Mind.
Blown.
Best ending ever.
‘I’m so fucking excited right now,’ he grins, drumming his legs with his hands.
‘Me too.’
‘I am not in danger, I am the danger,’ he says – giving his best Walter White impression.
It’s pretty good.
‘I am the one who knocks,’ I mimic back, trying to sound low and gravelly.
I’m awful but Real Brett is polite enough to laugh.
‘I’m going to look,’ I say quietly.
‘Aaah …’ Real Brett silently screams – his mouth opening as wide as Wallace’s from Wallace and Grommit.
I try my best to look casual as I turn my head to the right – sweeping my eyes across the décor of the room as though I’m taking in the finer details of the usually simplistic Wagamama white walls and observing what the owners have done with the underground space – looking up to the street level with enthusiastic interest. I do so until I can’t take it any more – I look down and there he is. Bryan Cranston sat talking to a female companion while tucking into some sort of noodle soup and a bowl of chilli edamame.
Fuck!
‘Get your phone out – you could totally get a cheeky selfie with him in the background from where you’re sat,’ Brett says, his face animatedly excited.
‘I hate selfies,’ I state, my mind flicking to the amount of time I’ve spent ranting and cringing at Poutmouth Louisa for being a walking advocate for the current craze … photos used to be about capturing the image in front of you and recording the memory of a beautiful moment in time forever – now it’s used to take a picture of yourself (taken from a stupid angle to get those cheek bones to appear and your double chins to disappear), and gloat on Facebook about how hot you look. It’s a throwaway image that says nothing special …
‘It’s Heisenberg,’ he says, rolling his eyes at my stubbornness. ‘Pass it here and I’ll take it then.’
‘Fair enough,’ I giggle, not really having to be talked into it too much. After all, this is an important, noteworthy moment that should be documented and posted on both Twitter and Facebook via Instagram (it’s worth using the filters on this occasion – especially as I’ve been at work all day and look like crap personified). I reach down to my bag and pull out my phone. I click the main button to open the camera app, but before I do that, the screen lights up to let me know I’ve missed five calls from Carly, and have a voicemail.
‘Sorry – I’ll be right back,’ I say, stepping away from Walter White and Real Brett. Pressing play, I lift the phone to my ear and take a deep breath, trying to ignore the feeling brewing in my gut, screaming at me that something’s wrong. Why else would she have called so many times? She always mocks people who repeatedly call – not trusting that the person they’re wanting to speak to would see that they’ve tried to call and phone back when they’re able to talk. Let’s face it, we all have our mobiles on us ninety-nine per cent of the time (we’re in the shower for the other one per cent, or, if we’re lucky, having sex) so although we can’t necessarily tend to it every second of the day, we’re still aware of activity flashing away on the crafty device.
‘Sarah,’ Carly sobs – ugly, needy and panicked.
I’m whacked by a block of ice.
Every part of my being goes cold.
‘I don’t know what to do … There’s blood. Lots of it. Josh isn’t here. I can’t get hold of him. I don’t know what to do. I think … I think … oh God … Fuck.’
Sobbing is all I hear until the message ends ten seconds later.
‘Shit,’ I mutter, trying not to panic, and drastically failing as I look at the phone in my hands.
‘I need to go,’ I blurt at Real Brett once I’m back at the table. I reach for my bag and put on my coat, all the while battling over what I should do – calling Carly back being the most obvious starting point, but I know I have to leave before I can do that. I need to go home.
‘What? But we’ve not even ordered,’ he says, standing up and putting his hands in his pockets as though it’s his fault that I’m running out on him and our night of katsu delight.
‘My friend … Carly,’ I start, but can’t finish. I wave my phone at him instead.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks, his green eyes searching mine, a frown of concern knitting above his brows before his face opens up with understanding – clearly jumping to the right conclusion. ‘Oh fuck. Is she okay? Can I help at all?’
I shake my head as my bottom lip starts to tremble.
This is ridiculous. I really should just call Carly back before I get so upset.
‘I’ve got to go. Sorry Real Brett,’ I mumble, kicking myself for my slip up as I scurry away from the table, up the wooden stairs and out into the cold dark night.
‘Sarah?’ Carly says quietly, as soon as my hands have stopped shaking enough for me to regain the ability to press the dial button on my phone.
I’m surprised by her tone – so different to the panic in her voicemail that was left twenty minutes earlier.
‘Everything’s okay!’ I state relieved, allowing myself to feel hopeful.
‘No. No it’s not,’ she whispers.
‘Oh Carly …’
‘Mmm …’
Silence.
‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Just come home? Can you? I don’t want to be on my own.’
‘Already on my way.’ I say, sprinting to the tube.
‘Have you spoken to Carly?’ Josh asks when I’m out of the Underground and have signal on my phone once more.
‘Yes, nearly home now,’ I say as I lightly jog (it’s all I can manage thanks to my appalling fitness level) towards the flat. ‘Where are you?’
‘I drove back up home to see Mum and Dad. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I was there with her,’ he sighs. ‘I should be back in a few hours.’
‘Are you okay to drive?’ I ask. He sounds distraught at being anywhere other than by Carly’s side.
‘I have to be. I have to be there.’
‘Just take your time and don’t worry … We’ll see you when we see you,’ I say, trying to muster up some encouragement, calmness or hope, but failing dramatically – I just sound like a total twat instead.
I’m not looking forward to walking into our flat and into the devastation that could be waiting for me. Obviously I want to be there for Carly and help her through whatever is happening, but I’d do anything not to be doing so alone. I think about calling Natalia, or Alastair, as back-up or extra support, but realize it’s not my place to do so. Carly called me to be there for her. Perhaps she, rather understandably, doesn’t want to see our other mates right now. She must be shit scared.
‘Sarah?’ Josh asks softly from the other end of the line.
‘Yes?’
‘Tell her I love her,’ he implores. ‘I really do. I mean it.’
‘I will do,’ I say before hanging up, trying to swallow the lump that gathered in my throat from hearing the desperation in his voice.
When I get home I find Carly sat in our tiny hallway staring into space. She barely turns to acknowledge me when I walk through the door, but seconds later her head bows into her knees as she lets out a meek sigh.
‘Oh darling …’ I muster, walking to her and joining her on the floor.
She bites her lip and glimpses across at me, her face ashen with confusion.
‘It’s gone. Just like that,’ she says, her eyes wide and unblinking.
‘Are you sure?’
She nods.
‘Shouldn’t we go to the doctors, though?’
‘Why?’
‘Just to check?’
‘It’s definitely gone,’ she says slowly and adamantly. ‘I’m empty. Deflated.’
I nod, trying to understand what she’s going through, knowing that all I can really do for her right now is to be there and listen.
‘It was horrible.’ She screws up her face at the thought of it. ‘I saw
my baby,’ she says quietly, wanting to voice the memory of the sight feared by so many. ‘It looked sort of like a baby too. I wasn’t expecting that – I thought it would still be a gloopy lump of cells and tissue – but that was him or her. Our little creation. The little helpless being I’ve been so afraid of.’
‘What did you do with … ?’ I ask, not knowing what to call her lost baby. ‘The doctor might want to see what … you know.’
‘I flushed it down the loo …’ Pause. Realization. ‘I flushed my baby down the loo.’
‘Don’t think of it like that.’
‘I did though. I was in shock. I wiped and it was all there and – ’
Looking down at the hands she’s held up, she stops herself. Not because it’s gory and information she’d be embarrassed to share – but because the image is clearly reforming before her.
The memory too rancid and cruel to forget so quickly.
She bites down hard on her bottom lip to rein herself back to reality, to regain control. When she talks again she is calm. ‘I sat and stared at it for ages, unsure what to do – telling myself, blindly hoping, that it might not be what I knew it was. What I could see it was.’
I can feel my heart in my chest as I listen, hating feeling so inept and clumsy in my friendship – wishing I could take away the distress she must be feeling but working her hardest to suppress.
‘I hate calling it an it,’ she muses, continuing as though in conversation with herself. ‘There would’ve been a heartbeat by now, you know – it was a living thing already. It wasn’t an it.’
‘It was your baby.’
‘Yeah …’ she says sadly. ‘It was.’
She takes a deep breath before moving to lie across the floor in a foetal position, using my lap as her pillow. I can’t help but run my fingers through her hair. In some feeble way I hope the soft touch might give her some comfort, but really I know it’s more of an action for myself – to make me feel like I’m actually doing something to help lessen her burden, to console her and take the pain away.
She looks different. Older. Silently broken. Nothing like the strong and feisty ladette I’ve grown up with over the last decade.
‘I knew it was coming,’ she says, her quiet voice wavering just a sliver of a fraction. ‘I woke up this morning and something didn’t feel right. It was my boobs. My boobs told me this would happen. As soon as I found out I was pregnant they turned into these huge squidgy mounds of flesh – I couldn’t stop touching them. They weren’t hard or painful, they were just fuller and different. It blew my mind that my body was intuitively reacting to my growing baby so quickly. Today when I woke up, they were back to normal.’ She pauses. ‘It was already happening. I was already losing my baby. I’ve had cramps too – but I’d read up. Mild cramps are normal … the thing is, where do you draw the line between mild cramps and cramps? It’s all so ambiguous.’
‘I bet.’
‘I’ve been on Google a lot,’ she half laughs. ‘ And on every one of the pregnancy apps Josh made me download to keep us posted on our little one’s growth and development. Unsurprisingly none of them really cover this outcome.’
‘Probably don’t want to worry people unnecessarily.’
‘Yeah. Bit morbid.’
‘Yeah,’ I agree.
Pause.
‘I should probably delete them now.’
‘Have you spoken to Josh?’ I ask. It seems like an appropriate time to bring him up, seeing as she’s mentioned him.
‘I can’t …’ she says flatly, her face turning into my thighs. I wonder if she’s crying.
‘Why not?’ I ask softly.
‘I’m scared to. This little being was the start of something crazy and new for us. It cemented us together and gave us a joint purpose, forcing us to stop hiding what was happening between us, make huge decisions and act. It made it all real. What do we have now?’
‘You still have each other.’
‘Do we?’ she squeaks.
‘He’s your best friend.’
‘But I failed him. I failed us. I failed our baby.’
‘Oh darling, no you didn’t.’
‘I did. I knew this was going to happen. I knew it. I knew I was going to fuck it up.’
The disappointment in her voice is heartbreaking.
‘This isn’t your fault, my love.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘That’s debatable,’ she sighs. ‘It doesn’t feel that way.’
‘I know, but you mustn’t think like that. It won’t help,’ I sigh. ‘How do you feel? Physically. Are you in any pain?’
‘It’s like the worst period ever, but the pain barely resonates. It’s nothing in comparison to the pain in my heart,’ she says, her hand moving from her tummy up to rub her chest. ‘I’m surprised I feel like this. I didn’t know I wanted a baby so badly.’
‘I don’t think any of us know what we really want until we’re put in a situation or have something snatched away from us. Maybe life is more about reacting rather than acting …’
‘Deep.’
‘I’m quite the philosopher,’ I reply.
Silence takes over then. I think for a long while about what I could say to make her feel better, or to lighten the mood – but I come up with nothing. My brain fails me and instead I become conscious of my thinking and can only think about me thinking.
I’m useless. She should’ve phoned someone else.
‘Do you think I deserved this?’ she utters suddenly, breaking into my pathetic musings.
‘How could you possibly?’ I ask, trying to understand her thought pattern.
‘I worried. Thought I didn’t want it and worried about how I’d cope. I should’ve embraced it straight away.’
‘I think a lot of women probably have the same fear but don’t say it. I bet it’s quite a taboo to have a moment of panic … although it seems standard for men to have a wobble.’
‘You don’t think I wished it upon myself, then? That somehow I made it happen? That I’m to blame?’ she asks, all the while her tone steady and measured.
‘No, darling,’ I reply with a punch in my voice, letting her know that in no way do I think she deserves to be put through this torture. ‘No, I don’t.’
I hold on to her a little tighter, wishing I could take away the thoughts that’ll haunt her for as long as she allows them to. Thoughts that are natural, heartbreaking and unjust.
My poor friend.
I’m lying in Carly’s bed a few hours later when the bedroom door opens and I see Josh stopping to catch his breath in the doorway, before walking into the dark room.
‘Baby?’ he whispers.
‘Josh?’ she whimpers, not budging from her balled position in bed.
‘Come here,’ he breathes, going to her.
His strong arms find their way around her body, clutching on to her tightly in his strong embrace.
The bed shakes with their joint sobs.
Their joint loss.
Slowly, I manoeuvre myself from the bed and their private moment, and leave the room unnoticed.
I go to my own bed and weep for them.
26
I feel groggy when I wake up a few hours later, unable to open my eyes thanks to my throbbing headache. It takes a few seconds for this uncomfortable feeling to lift before the events of last night painfully creep in.
Oh shit.
My poor friend.
For a moment I imagine that it was all just a dream – or a nightmare. God knows I’m used to those being majorly fucked up at the moment. Although my heart isn’t up to thinking about my nightly escapades with my imaginary lover. Instead it’s with the couple next door who’ve had their own hearts ripped out and trampled on unfairly.
Oh life, what the hell are you playing at?
I drag myself from my bed and sneak into the bathroom, getting ready for work quickly and quietly – wanting to get out of the flat without disturbing Carly or Josh, who coul
d probably do with a few more hours’ sleep. I can’t imagine how confused and hurt they will be feeling when they wake up, I can’t even begin to imagine their heartache.
My phone rings and vibrates across my bedside table, and I run to get it before it wakes the others.
It’s Natalia.
‘Sar?’ she sniffs.
‘Hey …’ I whisper.
‘Has she?’
‘Yeah,’ I sigh.
‘Oh, fuck.’
‘It’s been awful.’
‘Our poor little lamb,’ she chokes, beginning to sob.
‘How did you know?’
‘She left me a voicemail. I was out with my bosses and forgot to listen to it when I got in.’
‘Oh …’ I groan, thinking back to the horrendous voicemail Carly had left me.
‘I should’ve listened to it.’
‘Nat, you weren’t to know,’ I say, sitting on my bed, hating that she’s feeling awful and wishing I’d have called her. If Nat had seen us both try to reach her she’d have known something was up.
‘I should’ve been there.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up, it wouldn’t have made a difference.’
‘I know, but …’ she takes a deep breath. ‘I could’ve just hugged her.’
I listen as more sobs escape and feel helpless.
‘How is she?’
‘She’s been better. Josh is here now and I think that’ll help.’
‘How’s he?’
‘The same.’
‘Fuck.’
We sit in silence for a moment, both wrapped up in our own thoughts. Unable to put into words how we feel about the situation and finding it impossible to verbalize our sorrow for our friends’ heartbreak.
‘I love you,’ Natalia eventually says.
‘I love you, too,’ I whisper.
‘I’ll call you later.’
‘Okay, love,’ I say, putting down the phone before sitting there and staring at the blank screen.
Taking a deep breath, I scribble out a note for Carly and Josh, telling them I love them, and then leave it on the kitchen worktop before tiptoeing out of the front door, breathing out a sigh as I walk away from our home and make my way to the station.