Today has been so gloriously lazy, we read for a few hours together, we cooked lunch together and listened to music while we ate, we made love slowly before sharing a bubble bath and by the time I was standing in the kitchen cooking dinner, Rosie was napping peacefully on the sofa.
“Ok, so we have Water for Elephants, or The Impossible, what do you want to watch?” I made the mistake of letting Rosie choose the films for tonight,
“Erm, I really don’t mind babe, you choose. I’m going to sort some nibbles”
While we watch Robert Pattinson making friends with a circus elephant that shares her name, Rosie stuffs herself silly with Minstrels before starting on the Doritos and dip.
“Go easy chubs, you’ll be sick!” I can’t believe how much food she’s put away today. I love that she enjoys her food and can’t help but laugh as she grins up at me with salsa all over her teeth,
“What? Do I have something in my teeth? Can I have a kiss? Go on, gimme a kiss…” Rosie sits on top of me and tries to pin my hands as she threatens to kiss me with food all over her teeth,
“Ooh go on kiss me, kiss me! Oh!” Rosie sits bolt upright and puts her hand over her mouth before jumping off me and running to the sink to be sick,
“Oh god. I’m so sorry. I’ll clean it up, I’m sorry!”
“I told you that you’d be sick, are you ok? Get some water” I stand and follow her into the kitchen to see if she’s ok,
Rosie starts to cry as she tries to clean her vomit from the kitchen sink,
“Hey, come on, it’s ok. We all get sick from time to time, don’t get upset” she continues to sob when I turn her around and hug her into my chest,
“Rosie why are you so upset? I don’t love you any less because you ate too much and redecorated my kitchen you know” I smile but she pushes me away and heads for the bedroom, I follow Rosie and as I reach the door I hear her vomiting again in the en suite,
“Rosie, are you ok?” I hear her crying through the closed door and tentatively push it open. As she looks up at me I realise there’s more to this, there’s a look in her eyes that I’ve seen before,
“I lied to you Jackson, I’m sorry” she slumps back against the wall next to the toilet and looks up at me defeated, “The test was mine, I’m pregnant”
It takes a moment of silence before I can think straight, once that moment passes all I can do is walk away.
“Jackson wait, please let me explain!” Rosie has pushed to her feet and followed me into the bedroom. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands, “Please just listen, let me explain”
Rosie kneels on the floor in front of me, begging me to listen but I am furious. I can’t bear to look at her right now, but I do, I look her straight in the eyes as I speak,
“Explain what Rosie? How you lied to my fucking face? How you have been lying to me for the past two weeks? I just cannot fucking look at you right now!” I stand up and push past her. As I leave the room I can hear her start to sob,
“Jackson…Please…I’m sorry!” she’s followed me into the living room and speaks in between gasps for breath, it breaks my heart to see her cry like that but I’m livid with her.
“Rosie don’t! Just bite your fucking tongue because I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want kids, you know that. Maybe that will change in the future but we’ve been together five bastard minutes and it’s been nothing but trouble since day one” Rosie collapses back onto the arm of the sofa and cries so hard that I think she may be sick again. I can’t talk, I can’t go to her. I just stand in the kitchen and stare down at the work top blankly.
After a while Rosie stands and walks to the opposite side of the breakfast bar, she doesn’t raise her head to look at me,
“Jackson, I was scared, I still am…I don’t want to lose you” she speaks calmly but her only infuriate me more,
“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!”
Her 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 pus
hed 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 into 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 my 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…
STEP INTO THE FINAL INSTALMENT…
Rosie & Jackson’s story comes to its conclusion in the third and final part of the Mr Write Trilogy
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Table of Contents
Me & Mr Write
For my family & friends,
Praise for Meeting Mr Write
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Step into the final INSTALMENT…
Me & Mr Write (Mr Write Trilogy) Page 15