There’s no pressure. You know my parents are loaded, so financially it’s no problem.”
I nodded silently, my brain struggling to catch up.
In the long term?
“And, look, don’t feel like you need to tell your parents right now. We can keep it quiet awhile. My dad’s pissed, but he’s not going to go hammering on your door or anything. And as for your girlfriend… I don’t know. Hopefully you can still make it work. It’s not like we’re going to ever be a couple, right? Just ’cause we’re having a baby, it doesn’t mean anything really needs to change.
