Paper Hearts

THEN: Chapter 23

“There is not a day in which your figure does not appear before me; your conversations return to my thoughts” – Alexander Pope

Eden:

Christmas passed without event. For the first time in my life, I didn’t enjoy it – I sulked, pouted, stormed around and the only Christmas song I could bring myself to sing was ‘Blue Christmas’. Even presents couldn’t make me smile like they usually did, though my Nan bought me a grand total of seventeen books that she’d found second-hand, the majority of them vintage. Mum and Dad just bought me stuff for the baby, like I’d asked, and so did most of the rest of my family. I was starting to feel kind of like I didn’t have an identity anymore – I was a girl with a bump, and the bump was a lot more interesting than the girl nowadays.

The New Year made me think of him again – I wondered where he was, what he was doing; I hoped he was celebrating in some way. Emma came over to mine for a party, like we had every year, and I eventually made her hide away upstairs so I could avoid all the questions about me and Ollie and the baby.

“It’s a shame you can’t have some” Emma grinned, tipping the glass of champagne towards me with a self-satisfied little smirk, “You can make up for it in...ooh, eighteen years, when your child can look after itself and you can have fun again”

I knew she was only teasing, and normally I would have laughed; but tears sprung to my eyes and threatened to spill over when Emma looked at me with concern.

“Eden! What’s wrong?”

She almost spilled her champagne as she clambered over my bed to put her arms around me, rubbing soothing circles on my back, “I’m sorry, I was only joking, I didn’t mean to upset y-“

“It’s okay” I snivelled, “It’s okay, really, I’m fine. I’m fine. It’s just...just the hormones, I guess”

“Eddie, this is more than hormones” she saw my lips lift a little at the use of the nickname she’d given me in childhood, “This isn’t normal, it isn’t right for you to be this depressed all the time”

“I’m not depressed! I’m just...I don’t know. Something else”

“It’s okay if that’s how you feel” said Emma warily, “I’m sure we can fix it, somehow” she paused for a second, musing, “Maybe it’s like pre-natal depression, rather than post-natal...”

I giggled reluctantly, wiping my nose on my sleeve, “I don’t think that exists”

Emma looked pleased to hear me laugh, “I don’t know. It sounded good. Maybe I should be a doctor instead of a legal secretary”

I snorted, “Maybe not”

She pulled me into a fierce hug, “Listen to me, okay, you over-dramatic fat lady. You’re going to be okay. Everything is going to work out just fine. You’re going to have this baby and it’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you – even better than Ollie, I swear – and you’re going to move on and be happy. You owe it to the baby to try and be happy. So it’s all going to fine”

I smiled into her shoulder as she hugged me, and wished everything was simple enough to be fixed with a hug.

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By the time I got into my eighth month, I was glad to leave school. It meant no more staring, no more questions, and no more pretending to be okay. I was tired, achy and pretty damn grumpy, and I couldn’t wait for the baby to just get out and be here, with me.