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“Dad’s going to be so mad,” I sob.
“William doesn’t really get mad. Not about those he loves, anyway.”
“He will when he knows what’s happening,” I shoot back through the noisy tears and hiccups.
“Have you spoken to your mother? Does she want you to go home? She must be angry with William for taking you away,” Verity guesses.
I shake my head because I haven’t heard a word from my mother. I did bump into Natalie, who told me that Mum had been away but was now back with Duncan. I assume they’re enjoying my absence, or at least the clean kitchen.
“It’s nothing to do with my mother.”
“You can tell me. I’m a good listener, and I don’t judge,” Verity promises.
I sit up on the bed and wipe my eyes, then reach down for my bag. I rummage around until my fingers connect with the item that’s given me so much distress. I don’t know why I didn’t throw it into the bin in the toilets of the fast-food restaurant. I don’t know what compelled me to basically put evidence into my bag. Maybe I thought I would need a reminder of my predicament—like I could forget.
“Dad’s going to kill me,” I whisper as I hand Verity the pregnancy test.
I see her expression change. The widening of her eyes. The rise of her eyebrows. The little O formed by her mouth. Then everything changes again, and it’s sympathy and understanding on her face.
“Who is the father?” she asks.
“He’s out of the picture.” I try not to let that crush me. The silence from Joseph is killing me.
“Was it consensual?” Verity peers at me.
“Yes. He’s just not around. I don’t know how to get in touch with him.”
“Okay. Okay, so, what do you want to do?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
“You know your options, right?”
“I can’t keep it,” I blurt out. “Them. He or she. I can’t.”
“Okay, so….”
“I can’t have an abortion either.”
It’s a weird feeling to have two entirely different options and know that neither of them is the right choice for me. I cannot imagine going to the doctors and asking for an abortion, to remove something that is part mine, part Joseph, and was created in one of the moments I felt the happiest in my life. It doesn’t matter if everything in the world has gone to shit, and it doesn’t matter how much I’ve championed the rights for people to make that decision. I just feel dizzy at the prospect when the person making the decision is me.
Yet the opposite of that choice also makes me feel dizzy. I can’t keep a baby. I can barely keep myself going. I’ve mostly raised myself, and I know I have a long way to go before I can call myself a fully functioning adult. I can’t keep a baby and bring them along for that ride. What if it takes me years to get myself into any shape of an adult? How unfair will it be to take an innocent baby on that journey with me? How would that do anything but mess them up?
I always vowed that if I chose to have children, I would be prepared. It wasn’t so much about being in a loving and healthy relationship with somebody, because I’m sure my parents thought their relationship was when they had me, and I’m sure it was until it wasn’t. Instead, I’d vowed that I would be the one who must be healthy and loving before I made that decision. It wouldn’t be fair to inflict my current self onto a baby, no matter how much my heart seems to want to.
Two options. Two equal truths. No answer.
“You have time to decide. I mean, you do have time, don’t you?” Verity frowns.
I nod because I know the math. It isn’t like I’ve missed several periods and ignored those facts. Everything has been like clockwork until last week when what should have arrived, didn’t.
“I have time.”
“There are always other options, Delilah,” Verity says.
“Adoption,” I whisper.
Can I do that? Live with the idea that there’s a baby out there being raised by somebody else? What if the people who adopt my baby are as bad at parenting as my mother? What if they’re just as bad as a parent as I would be? What if my child turns up on my doorstep at eighteen and hates me for my choices?
