Story of a Heart

Chapter 17: Thoughts

Faye's point of view
As the last of the vibrant oranges faded to watery shades in the dark sky, I looked back over at Lisa. She'd been so sweet about what I'd said. So accepting of what I'd told her earlier, and she hadn't asked any difficult questions like I'd almost expected I'd get asked. I was glad to have a friend like her.
"We should be getting back." Lisa said, looking at me. Knowing I probably shouldn't have been looking at her for so long because I was probably just going to make her feel awkward, I shifted my gaze to my feet as I felt my face burning as my cheeks turned red.
"Yeah. Probably." I replied, dragging my feet along the floor to stop the gentle swinging I'd been doing.
She smiled and stood up. I got off the swing, following her back to the car. I settled myself down on the passenger seat, and reached to turn on the radio just as Lisa did. Our hands touched, and for a brief second our eyes met. I could feel the stupid smile coming across my face before I had chance to stop it, and my hand shot back to my lap where I immediately started to fiddle with the bottom of my top.
"I'm sorry." Lisa said.
"Me too." I replied. We knew we were wrong for thinking how and acting how we just had, we were both girls, we could never be together and anyway, I was with Lee and I loved Lee. Remarkably though, I found my mind wondering towards a bizarre daydream of spending time with Lisa in the future, despite the hope living within me still that I belonged with Lee.
I was so caught up with the multiple issues of my imagined world, that I completely ignored when Lisa drove past the turning back to our house. In fact it took me 4 minutes to realise that I no longer knew where we were.
"Where are we going?" I asked Lisa.
"Tescos. I though maybe we both deserved some cookies?" She replied, glancing at me.
"Focus on the road, it scares me when you don't! And yeah, I'd like some cookies. Always in the mood for cookies!" I responded, smiling brightly.
"Good!" She exclaimed, pulling into one of the car parking spaces outside the shop. "Wait here, I'll be back soon." She added, getting out of the car. She shut the door though didn't lock me in, and walked into the shop. For a minute I worried, thinking that a girl being alone in a parked car after dark was asking for trouble though fortunately my train of thought was distracted by the song on the radio ending, and Summer of '69 coming on. It had been one of my favourite songs when I'd started senior school, and I still loved it now. I turned the radio up, and sung along, which probably would have put most people off trying to kidnap me, so at least that wasn't a concern.

When Lisa got back in the car, she handed me a bag of cookies and immediately mumbled a swearword at the seatbelt getting caught in the door when she'd closed it.
"Are you going to eat one or not?" Lisa shouted over the loud music before sighing and reaching to turn it down.
I looked at her, barely distinguishing her voice from the end of the song, and so she turned the music back down, and repeated the question. My response was the tear open the bag and take out a cookie before setting the bag down between us. I hadn't actually looked to see what type of cookies they were, but I knew as soon as I bit into it that they were double chocolate just like she knew I loved.
"Well does that answer your question?" I asked, after swallowing the first mouthful of cookie.
"I do believe it does." She giggled; her mouth half full of cookie.
I smiled, this is why we were best friends, for the times that were like this. When I could giggle without a care in the world, where I could forget about the worries of Steps and just be Faye again. And if there was one thing particularly that I liked, it was just being 'Faye'.

People are always telling me if I don't like "the world knowing my name" (as they put it), I shouldn't have auditioned to be in a band. The problem was, I'd never thought it would get as big as it was now. Steps was going to be a one hit wonder, that's what we were told at that audition anyway. Only H had ever been, as we'd told him at the time, foolish enough to hope Steps could be anything more. But now - looking back to the day I auditioned - that was the biggest lie I'd ever been told. Well almost the biggest lie I'd ever been told. The biggest, questionably, was that Danny in my senior school play was cute. Issac (as was his real name) was not cute and hated me. He especially hated the kissing scene at the end of the play. But I managed to get on with it, in the same way as I manage to put up with H some days. And that method was to just grin and bear it. Issac and H are both lovely people, it's just that both aren't really my sort of person, in the politest way possible. It wasn't even really the fact that H seemed so close with Lee that caused me to disagree with him at times (after all Lisa and I were very much the same with each other, if not worse), just generally we're totally different personalities, who naturally have days where we don't get on. I wasn't sure if I'd met him any other way I'd of ever been his friend, but for Steps I was.

Lisa offered me another cookie, and I took it, without thinking twice about it. She smiled across at me, and then ate a second cookie herself. She was like a second sister to me, so that might explain why she was always so nice. I could tell her anything, she could tell me anything and we were always there to give each other a hug, or a slap if the other was being an idiot. I was always nice to her if she was ill or having a bad day, so I guess it's a bond that must flow both ways. A weird sisterly best friendship, which weirdly was what I needed having grown up with an older sister. I needed someone to watch over me and tell me that the top I was thinking of buying didn't suit me, no matter how that always hurt. I guess I was just used to being around other girls, and I liked to treat Lisa with the usually occasional sisterly sweetness, because she'd grown up surrounded by boys.
"Should we go home now?" Lisa asked eventually.
"Yeah, I think that'd be good." I replied. "We can check that way." I added. Thinking about the potential baby for the first time since the previous conversation about it, which was over an hour ago now.
Lisa smiled at me, and reversed the car out of the space onto the empty road. It felt odd, driving around after dark with Lisa and without Lee. It felt almost like something, some great other power, was trying to tell me I'd made a wrong choice, but they were being a little vague about what actually was the wrong choice I'd made. I couldn't figure out what it was trying to tell me. Was it that I belonged with Lisa? Or that I needed to keep her in my life? I cursed the force in my head, and decided that maybe playing the world like this wasn't such a great idea, after-all, you shouldn't tempt fate, and the last thing I wanted was to start arguments and rivalries within the band.

We pulled onto the drive at that point, very fortunately for me, and the weird force decided that would be a good time to take my prior advice from in my mind, and leave. I breathed a sigh of relief, and looked over at Lisa.
"Are you okay? You seem tense." Lisa observed.
"Yeah I'm fine, just anxious about having to see Lee again. And the result of that test." I replied. It wasn't exactly a lie, just I was also anxious I had a weird feeling for Lisa. Ignoring what I was trying to encourage, I tried my best to push it down inside me. I couldn't do that and I knew it.
"You don't have to speak to him, you know that right?" Lisa told me. "And as for pregnancy – you don't know for sure yet, though we'll... okay well I know for sure I'll be here for you no matter what."
"Oh I know, it's just... I don't know really." I explained hopelessly.
"Let's just go straight to our room." Lisa said eventually, as she unlocked the front door. I nodded, it kept me from an accidental encounter with Lee.

We snuck through the house, unsure about where anybody else was, and hastily let ourselves into our room. We were very practised at letting ourselves into rooms silently, when we stayed out late on tour we always had to sneak back to our rooms as quietly as we could in the hope not to wake anyone up with our giggling in the hallway. Claire would kill us if she knew about all of the late nights we'd had. Lisa shut the door, then sat down on her bed. I was about to join her when I realised that the entire reason she was looking at me expectantly was that she wanted to see that pregnancy test. I walked to where I'd left my dressing gown after letting myself into the room late last night, and pulled the box from my pocket. I was about to get the test out to show Lisa, when I hit a problem. It had nothing to do with how gross it was to be giving someone else a used pregnancy test, and everything to do with how I didn't have the will power to get it out the box and see it again, because this time I knew I was going to check it within an inch of its life. If it really was positive, what was I going to do? I have a life, I have Steps now, and a pregnancy would ruin everything I'd worked to achieve. I thrust the box into Lisa's hands and then grabbed my teddy dog off the bed.
"I'm sorry." I announced, turning away as tears burnt at my eyes. I didn't want to see. I didn't want to know.
I heard Lisa open the box and take out the test. I knew she was examining the test alongside the instructions on the back of the box. I held my breath as she stared at it, shuffling it around on the back of the box to get it perfectly lined up with the reading scale.
"Faye?" Lisa said after a horribly long moment of near silence.
"Yeah?" I replied.
"You're not pregnant honey." She said.
I loosed a sigh of relief and looked at her. "I'm not?" I asked slowly.
She beckoned me over, and I carefully sat down beside her on her bed. I looked at the pregnancy test, and the box, reading the top line that was written in bold. "Based off a chemical reaction - once used it cannot change." Which meant then I'd misread the test in my anxiety last night.
"You're... you're right. I'm not." I said as I processed the given information. I knew when the realisation set in, because relief washed over me like a wave. "Lisa, I'm not pregnant!" I squealed quietly before taking her into a tight hug.
She kissed my cheek and pulled away from my hug slightly. "I'm pretty relieved too! No difficult decisions to make around a baby here yet." She replied. She put her arm around me. "You're okay Treacle." She whispered.
"You're right." I replied, smiling. Life as I knew it was safe, for now.