Page 108 of Tears of Gold

Can I give him everything he wants and needs?

My legs crumple beneath me and I fall onto the carpet, my fingers dragging through the plush pile. He’s gone. He’s gone and I’m frozen, stuck in time, unable to look towards the past so I can chase after him.

Dan has gone.

Eli has gone.

Now it’s just me. I lie on the floor; my sobs so hard my shoulders ache. Now it’s just me and… I place my hands on my tummy.

Now it’s just us.

Twenty-Five

I don’t leave the room. Shadows chase across the ceiling until they lengthen and darken into a night sky. My phone rings until I guess the battery is out when the incessant ringing and vibrating ceases. Then only silence and my dark thoughts remain.

“I’m sorry.” I haven’t taken my hand off the flat of my tummy. Although it isn’t that flat anymore. No one else can see but I can sense the curve under the cup of my palm. “I don’t think I know how to fight for you.”

I let go of the curve and roll onto my side, closing my eyes to the now and forcing the memory box I keep firmly shut to finally open.

Hazy and like they are dipped in sepia I try to pull them free from the box.

Sitting on a chair at the doctors, the plastic bit into the back of my legs.

“Well you have choices.”

“But I don’t want to be pregnant. I don’t understand.”

My fingers shook so hard I ended up squeezing them under my thighs.

“You haven’t been practising safe sex. Now we can help you with what comes next, but you need to be aware of the consequences.

The words burned on my tongue. I haven’t been practising sex. I’ve been practising hell and no one can help me. No one can teach me about consequences because none of this is real.

Inside me is the mark of the devil, the seed of evil and I let it in. I laid there, silent and still and I let it in there.

I cry again until my throat is sore and my back aches at being on the floor. With shaking legs and arms, I crawl for the bed and I throw myself down on the mattress. I want to sleep, and I never want to wake up again.

I don’t want to wake up in a world where Eli has walked away from me not once but twice.

I shut my eyes and wait for never to arrive.

When the bed dips, I think he’s home. He’s realised he is being irrational and has come back. But it's Miss Beesley.

“I don’t want to see anyone.” I try to turn away, but she holds my arm, surprisingly firmly.

“I’ve bought you tea.”

I don’t want tea.

“I want a cigarette.”

She keeps her face straight. “Tell that to the small person you have in your tummy.”

“Bollocks.” If she’s surprised at my outburst, she doesn’t let it show.

“You’ve had callers.”

“Miss Beesley, this is not the nineteenth century; no one has left a calling card.”