14th October 2017
MARNIE'S POV
"Trust you to get knocked up before your hen do." Elenore groaned; knocking back a shot of tequila...and then one more for good measure.
"Quit making it sound like a bad thing." I frowned at her. If she kept this pace up, she'd be on the floor before lunch. "I didn't do it on purpose."
"It's not a bad thing." She sighed. "I can't wait to be an auntie again. I just could have really done with a drinking buddy today."
I laid the laminated list of mocktails down on the bar. Ele had booked a "Mocktail Class" for my hen do; followed by lunch at the Camden Street Food festival and then a twilight spa. We'd had afternoon tea the weekend before with other friends and family, and were now keeping up tradition by spending the "official hen do" as just the two of us. But she'd been down in the dumps for weeks.
"What's going on with you?" I asked softly. "I've never seen you sink so much tequila before midday."
She rolled the shot glass between her thumb and index finger; a deep grove etched between her perfectly shaped eyebrows—the results of a week's worth of YouTube tutorials, apparently. "Nothing really." She sighed. "Nothing at all."
"Hm." I exhaled. "That's the biggest load of shit I've ever heard. Why are you lying to me?"
Elenore was an idiot if she thought a) that I was going to drop this, and b) that I believed her. We were family. We'd been in each others lives long enough now to know when something was up. And something was clearly very up with her.
"Where is this bloke?" She snapped, turning her attention to the rest of the room. The bar was packed considering it'd barely hit midday, but our instructor was notably absent. "We've been here twenty minutes already. It's your hen, for God's sake."
I half expected her to throw the shot glass down for good measure.
"Hey, relax! We're in no rush, Ele, and stop avoiding my question. What the hell is going on?" Worried was an understatement of how I felt. This was Elenore, after all. Loud and exuberant Ele. The girl who'd never been able to keep anything to herself since I'd known her. If something had been going on behind the scenes...why hadn't she told me?
I watched as she squeezed the life out of the small piece of glass; her thumb and index finger now drained white. "It's all my fault." She whispered eventually. "All my fault."
In my haste to grab her hands, the laminated menu slid to the floor. Forgotten. Unimportant. I circled Elenore's slim wrists with my fingers and pulled her so that she was angled towards me. "What are you talking about?" I snapped in a slightly hysterical whisper. "Please tell me what's going on, Ele. I'm starting to freak out now."
From underneath her eyelash extensions, Elenore's eyes widened. "Marn," she sobbed. "I think there's something wrong with me."
HARRY'S POV
"Pass the bloody ball, Mitch!" I yelled from within my bubble between the goal posts, at the exact moment someone rebounded off of me and onto the AstroTurf. "What—"
"Fuck sake." Came Liam's muffled voice from behind the layer of transparent plastic. "I'm not going to be able to get up now." He wasn't wrong. Niall had tripped over his own feet at the three minute mark and was yet to get himself upright.
Zorb football had apparently been Adam's suggestion, and despite being absolutely hilarious to take part in—neither team had managed to score in the thirty minutes we'd been playing. Yet somehow, Mitch—who had next to nil football knowledge or experience—had spent most of the time hogging the ball.
"You need to either score a goal or pass it to someone else!" I wailed at him in vain. "Hey!"
Apparently unable to hear me, Mitch continued on. I opened my mouth to yell again—wondering why I'd been elected as goal keeper—when a sudden cry to my left caught my attention. With his legs flailing about, Niall had managed to catch Louis' ankles; sending him flying across the pitch in a comical maneuver that resulted in him taking out the referee.
"Jesus Christ!" Niall yelled, before erupting into a fit of laughter along with the rest of us. "Tommo, I'm so sorry." He attempted to roll in Louis' direction; looking very much a giant hamster in its wheel.
"Bullshit are you sorry!" Louis yelled back; puce in the face. "If I hadn't just flattened the ref, I'd tell him to card you for that, you little shit!"
I grinned at the pair of them. I really hoped that Marnie was having as much fun wherever she was, despite the fact that just thinking of her made my stomach twist with worry. Since seeing the twelve-week scan two days ago, I hadn't wanted to let her out of my sight. Seeing our baby—it made it more real somehow, and now I just wanted to wrap her in bubble wrap and Velcro the two of us together.
Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by the love I felt for my family. Before Marnie and Nola, never in a million years did I think I could feel so strongly about another person. Now I barely wanted to leave the house if I knew they were in it.
"Harry!"
I looked up—too late, of course—and was promptly knocked into the back of my own goal.
MARNIE'S POV
"You need to start from the beginning." I instructed my best friend. "Take a deep breath and tell me everything."
We'd managed to hide in the ladies toilets mere seconds before Elenore fell to pieces. I could only count on one hand the amount of times I'd seen Elenore have a complete emotional breakdown, and the last time had been when Niall was rumoured to be dating Ellie Goulding.
"We've tried and it's not worked." She sobbed in the ridiculously small cubicle that we'd managed to squeeze into. "We've tried and tried and tried."
"What—" I didn't need to ask really. She'd already made it clear what she'd been trying for the day I'd emptied my stomach into the toilet and taken a pregnancy test myself. But I still felt the need to clarify. "You and Niall have been trying for a baby?"
"Yes." She nodded against my chiffon blouse; now saturated with her tears and straining around my growing stomach where she was pressed against the fabric. "Ever since the wedding, but nothing happens. What if there's something wrong with me? Why aren't I getting pregnant?"
Elenore and I usually had all the answers to each other's problems, but what exactly could I say to fix this? As someone who had conceived twice quite easily—including once unplanned—this was unknown territory for me.
"First of all," I said sternly. "If there is a problem, don't just assume you're the one that has it—that's not always the case. And secondly, it's been ten months since the wedding and you've had a lot going on since then; your amazing honeymoon and you've been helping organise my wedding. I know it's only another two months but give yourself a year at least and if still nothing has happened, go and see a doctor. Please don't give yourself a hard time about it."
"But what if it's because of my past?" She sobbed harder; choking on her own words now. My eyes widened—her past?
"What on earth are you talking about?" I snapped. Her heart pounded against my arm, where she'd pressed herself against me. This cubicle was barely big enough for one adult, let alone the two of us—one pregnant and one as a gangly as a baby giraffe.
"My mum didn't want me." Ele mumbled. "What if that means I automatically don't qualify for motherhood?"
I pulled away from her and glared down at where she was nestled—red stained and blotchy, she hardly looked like Elenore at all. "Ele!" I exclaimed. "How could you say such a thing?"
For as long as I'd known her, Elenore had never really expressed any thoughts or feelings towards being abandoned by her mother when she was just a few hours old. Hearing her now link it to her issues conceiving made my heart ache.
"It could be in my genes." She sighed. "Maybe I'm just like my mother in that sense, maybe I'm not cut out for motherhood and maybe this is my body warning me of that in order to prevent me from doing what she did."
I balked. "Elenore, no. We are not doing this." I shook my head; angry now. Angry at her mother, angry at her brain. "We are not going down that route or putting those thoughts in your head." She pulled away from me and folded her arms across her chest—wedged between myself and the toilet roll holder. "Listen to me." I ordered. "You're not your mother. You are my best friend and you are wonderful. And when the time comes, whatever route it takes to get there—you are going to be the most amazing mum. Nola adores you and this baby is going to adore you too. Don't think for a second that you're not mum material."
Elenore's lower lip quivered; sending a rogue tear rolling over her chin and onto the sticky linoleum beneath us. "Ok." She said.
"Ok." I nodded. "Now let's ditch this place and go get a burger."