Non Pratt - Trouble

I look at Aaron again, taking in everything about his face, the lashes, the lips, the scar on his jaw that I now know came from a night he would rather forget — from a life before this one. I want to tell him about my communications blackout. I have screamed, I have cried, I have punched the wall — I could show him the grazed knuckles — but I have not been able to escape.

“If you set foot outside this house without my permission, you will not be allowed back.” And I can’t risk that being true — for my baby’s sake, not mine. I haven’t even been allowed to see Gran in case she smuggles Aaron in for a meeting. Instead I had to watch as my paranoid mother called her and told her what had happened. I was crying with shame — why couldn’t she have let me tell her? Eventually Mum handed me the phone.

“Hannah? Are you OK?” Gran sounded worried.

“Not really.”

“Do you remember what I said? That you’re a brave girl and I love you?”

I’d thought she was about to tell me that she was taking it back, but she didn’t.

“I should’ve added that you are the strongest girl I know. The strongest person. Remember that, love. This’ll sort itself out and I will be here for you as soon as your mother comes to her senses, which she will. She always does.”

“I love you, Gran,” I sobbed, but Mum was hovering close, beckoning for the handset once more.

At least Mum and I are talking, if you can call screaming matches talking. Robert and Jay aren’t speaking. Jay’s still at his mother’s — Robert told him that if he ran back to university he may as well stay there and, like me, Jay’s not prepared to put that threat to the test. And Lola, my rock, is gone. No one knew how to tell her what was happening, so they’ve sent her to Robert’s parents until everyone stops shouting at each other and we’ve worked out how to patch up our fallen-apart family.

None of them seem to realize that, for me, Aaron is family too.

I am here to do an exam. I am not here to worry about Hannah, or think about what’s happening between us.

I look down at my paper.

I’ve to bisect an angle.

Best get on.

It’s the end of the exam and I reckon I’ve done worse than I did in my mocks. I’ll be lucky if I don’t get a minus grade. So much for my mum’s theory about distractions.

Sitting this close to Aaron, not being able to speak to him, is killing me. As soon as my paper’s collected, I’m ready to leap up and out of my seat. Now is the only chance I’ve got to see him, to talk, to explain…

My bump knocks into the edge of the desk and I bounce back into my seat awkwardly. Shit . I’m wedged now and one of my flip-flops has come off. Fuck the flip-flop. Aaron’s already walking up the aisle. I’ve got to get out of here. I twist out of my seat and hobble after him with only one flip-flop on.

“Hannah Sheppard,” Prendergast calls out and I’m forced to turn back and collect my flip-flop. And my bag of pens. And my calculator. And my bottle of water.

I scuff my way out of the hallway, trying to slide my foot into my footwear, because I can’t bend down to do it or I’ll never get back up again, and I’m searching the crowd for him…

There’s no sign of Aaron, just my mum, standing outside the school doors, waiting to pick me up and take me home.

I walk slowly. Very slowly. I walk so slowly that Gideon and Anj have reached the end of the road before I’m even halfway up the hill. They get so bored waiting for me that they turn back and meet me halfway.

“What’s wrong with you? It’s just a Maths exam,” Gideon says, but I see the look Anj gives him. I haven’t told them what happened at the weekend — it’s definitely Hannah’s place to tell them about Jay and the baby — but Anj noticed Hannah’s absence pre-exam and she knows it’s not a good sign.

A car drives past and we all watch in silence as Hannah’s mum’s car stops at the end of the road and pulls out into the traffic.

“Could’ve at least offered us a lift,” grumbles Gideon and he starts trudging up the hill with Anj once more. I stand there for a second, mastering my disappointment, before I follow them.

Surprise, surprise. I am awake. It is…

…late o’clock (or early o’clock, if you like) at night and everyone is asleep except me. And I need to pee. Padding quickly across the hallway, I sneak into the bathroom. I hear something over the noise of the flush, but I jump when I step outside and see a shadowy figure in the hall. Instinctively I lash out with a slap, batting whoever it is away, my mouth open ready to scream—

“Shut up, Han!”

It’s Jay.

“What are you doing here?” I hiss, but he shakes his head and guides me back to my room, where I elbow his arm away and step back to face him across the carpet. He looks rough, his eyes are small in a tired-looking face and he hasn’t shaved since Saturday. This time nine months ago, I’d’ve wanted to reach out and brush my thumb across the stubble on his skin. Every part of me would have wanted to get close enough to tilt my head up to his, to feel the promise of what might happen before I touched my mouth to his. There is nothing I wouldn’t have done for him to notice me. Now I mostly want to punch him. Repeatedly.

“I’ve got to go.”

“Robert doesn’t know you’re here, then?” I say, crossing my arms over my chest, aware that my ugly maternity bra is visible above the neckline of my vest. I try and tug it out of view.

When I look up, I catch Jay watching me and I see a shadow of the boy I fell in love with. Still want to punch him though.

“I wanted to see you,” he says, surprising me by coming closer. We’ve not been alone since he came home — every conversation has been uncomfortably played out in front of one of our parents, with both of us desperately skimming over the details of what actually happened between us.

Jay reaches out slowly and rests his hands on my shoulders so that I can feel him tilting me into the light that falls in through the gap in my curtains. He’s watching me closely and a more romantic me would dream of him sweeping in to kiss me like I’m the only thing he wants in the world.

The fat, pregnant, permanently disappointed me expects no such thing, remembering exactly how Jay’s kisses turn out. But she’s a little less punchy.

“I didn’t know,” Jay says, quietly.

“What? Could you start making sense sometime soon?”

“That I was, you know… your…”

Oh. That. I shrug. “First. Yeah.”

“But you were so…”

“Amazing?” I give him a cheeky grin and he shakes his head, letting out a quiet laugh.

“You’re impossible.” Jay looks at me, serious once more. “The way you talked I just assumed… But if I’d known…”

It’s not really important. I know everything is fucked. My life. His. But that night with him was something I wanted. Not that I wanted it to turn out like this, obviously. Jay’s hands are still on my shoulders and I wonder what he’s here to say — or is that it?

“Shit.” He takes his hands away to press them over his eyes and rub his face. “Hannah. I’ve got to go.”

“You said that already.”

“Back to Warwick.”

“What? When?” My brain can’t process this.

“Tomorrow.”

I can’t find the words to express the way I’m feeling. “Get out.”

“Let me explain—”

“Not much to explain — you’re running away!” I push him towards the door.

“I am not running away, not this time. Me being here isn’t helping anyone. My exams start the day after tomorrow and what good will it do if I fail the year?”