Friends With Benefits

Chapter 21

"Don't, Tam, please. Just don't."

The lunch date had been horrific. Eleanor and Danielle had tried desperately to be friendly, and I was grateful to them for that, but I wasn't used to social outings these days and I'd felt nothing but discomfort and uncertainty, insecurity, every time they brought up the pregnancy. They didn't mean to make me feel out of place - in fact, they were only trying to be friendly, I was sure - but whether they out rightly asked about the due date, the scans, the bump, or innocently pointed to a child's coat in a shop window and commenting on how beautiful it was, it made me feel equally embarrassed. They didn't appear to judge me, but I imagined they did in their heads. A successful dancer and an ambitious college girl, and the knocked up sixteen year old. I was out of place.

I missed Harry a lot. I missed when the baby moved for the first time. I wished he was here, so I could have smiled while he pressed his hand to my belly, all warmth and awe at the tiny life inside me. I was too stubborn after our fight over the Josh situation to give him the satisfaction of a phone call to let him, even though my heart pined for nothing more than to hear his voice. Instead, I received a blunt text. How's the baby? x

FWB - Part 21

Tamara's POV

The night ticked onwards, slowly. The second hand seemed to mope along lazily, and yet the minutes passed faster than I would have liked. Forty of them had slipped slyly away right in front of my eyes. And he still wasn't here.

I glared out at the bustling city streets beyond my thick paned window, the glass pounded by smattering rain. In the distance, above the fluorescent brightness of the city lights, the black clouds hung heavy with moisture which poured like mad to London below. I cast my eyes over the flickering colour of the buildings, the skyscrapers, thinking of the people who passed beneath streetlights, yellowing glows lighting up street corners, lovers and friends and mothers. Only one title of which I could relate to right now. I didn't like admitting to myself that I loved him, because I was hurt this evening and tearful and in need of some careful care and attention. And he'd simply forgotten about me, about the girl at home who carried his child.

I tried to make excuses for him; he was busy on the tour, he had innocently forgotten the time, or lost track of it. His head was still full of what had happened with Josh, and it had slipped his mind. But I couldn't help my bitterness, because I needed him now. I was still mad at him, too, for his outburst of violence towards Josh in the presence of fans and cameras. People would be asking questions, people would be wondering. He did both when he rang me that evening, voice gruff and hostile and unforgiving.

"Why him, Tamara?"

I tried to explain to him that it was simple - I wanted him to hate me as much as I hated myself. Because 'a wise girl leaves before she is left'. And Josh was willing. He was an easy prey for my usings, because he wanted me already. But Harry was livid with me, and it stung on the inside. The coldness in his voice when he told me he was upset. It made me angry - did he not realise why I had done it, did he not see that it had meant nothing? He seemed to have no consideration for the fact that I was pregnant and easily upset. Harry didn't realise how his cold reaction affected me, and how his actions towards Josh made me feel. Was it really an appropriate way of proving to anybody that he was mature enough to be a father? Did he not register that it would make me feel uneasy, that it would make me second guess whether keeping the precious baby boy we had created together was the right decision, that all his promises to nourish and protect the two of us, our family, were credible at all? Of course he hadn't, I raged inside my head, because Harry never thought of anyone but himself. I was furious at him for that, completely exasperated at his thoughtlessness. He had yelled at me. He had made me question everything; he'd left it all hanging in the balance...