Page 31 of Save You

“They’re not mine,” she blurts.

I breathe out fitfully.“Whose are they, then?”

Now she presses her bloodless lips together.She just shakes her head; the shock in her eyes is enormous.I really don’t want to pressure her, but I need her to know that she can trust me.

“Whatever’s happened—you know you can tell me anything, Lydia.I’m there for you,” I say insistently.

Tears pool in her eyes.She claps her hands to her face and starts sobbing.At that moment, I know.I sense the truth without Lydia having to say a word.Deep inside me, I feel shock, panic, and fear rising up all at once, but I push them down again and breathe in deeply.

Then I come to sit closer to Lydia.“They’re your vitamins, aren’t they?”I murmur.

Her shoulders shake so hard that I can hardly make out her stammered “yes.”And then I do the only thing that makes any sense to me in this situation.I take her in my arms and just hold her tight.

11

James

Lydia is sitting on her bed fidgeting about with the pillow in her lap.I’m trying for the hundredth time to sneak an unobtrusive look at her belly.After half an hour walking up and down in my bedroom, trying to get my pulse under control, I’m now slumped on one of the sofas in hers.

I’m trying to find the right words, but my thoughts are whirling, so messed up that I can’t even get one sentence out.

How?

How the hell are we meant to look after a baby?

How can we keep it a secret from Dad?

How can you take a baby with you to Oxford?

“I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

I look up.There’s no mistaking how tense Lydia is.Her cheeks are flushed; her shoulders are stiff as a board.

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

I feel so utterly stupid.At the same time, I’m realizing how egoistic I’ve been in the last few weeks.I’ve spent the whole time bemoaning my own fate, my loss, my guilty conscience, my brokenheart, when the whole time, my sister knew that she was pregnant and thought she couldn’t tell me.Of course there are things we keep from each other, but not something like this.Not a thing this huge and life-changing.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Lydia whispers.

I shake my head.“I’m sor—”

“No,” she interrupts.“I don’t want sympathy, James.Not from you.”

I dig my fingers into the armrest to stop myself from jumping up again and marching around the room.The fabric crunches under my unyielding grip.

The chasm that opened between Lydia and me when I hurled those unforgivable words at her feels unbridgeable.I’m not sure what I can ask her and what I can’t.Plus, I know absolutely nothing about pregnancy.

I shut my eyes and rub my hands over my face.My limbs feel tired, like I’ve aged from eighteen to eighty in a few hours.

In the end I clear my throat.“How did you find out?”

Lydia looks up in surprise.She hesitates for a moment, then starts to tell me.“My…uh…cycle is never very regular anyway, so at first, I didn’t think anything of it when my period was late.But after a while, I got suspicious because I was feeling really weird too.In general.”She shrugs.“So I bought a test.When we were in London.I did it in a restaurant loo and nearly fainted when it was positive.”

I look at her, shaking my head.“When was that?”

“In November.”

I gulp hard.Two months ago.Lydia’s been keeping this secret for two months, probably shit-scared, and feeling totally alone.The news has really knocked me for six, so how must she havebeen feeling all these weeks?On top of everything else that’s happened.