Authors: Cassandra P. Lewis
“So what you thought you’d just hide a pregnancy from me? What would you have done when you started to show? Were you going to trap me is that it? Were you just going to wait until it was too late to do anything about it?” I stare into her and she takes a step back, she doesn’t look upset now, she looks horrified. I stand my ground.
“
What are you saying Jackson?”
“I don’t want that
Rosie” I point to her tummy, “I don’t want to be a Dad”
“
So you would expect me to get rid of this baby? Is that what you’re saying?” Rosie is red in the face and clearly holding back tears as she asks the question,
“
Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying” I’m actually shocked myself that the words have left my mouth but I can’t go back on it now, they’re out there.
“Fuck you Jackson!”
Rosie storms into the bedroom and I don’t know what she is doing until she comes back out with her bag and tries to open the front door,
“
Where’s the key? WHERE IS THE FUCKING KEY JACKSON?? Let me out now!”
“Rosie you
can’t just leave now. It’s the middle of the night and we need to make a decision together on this” I have a calmed down a lot but my opinion hasn’t changed,
“I’ve made a decision Jackson, you can go fuck yourself! I am having this
baby; this child that we created together in what I thought was a loving relationship. You’re not who I thought you were”
“Well that feeling is fucking mutual! You know that I’m not ready for this so how did you think it was going to go? If you thought it would all be ok, you’d have told me straight away. I’m not having this forced on me Rosie!
And for the record, we didn’t do this together; you did this by not taking your pill!”
“How fucking dare you! Nothing is ever one hundred
percent Jackson, every time you didn’t wear a condom and came inside me we took the risk of this happening!” she is shaking, I can hear it in her voice and see it in her hands as she raises them to brush her hair back from her face,
“Rosie, this is fucked up. You didn’t even want to move in with me and now you want a baby? It’s not the right time, why can’t you see that?”
I’m speaking calmly and trying to make her see sense, but she starts to sob,
“I’ve done it before Jackson! You have no idea what it is like to see a heart beating on a screen and know that you’re taking the decision to stop it, I do! I’m not doing it Jackson; I’m not killing this child! I was sixteen
years old then, I’m a grown woman now and I’m taking responsibility for my actions!”
I am stunned; Rosie has never mentioned that she’s had an abortion before, or anything that hinted toward it. My brain whirs as I realise that it was probably from Jonah and I have to sit, I’m on information overload.
“Jackson, let me go. I can’t look at you. I don’t want you anywhere near me! I am not having an abortion Jackson, no fucking way. I’m disgusted with you. You make me sick Jackson! Let me out now!”
H
er words cut me like a knife but I know I can’t make her stay, too much has been said. I really have lost her.
I open the door to let her leave and watch as she walks away from me and I
can’t believe what just happened.
I sit staring at the glass of vodka on the table while I bandage up the cuts on my hand. I lost it after Rosie left and before I knew what I was doing I had thrown a vase at the front door and put my fist through the door of one of the kitchen cupboards.
I tried to call
Rosie. Over and over again my calls were diverted to voicemail, eventually my call was answered and Pippa told me in no uncertain terms to back off. I tried to convince her to let me talk to Rosie but the line just went dead and when I called back, both of their phones were off.
As I sit in complete silence staring at the shattered glass on the floor it hits me that
I’m going to be a dad, just like Joaquin and my Dad, whether I’m involved or not that is my child. Who am I kidding? I’m nothing like mine and Rosie’s dad’s, they’re real men, not the type to shy away from their responsibilities, not like me. It’s just another thing to add to my list of failures.
As I realise that
I’ve probably just pushed Rosie away for the last time my hurt and rage overwhelm me, the glass that I’m holding joins the vase against the back of the door and I head into my bedroom, I need to try and sleep. Maybe this will all turn out to be a bad dream.
“Rosie, I told you not to hide this from him, of course he’s angry”
Pippa tries
to be rational but right now I just need her to hold me and tell me that I’m better off without Jackson.
“Pip, he said he wanted me to have an abortion!”
I’m not anti-abortion; I think there are situations where it’s understandable. I became pregnant from Jonah’s attack and would rather have killed myself than have to stare into the face of the product of that attack each day and be expected to love it. I went through with the termination and don’t regret it, but when I’m tired or sad I still see that tiny heart beating on the screen when I close my eyes and I can’t bear to add another one along with it. When a child is conceived in love, when the people are going to be married and spend their lives together, how can that be wrong? It’s not ideal to be pregnant when we haven’t even been together a year but we love each other, I thought we did.
It’s three am, I couldn’t face going home alone so I came to
Pip’s, thank god she’s a night owl and was up when I got here. When she opened the door I collapsed into her arms and she just sat holding me on the floor as I cried. She didn’t push me to find out what was wrong; she just waited until I was ready to talk. I would be so lost without her.
“Rosie, I know it seems bad right now but remember how Jackson was with the
kids in Thailand, he loves kids and he will come round. He’s just in shock and he’s angry that you lied to him”
“I don’t want him to come round Pip,
he’s not who I thought he was”
I am adamant that I am done
with him. When my Mam got pregnant with Rafe she was a young unmarried Irish Catholic girl with no option of going home. Dad was just a kid himself, both just starting out in life and had only been together eight months but he stood by her side, he married her, and he still loves her as he did then even to this day.
I continue rejecting his calls until Pippa takes my phone and tells him to leave me
alone; she turns both of our phones off and has silenced the door buzzer. I have an appointment with Frankie tomorrow about the manuscript that I submitted a few weeks back, I am not in the right frame of mind but I know that I need to try and get some sleep.
I head i
nto Pip’s bedroom and she passes me some pyjamas from her top drawer. We climb into bed and despite thinking that I was wide awake, as soon as my head hits the pillow I feel my eyelids becoming heavier as I try to block thoughts of Jackson out of my mind.
When the alarm goes off at eight am it takes me a moment to recognise where I am. As I slowly wake up, memories of last night flood into every corner of my brain and I’m overcome with emotion. I’m furious and heartbroken at the same time and I push myself up out of Pippa’s bed as the tears start to fall from my eyes.
Pip is already up and drinking coffee on her balcony as I head out of the bedroom for the bathroom, I see my phone on the bookcase but I daren’t turn it on,
I’m not ready to face whatever may be lurking on there.
I shower on autopilot and without giving a second thought to what I’m doing I am dressed and leaving Pip’s apartment and heading for Gold Square.
I
can’t face the tube today so I take a taxi to Shoreditch. The traffic is bad and I decide to get out where I am and walk the rest of the way, I’m only a couple of streets away.
I listen to my heels on the pavement
and the sound of cars driving by. Horns are being pressed in fits of road rage and the sounds of people shouting and talking, car stereos and busses hissing as they stop and start fill my ears.
I try to focus on the here and now but m
y mind is whirring, running through Jackson’s words last night, I am still in shock. I know that he said he didn’t want kids, but he also didn’t want a relationship and now look at us. I turn a corner toward Gold Square and fight back my tears as I remember the venom in his voice and the look of anger in his eyes.
As I approach the crossing, the sound of revving engines
Is deafening, the thought of pressing the button to stop the traffic crosses my mind but is quickly replaced by the first clear thought that I’ve had in days,
‘
Fuck him! I am having this baby, with or without Jackson James!’
As I revel in the clarity of my decision,
I step out…
Rosie & Jackson’s story comes to its conclusion in the third and final part of the Mr Write Trilogy
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