by Anna Bloom
He reaches down again, this time when he lifts his hand up he has the Gibson in his careful grasp.
He gives a wicked smirk and starts to play “Love Story.”
I can’t stop myself, I jump up from the floor and start screaming.
It’s my Ben; he is on my telly; he is playing Taylor Swift on my telly.
By the time I have finished jumping up and down on the spot and bursting my flat mate’s ears with my high pitched wailing the screen has changed again, and I can see Ben standing in the middle of the stage, the Gibson around his neck as he starts to play songs I’ve never heard before.
I know who they were written for. Every single one of them is for me and the baby that he thinks we no longer have.
After the set has finished and I have wept a lake-full of tears, I walk into my room and pick up my phone quickly typing in the new number Bev gave me the other day.
Me: I love you.
That’s all I have to say for now. That may be all I ever get to say.
I crawl into bed and lay there for the longest time. There is silence in the lounge and I know they are all sitting in there discussing everything in hushed tones.
I just want to hear Ben again, so I get back up and head over to the iPod dock and scroll through until I find ‘Hey There Delilah.’
I settle back down again and glance at his watch and his gran’s ring on the bedside table as I listen to the notes of the Gibson fill the room. Without hesitating I grab the ring and slide it off the strap and back onto my finger where it always should have been. Satisfied, I lay down and listen to Ben’s voice fill the room.
As I lay in the dark I feel the strangest thing, a little pop just below my belly button. I ignore it and focus on Ben’s voice some more but then I feel it again, and then again and then again.
Realisation dawns slowly. It’s my baby. I can feel my baby move. I place my hand over the bump and say in a hoarse whisper. “That’s Daddy,”
I get another pop in response.
Later, Beth and Meredith sneak into my room and get into my bed wearing their ’pajamas.
“You okay?” Meredith whispers to me in the dark.
“Yeah, I am fine. I felt my baby move.”
“Oh my God that’s amazing,” she whispers back although not as quietly.
“I felt our baby move,” I correct and both of them reach for my hands and give them a squeeze.
16th June
I wake up and sit bolt upright.
I must have dreamt it, all of it.
Then two things happen at once. I turn in my bed and see Beth and Meredith still passed out next to me and in the same moment I feel another little pop in my tummy.
“Good morning to you too, sunshine,” I say then realise I am talking to myself.
“And a good morning to you, too,” Meredith sleep grins.
“Oh bugger off back to your own room,” I tell her, pushing her with my feet until she lands on the floor with a resounding thump.
Beth opens one eye and then grins, “Can’t kick me out, I have nowhere to go.”
“A situation that will soon be fixed. Can’t have you, me and a baby in here. It will be way too cramped.”
Beth giggles and then so do I. Meredith doesn’t but then she has fallen back to sleep on the floor.
“Oh no, the exam!” I moan. I have just remembered. There is another exam today. All the excitement of seeing Ben last night has completely pushed it from my memory.
Then I remember something else.
“Oh no, that article is going live today.”
Beth sits up. “Well that is okay. All of that stuff still stands, and you still need to get him to talk to you one way or another.”
“That’s true,” I concede although now I feel a little self-conscious knowing that a lot of people will have seen him on the telly and heard what he said. And then funnily enough there is an article from me the next day laying our relationship bare for all to see. Oh well, the good news is that it is not the sort of publication anyone reads on campus.
Oh shit.
The text.
I grab my phone and look at it, almost not wanting to. It is blank, nothing, well there is a text from Baz which says, “Bet you wish you had kept those tickets now,” but that is not the message that I want.
I wanted one from Ben but apparently it is true, you don’t always get what you want.
Right, then. I need to shake it off and focus. It’s my second to last exam and I cannot fuck it up.
Later
I fucked it up.
All I could think of was the blues and freckles with crinkles, and the black hair standing on end, and him singing “Love Story.” Then him standing alone on stage without his best friends and his words “I had to make some decisions for myself for once,” and wondering just what the hell that means.
What did he mean? Was he standing on that stage because he left the band to be with me and then the next day I told him to go away and that I never wanted to see him again? Has he spent the last two months by himself because I was in fact the only thing that he wanted and I was the one thing that he did not get?
If that was the case, why hasn’t he come home?
The situation on campus was not made any easier by the fact everyone stared at me as I walked to the exam. Obviously they were staring because of last night, but I was acutely aware of the fact I was wearing a ridiculous completely out of character floaty top and skirt to hide my widening middle.
I literally ran all the way from the gates to the examination hall and then back again. I really needed to go to the library to get some books but I could not face it. I will have to ask one of the girls to go for me.
Richard tried to talk to me but I just waved at him and ran off. I don’t want to talk to him, not now I know how he has lied to Fiona, but also how he has lied to me and implicated me in his extra-relationship shenanigans. That is so not cool with me.
So it’s home and revision for Friday, plus maybe a little bit of catch up telly. I am sure BBC iPlayer will have highlights from the festival I can watch and then watch again, and then maybe just one more time.
Later
My phone beeps and I launch myself across the room to land on it hoping desperately that it is Ben.
It’s Zoe.
The article has been another success, bumper hits or whatever it is that they say. She says she hopes it helps and that Ben and I sort it out soon because from his show on the telly it looks like he still loves me
I am not so sure. Why hasn’t he come home? Surely even angry, green and busting out of my clothes I am not that bad to be around?
Oh, my God, I am. Aren’t I?
Even later
My phone again.
Jayne: I miss you, can we all sort this out? I hate missing out on what you guys are up to.
Me: I miss you too, come and sort things out with Beth. Btw we are not taking sides we all love you too. xx
Jayne: R U Coming to the ball on Sat?
Me: No not this year but I think the others are. Sort everything with Beth soon so you can have a good time. xx
There is no way I am going to the Leaver’s Ball, there is not a dress in the world that will adequately hide my secret, and I’m not in the mood to give it away when I’ve made it all the way to the end of term with it still intact.
Nope, although I am technically a Leaver, I will not be attending the Leavers Ball. Besides, it will feel too raw and bring back too many memories of Ben and I and our big goodbye last year.
20th June
The Last Exam: Ever
I am going to try and stay optimistic but as I have buggered up every exam over the last couple of weeks, I am not going to hold my breath that this one is going to be a success.
Add to this that the exam is History on Screen—the one hundred per cent examination one—and it is about the Titanic, I am sure it is clear as I stand in the queue to enter the hall, why I am not feeling overly confident.
“Hey,” says a voice next to me.
I turn and find Barbie looking at me.
Seriously? I know I always joke about history repeating itself, but this is just plain silly.
“What?”
“I just wanted to tell you I was sorry to hear about you and Ben. And I thought he looked like he was still in love with you the other night on the TV.”
I look at her, and then over her shoulder at Richard, who is staring at us intently.
“Well, it’s too late now anyway,” I tell her. I plan to turn back around and ignore her but quickly change my mind. “Maybe it wouldn’t have gone quite as bad as it did, if you hadn’t kept sending him little video clips of me on campus singing and what have you.” And made him incredibly paranoid.
“But I never did,” she states, shaking her blonde hair all over the place.
“Really?” My disbelief is evident for all to hear.
“No, not at all. I recorded them and took the pictures, but I only sent them to Richard because I knew he had a bit of a thing for you back then and I thought it would be funny. I don’t even have Ben’s number, why would I?”
“What?”
What??
“Lilah, jeez. I feel bad enough about what happened last year. I’m not going to make it worse.”
“So you didn’t send them?”
“No.”
I look over her shoulder to where Richard was standing, but he is gone.
“And did you leave the picture of Ben at the airport stuck in my trellising at Easter?”
“What picture?”
“The one from the Daily Star.”
“No, I would never read that paper. The only person I know who does is …”
“Richard,” I finish for her. I have just remembered what he was reading sitting at that study desk in the library the other week. It was a newspaper. The Daily Star. It just didn’t register at the time, otherwise I probably would have shoved it up his arse. Sideways.
“Shit,” I exclaim out loud just as Pilchard comes out of the room and starts to usher us all in.
Unlike last year, I have nowhere to run to. No one to catch. Nothing to try to fix. All I can do is sit in my seat and realise what a stupid fool I have been.
I may as well be Scarlett bloody O’Hara.
Holy crap! I AM Scarlett O’Hara.
I have allowed every doubt and negativity I have ever felt about myself to be manipulated by someone who did not have my best interests at heart. I think of all the conversations I shared with Richard, all the jogs we took where I told him all the little thoughts on my mind, like some silly schoolgirl. The whole time he was storing them up, waiting for a moment to use them against me.
Getting me out and enjoying myself, convincing me that my life didn’t have to stop just because Ben was gone; that was not for my benefit, but rather so he could gather evidence to show Ben that he was better off without me.
I always knew I was better off with Ben than without him. But Richard planted a seed of doubt in Ben’s mind, so that when I asked him to leave on Easter Sunday after finding the picture, Ben thought he was doing the right thing by walking away leaving me to live the life that it looked like I was enjoying but wasn’t. Ben probably thought I would never forgive him for pushing me into getting that upset. He probably thought that if he walked away I would be happier without him. All because I was too much of a dick to bravely tell him that he was the only thing that I ever wanted.
Oh my God. He is the only thing I have ever wanted in my entire life and I never even told him. I deserve to be by myself. I am a selfish bitch.
As I stare at the question paper and absorb what it is asking me to write about I realise one thing, one thing that Richard did not foresee when he was creating his master plan of destruction.
He did not foresee the baby, and neither did Ben and I. He could not see that if Ben and I ever lost faith in one another there would always be something there binding us together.
Faith can conquer all, and faith in this case comes in the shape of a baby created by pure chance.
So what do all the films on the syllabus have in common and what is the sole reason they were created, Pilchard?
Well I can tell you that one.
All the films on the syllabus are based around a desperate tragic situation which seem unsurpassable; but due to the handling of the topic and the sympathetic treatment they are given they are able to teach the audience a valuable lesson; that you can overcome insurmountable odds, and with faith any situation no matter how horrific or tragic can be overcome. That’s what they are all about, Gladiator, Ben Hur, Spartacus, Hamburger Hill, Gone with the Wind, and Titanic.
The film industry may be free-wheeling with their historical facts but they all achieve one thing. They teach us that history is something positive and something for us to have faith in as we struggle through our own lives.
I write like a woman possessed. There is a chance that Pilchard won’t be able to read my answer but I don’t care. I have written it and that is all that matters; well, that and the fact that I actually understood the question.
When we are told we can leave I leap from my chair and head to the door. I can feel Meredith glancing at me wondering what I am up, too. I don’t stop. I dash for freedom because once I am off campus I can stop pretending. I can stop breathing in, and I can stop dressing like a gypsy.
As I get to the door Richard steps into my path but I don’t stop.
“Lilah, wait. It’s not what you think.”
I take the time to slow my pace and turn back to face him.
“Richard?”
“Yes?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Possibly my single most eloquent moment ever.
I need to go home. It is time for me to move on with the next phase of my life and you know what, Ben might not be in it, but then maybe I never deserved him in the first place. I was never brave enough for him. But now I am going to be brave enough for his child instead.
I will not be Scarlett O’Hara any longer. I am going to be the single best single mum this world has ever seen … Okay. Maybe Roehampton has ever seen.
Later
Everyone is out celebrating the end of term. I would have gone. I actually feel like celebrating, but at the same time I also feel like shifting all the bedroom furniture around to work out where I am going to put the cot.
I’ve just finished shoving the bed against the far wall and am sprawled face down on the mattress when I hear the key turn in the front lock. Great, time for a major bollocking from Meredith or Tristan on being irresponsible and not waiting for someone to help me.
“Lilah?”
Nooooooooo.
I freeze automatically and listen to the sound of Ben taking his shoes off by the front door.
Oh my God … Two months I have waited for this moment and it happens when I am bright red, face down on the bed and only wearing knickers and what looks like a crop-top.
Then I think. Who gives a fuck? Ben is walking down the hallway toward the bedroom and I thought he was never going to come back.
“Lilah? What on earth are you doing?”
I don’t want to move. He is going to see the bump straight away and I just don’t know what to say. I’m scared. More than scared; my heart is in my throat as I absorb the fact he is here. Ben is here.
“Uh.”
Yep, that’s it. It’s all I have.
He hesitates at the door waiting for me to turn around and face him. I don’t. I just lie still with my face squished into the mattress as it continues to sink in that Ben is here. Hot fast tears soak into the bed.
“Listen, Lilah, I don’t expect you to forgive me. I know I’ve been horrible toward you. But I just wanted to tell you something.”
He moves toward the bed but I still keep my face down, my sobs getting louder and hotter.
Ben’s back. Ben’s back. Ben’s back.
Why? Why? Why?
I feel the mattress dip under his weight and I know he is a mere touching distance away. I daren’t look at him though.