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Cole:
What happened this morning? Are you having second thoughts?
Shit. How could I explain to him what was happening in my mind? Everything had been okay after our gig, and I’d thought I’d been prepared to do what I could to keep Cole. But then, this morning, in the cold, harsh light of day, I was brought back to reality with a bang. How could we even think about being together, when the odds were stacked against us?
I’d panicked when reality had hit—there was no denying it, but even now, I couldn’t see a different way that I could’ve reacted to the situation.
“Can you pass me the paper, love?” My dad held out his hand to Cole’s mum. With a smile, she slid the newspaper across the table. It was one of our local London papers that veered between sensationalist stories and depressing London news.
“Can you believe that?” June’s smile faded, and then she tutted, tapping her fingernail on the cover. “That poor family. The girl was knocked up by her stepbrother. You know the actor in that series we watched…what was its name? The one set in Brighton, with the killer who was an ice cream seller. Anyway, it was him. The whole family fell apart. Very sad.”
Bile rose in my throat, and my fists clenched so tightly that I knew my nails were making crescent-shaped imprints in my palms.
“Disgusting.” My dad scanned the article, his eyes moving rapidly across the page as he absorbed the text. “They should be ashamed of themselves.”
I swallowed hard, trying to keep the nausea at bay. There it was. Both Cole and I had known that us being together would be a hard pill for our parents to swallow, but to hear this? We’d thought they’d be more concerned about what would happen to our family if and when our relationship fell apart and what other people would say, but it honestly hadn’t crossed my mind that they’d be ashamed and disgusted with us.
“A baby!” June shook her head. “What were they thinking?”
I couldn’t listen to any more.I shot up from my seat, pushing past Cole, who had just entered the kitchen, ignoring his exclamation of surprise. There was no time to say anything to him—I had to escape.
I knew I had to tell Cole what had happened. With the way I’d run out of there, he was probably confused about what was happening, and more than likely, he was jumping to conclusions.
Me:
At breakfast our parents were reading the paper and there was an article about stepsiblings who got pregnant. They said it was disgusting and the family should be ashamed and what were they thinking
Cole:
WHAT THE FUCK? Seriously?
Me:
Yeah. Here’s the article
I sent him a link to the article in question and then waited for his reply.
Cole:
Fuck. They said that?
Me:
Yeah
Cole:
What does this mean? For us?
Good question. How could this go anywhere when our own parents had such an extreme reaction to the thought of stepsiblings being together?
Me:
I don’t know
Cole:
FUCK. I’m about to go into a meeting at work. I want to speak to you. Please don’t make any rash decisions. Don’t give up on us
