The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

Having a what?!

“What…? But I thought…”

On the end of the line, voices suddenly erupted loudly and then gradually faded. It sounded like Hellie had switched the TV on.

“You thought what?”

“I thought… So you’re not getting rid of it?”

“The baby? No, that’s what… Is that what you thought I was saying? God no, I’m morally opposed to abortion. Oh God, is that what you thought I was saying? No, sorry if I confused you. I’m keeping it. Definitely.”

It felt like the room was sliding, the walls coming in towards me, all the hope of a couple of minutes ago suddenly wrenched away. I closed my eyes and bit down on my lower lip until it hurt.

There was absolutely no frigging way this could be happening.

I remember that I couldn’t look her in the eye. Couldn’t allow myself to feel anything at all. We were at the end and it was going to hurt.

We stood in silence in exactly the same spot on the bridge where just a few weeks ago we’d made up, put our arms around each other and clung onto the glimmer of hope that was our future. This time, it was a bright, frosty Saturday afternoon. There were dog walkers again, meandering along the towpath, wrapped up against the cold air, stepping aside for the cyclists who weaved around them. Families were out enjoying the sunshine. But apart from all the activity, the landscape was unchanged. The same narrowboats were still moored in the same order, smoke puffing from their chimneys. I even noticed a piece of rubbish – a stream of transparent plastic wrapping – that had been stuck in the bare branches of a nearby tree the last time we had stood here. Not much had altered really, and yet in my world everything was totally different.

I knew it was wrong and utterly selfish, but part of me was still hoping – desperately, irrationally – that Libby would want to stay together despite the baby. She was liberal, used to unusual family set-ups. I figured she wouldn’t have to be involved with the baby, and it’s not like Hellie and I would ever be together.

I’d made all these points to my parents in a foolish, gushing tirade of emotion at eleven o’clock last night, following an exhausting day of thrashing out the finer details of what any of this would mean for our family.

My dad had sighed and looked at his feet a lot. My mum had wrung her hands through her hair and paced furiously up and down the lounge.

“Have you got any idea what’s happening here?!” she’d shouted. “Are you in any way able to comprehend the magnitude of this? It’s a baby, Jamie! A human life! Have you any idea how much responsibility that is? Libby isn’t the issue! She’s not even on the radar! Fretting over the state of your teenage romance is not the bloody priority here!”

“I know that! I know it’s not the priority, but it’s still something. Something I have to sort out!”

“What on earth makes you think that a sensible girl like Liberty would want to be involved in this mess?! Or even that she deserves to be involved in this mess?”

“Libby,” I mumbled, “she hates being called Liberty.”

“After everything you’ve already put that girl through, I can’t believe you’d even consider trying to drag her into this! She is focusing on her education! She is focusing on getting into a good university one day! All the things that you should have been focusing on while you were out drinking and getting into trouble and getting girls pregnant! And, yes, I do understand this has been a tough year for you, but, no, I don’t think you can keep using that as an excuse! And how the hell am I going to explain this to Harmonie? I’ve already had to plead your case on several occasions, not least because you managed to scar her daughter’s face for life! And there was I telling her you were a good lad really, you’d just been through a rough time but you were sorting yourself out now… Ha! And now you’ve gone and proved her completely right and made me look a bloody fool!”

“I can’t believe you’re worrying about what Harmonie is going to think of you! So it’s not okay for me be thinking about how Libby fits into all this, but it is okay for you to be worrying about her flake of a mother?! Well, I’m sorry if you get kicked out of your stupid yoga class again!”

“Libby doesn’t fit into all this, Jamie! You’ve made your bed and now you have to lie in it – alone, if you can manage that! The fact that you are even thinking about getting Libby involved in this just shows that, a, you really do have no comprehension of what is coming your way, b, you are just as selfish as most boys your age, and c, you are completely deluded! Because as much as that girl might think she’s in love with you, I imagine that even she must have her limits! Just like we all do!”

“Jamie,” my dad had interrupted, calmly but forcefully, “I know right now you’re struggling to take all this in, and it’s going to take some time to get your head around it. It’s going to take us all time to get our heads around it,” he added, glancing at my mum, “but I think what your mum’s saying is that you’re going to have a lot to deal with over the coming months, and it’s going to mean change. Big change. In every part of your life.”

Deep down, I knew they were right. I could burn myself out trying to cling on to the way things were, but it was all in vain.

My life was turning upside down and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

But still, in spite of myself, in that moment on the bridge,