Shelly is at college in the morning. I don’t know what I am supposed to say to her; it feels bad inside. I think if I open my mouth, then I will say something bad and maybe she’ll just go away forever. I don’t want her to go away. I just want her to be sorry. I think about doing it back to her. Maybe I can make her feel bad too, like I do, but it means I have to go away and then I don’t see her. Maybe she won’t care that I do it.
She comes over to me and I get afraid inside. Maybe she is going to tell me it is over. “Can we talk?” she asks me and I nod, and then we go outside. I go to light a cigarette to make me not feel so bad inside, but Shelly takes a joint out of her coat pocket and she offers it to me. I take it and light that instead. It makes my head feel numb inside, like I am daydreaming.
“You didn’t go to college last night,” I say to her, but I say it quiet because I don’t want to fight.
“I went out with Julie instead,” she says to me, and I ask her why she didn’t say anything. “If I told you, you’d be all upset about it, so I didn’t.”
I don’t know what to say to her. It makes my head feel all strange. I give her the joint and she starts to smoke it too. She stares at me as she does and I watch her inhale it and then close her eyes before she exhales.
“I think I might be pregnant,” she says to me before I can get my brain in any kind of order to say something to her. She takes another drag on the joint and gives it back to me. Then she reaches into her bag and pulls out a pregnancy test. It has two lines on it, but they aren’t very bright.
“Maybe it is wrong?” I say. It wasn’t like when Michelle was pregnant with Will. Those were all bright. Maybe it changes if they are more pregnant?
We decide that she should go to the doctors. They can do a blood test and make sure, but even they say if it is very early, then they might not be able to tell. It feels like a long time waiting, but it is only a couple of days. I go to the doctors with her and we see the nurse. Shelly is pregnant.
I don’t really know what I am supposed to do or what I am supposed to say. I think about telling my dad, but then I think he might just yell at me and tell me how stupid I am for being caught again. I’m not even eighteen yet. That’s just in a couple of weeks. Maybe I can tell him after that. He said he is going to take me out. Well, Joanne said it, not him. Because he didn’t ever take me anywhere on my birthday. She says he feels bad about it and he looks at a picture of me in his wallet. She says maybe we can all be friends.
I said yes to her. Really, I was going to go out with Lewis, my friend since the middle of high school. My eighteenth is a Saturday. Lewis said I am a lucky git for that one. We are just going to go to the usual place we go out on Fridays and Saturdays when I don’t have Will.
Maybe I can tell my dad on my birthday.
I want to tell someone, though. It feels stuck inside my head, and I have no one to tell so that I can let it out. There is a callbox near my flat. I go to that and call Alan. He knows something is wrong right away. He is older than I am. I used to live with him when my dad threw me out. “What’s wrong?” he asks me.
I tell him about Shelly and that she is pregnant. Then I stay quiet. I don’t want him to shout either. I don’t like to make Alan mad; not that I ever have. He hasn’t ever shouted at me, even when I have done something where he should.
“We’ll take each day as it comes,” he says. “Have you told your father?”
“Not yet,” I say. “Maybe after my birthday.”
“It’ll be okay. I’m here if you need me, okay?”
We talk a while about Will and then about college. He asks me what I am doing for my birthday and I tell him about Joanne and my dad taking me somewhere. He doesn’t say anything, but I hear him sigh.
I feel better after talking to Alan. I tell him thank you and then I hang up the phone. I’m glad I don’t have a phone at my flat. I can call Alan and my dad doesn’t hear. He doesn’t like him.
Shelly tells her mum right away. She isn’t mad about it. Shelly’s sister had a baby very young too. I tell Shelly I am going to wait until after my birthday.
On the Friday, the day before I am eighteen, Nathan meets me at the bus station after I have dropped Will at childcare. He smiles real big when he sees me. He is very excited. More excited than I am, I think. I pull one of the ear phones from my ear and offer it to him. We always share when we walk. We have a special cassette tape which we made one night together. It is mixed with all of our music on it. He doesn’t like the stuff I like and I don’t like his. So we take it in turns.
“Happy birthday,” he says to me. He reaches around his back and brings out a card and a present. “You can open it now if you want to. Maybe tomorrow if you are not going anywhere, we could go to the cinema. I’ll pay. My mum says it’s okay.”
“My dad is taking me out,” I tell him and then it is my turn to smile. Nathan looks sad about it. “We can go in the week if you want to.”
I open the card and the present; he has bought me an eighteen key. “It is the key to being an adult,” he says to me.
I tell him thank you. Maybe he doesn’t know that I am not used to getting presents on my birthday. I don’t know what I am supposed to say about it. I am happy inside, but I can't make it get outside. It makes me feel stupid. I make myself smile at him. “Thank you, I love it,” I say. But the words feel pretend, even though I really do love it. Maybe something is wrong with me.
We walk from the station to college. We talk about lots of things, but we don’t talk about Shelly and the baby. He is mad at Shelly because of what she did and he doesn’t say anything about the baby, even though he knows about it, so I don’t either.
Shelly doesn’t come back to my flat after college. I have to take Will to his mum’s house, so she doesn’t come with me. She just goes home. Nathan is going home too, because I am going to go out with Lewis. “We need to get drunk,” he had said to me when I saw him on my lunch break. His work is near the college. I asked Nathan if he wanted to come, but he said no. He isn’t allowed to. He is only sixteen. He won’t even sneak out because then he feels bad about lying to his mum. He is going to come around on Sunday after my birthday and then stay over.
I meet Lewis in town and we go to the place where we always go. It is a bar and then it has a nightclub underneath it. Lewis makes me get up and sing stupid karaoke with him. I don’t even know what I sing. I just copy him.
We stand by the steps to the stage and watch everyone. Some people sing way too badly. We laugh at them and make stupid jokes. We talk to the people who work there. They know us. We have been drinking in there a long time. Lewis and I laugh because we can't say it’s my eighteenth, then they would know we were drinking underage. I tell them it’s my nineteenth instead.
There are a couple of girls there too. They stand near us. But they move closer and closer all the time. Lewis yells to one of them and grins. “It’s my mate’s birthday today,” he shouts. “Are you going to get him a drink?”
The girls shout something back and we just laugh, even though we don’t hear them. Not long later, they come to us and they have drinks. They give me a bottle of beer and after a couple of hours, we are all very drunk together. I don’t know why I do it. Maybe it’s because Shelly made me so mad, but I kiss the girl who bought me the beer. I kiss her properly and before I even think about it, we sneak into the ladies bathroom and I have sex with her.
When I come out, Lewis is there with her friend. They know what we have just done. He cheers at me and offers me the joint that he and the other girl have been sharing. We all laugh and joke and share the joint until it is time for the place to close and we have to go home again.
I don’t take the girl home with me. She gets a taxi and goes home. Lewis goes home with her friend. I go home by myself.
My flat is dark when I get there. I forgot to leave a light on for myself. Maybe I can sleep outside. I am too afraid to go in. What if the bad man is there? I sit in the corner outside my door. My head spins from all the drinking and the pot. I fall asleep without even realising it.
