Living My Best Life

by Claire Frost

  ‘She sounds like a good friend,’ Millie agreed. ‘You’re lucky to have someone like that looking out for you.’

  Bell pulled herself together. ‘I really am. Though you must have made loads of friends through Instagram?’

  ‘It depends on how you define “friends”, I guess. Sure, I know a lot of people online, but it’s not the same know as when you see them in the office every day. And when I left Birmingham and came down here, I lost touch with a lot of the mates I used to hang around with. Although, if I’m honest, many of them started drifting away when I had Wolf. I’d gone from party-loving fashion-buyer Millie to a husk of a new mum who wanted to talk about sore boobs and sleep deprivation, and it felt like I didn’t have anything in common with my friends anymore.’

  ‘That’s sad, you’d have thought they’d have made more of an effort,’ Bell said, shaking her head.

  ‘I think a few of them probably did, but by that point I was firmly in the grip of PND and refused to see anyone,’ Millie replied.

  ‘Well, now you have me to look out for you so we’re all good,’ Bell smiled, trying to lighten the rather melancholy atmosphere that had descended. ‘I think this calls for another drink! Sambuca?’

  ‘I think I’d better pass, I’m afraid,’ Millie laughed. ‘I’m definitely going to feel like I’ve drunk a bottle of wine in the morning and I’m not sure I can cope with feeling like I’ve drunk a bottle of wine and several shots of sambuca, to be honest!’

  ‘You’re probably right. Christ, what was I thinking! I’m glad I’ve got someone a bit more sensible with me. Suze would have been at the bar shouting “shots, shots!” by now. Which would have wiped out tomorrow completely rather than just the morning – I’ll still need to stay in bed. I’ve had a fab time, though. Thank you for coming out, Millie.’

  ‘Thank you for inviting me. I haven’t had this much fun in ages. Which is a bit sad, really, but I might as well admit the truth.’

  ‘Ha! Well, let’s definitely do it again when you next have a child-free weekend. And we’re on for coffee next Saturday after swimming, yes?’

  ‘Wolfie would never forgive me if I said no! He’s been asking all week when we’re going to see you again.’

  ‘Aww, bless him, little does he know what a bad influence I am,’ Bell cackled. ‘Now, shall we share a taxi home rather than brave the night bus? We saved a few quid on those sambucas, after all.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Millie

  Millie had suffered through a dull, wine-induced headache all day, and it hadn’t been helped by Louis dropping Wolf back full of sugar and overexcitement about his trip to the cinema via the pick’n’mix bar, followed by a stop-off at McDonald’s complete with milkshake and ice cream. Within an hour of arriving home, Wolf had gone from tearing-round-the-house crazy to moody-and-slumped-on-the-sofa rude. Then he’d topped it off by being sick and coating himself from head to toe in lurid pink vomit that had more than a tinge of strawberry milkshake about it.

  Millie wasn’t ashamed to admit that she couldn’t have been happier when she was finally able to close the door of Wolf’s room and head downstairs that evening. Despite him only being home a few hours, it felt like days, especially as he’d worked himself up into such a volcano of tears after the first sickness episode that he’d inevitably vomited again, all over his clean pyjamas and fresh bedclothes. A vomcano, Millie thought to herself wryly.

  Once she was in her pyjamas herself and safely ensconced on the sofa with the baby monitor she hadn’t used in years, in case Wolfie had any strawberry-flavoured foods left in his tummy to bring up, Millie reached for her phone. She’d posted a Story on her Insta that morning tagging Bell and was pleased to see it had since got thousands of views.

  After all the stress of arriving late, she’d had a really fun night, even if they had drunk too much wine. It had been strangely therapeutic to talk to her about her depression after having Wolf. She hadn’t spoken about it to anyone for the last few years, mainly because, if she was honest, she still felt embarrassed and guilty about the way she’d felt back then. She’d even taken to apeing Louis and calling it her ‘breakdown’ in her head whenever she thought about it.

  From the moment she’d found out about her pregnancy in the loo cubicle at work, Millie had known she wouldn’t be able to get rid of the tiny seed growing inside her. She had absolutely no problem with other people choosing to terminate their pregnancies if that’s what they wanted – in fact, she’d even held a friend’s hand as she took the pills at the clinic – but instinctively she had known it wasn’t what she wanted. She hadn’t been sure what Louis would say when she told him, but neither had she been prepared for his reaction.

  ‘Sorry, what?’ he’d blinked at her over the table in his kitchen where they were eating dinner. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, you’re a bit old for me to be explaining about the birds and the bees, but you know what happens when two people love each other? Sometimes they create a baby,’ she grinned, reaching for his hand. ‘And for you and me, that “sometime” happened a couple of months ago.’

  ‘But how?’ he asked, seemingly completely baffled. ‘You’re on the Pill.’

  ‘I am, but you know how rubbish I am at remembering to take it sometimes.’

  ‘Have you done this on purpose?’ he asked, his eyes huge and round.

  ‘Louis, don’t be stupid! But it has happened and we’ve just got to deal with it.’

  ‘But it happened because of you. Because you forgot to take the Pill?’ The confident, muscly footballer sitting opposite Millie seemed to dissolve before her eyes and she’d never seen him look younger – or more scared.

  ‘Because of us both, Louis. My egg, your sperm, you know how it works. Look, I know it will take some getting used to and it’s certainly not something I was planning, but we’re going to be parents.’

  ‘But I’m only twenty-three.’ He looked at her through frightened eyes.

  ‘You’ll be twenty-four when the baby’s born. And I know, this was hardly how I planned to be spending my mid-twenties either, but there we go.’

  ‘But what about my career? We’re on track to get promoted, which will mean we’re in the Premiership next season. The actual Premiership, Millie!’

  ‘I know, and here’s the thing, it’s me this baby is growing inside, me who will have to carry it round for the next seven months, and me who will have to push it out of my lady parts.’

  ‘So I’ll still be able to play football?’

  ‘Louis! Have you taken a stupid pill or something? Yes, you’ll still be able to play football, in fact, you’ll need to play football in order to help me provide for this little thing growing inside me – this little thing that you helped make.’

  ‘But what will my mum and dad say?’

  Millie sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know, Louis. Maybe they’ll say, “Congratulations, Louis and Millie, we can’t wait to meet our grandchild.” Or maybe they won’t. But what I can tell you is that I am having this baby whether you like it or not.’

  ‘I never said I didn’t want it, Millie!’ Louis turned shocked eyes on her. ‘I’m not going to make you have an abortion if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘Nobody can make me have an abortion,’ Millie said firmly. ‘As I said, I’m having this baby and while I’d very much like you to be part of their – and my – life, I can’t and won’t make you.’

  In response, Louis had burst out crying, and Millie had spent the rest of the evening comforting him. When she woke up the next morning, Louis was on his side smiling expectantly at her.

  ‘I was thinking that now we’re going to have a baby, you definitely have to move in!’ he’d grinned at her.

  Feeling both relieved that she wasn’t going to have to bring up their son or daughter on her own, and pretty nauseous thanks to that same unborn son or daughter, Millie would probably have agreed to anything at that point.

  Louis quickly seemed
to get used to the idea of impending fatherhood, especially as he found he could use it as a display of his general virility when showing off to his teammates. For him, little changed over the next few months. For Millie, everything changed.

  She was still loath to give up her house-share, but both Louis’ parents and her dad kept saying how silly it was that she had her own place, and that she would have to move in when the baby was born anyway. She knew her dad was anxious about her having a child after only a year with Louis, and the last thing she wanted was for him to worry about her coping with her pregnancy on her own, so a month later she moved the rest of her stuff into Louis’ house.

  Once they’d got over their initial shock, his parents had been so excited about the prospect of a grandson or grandaughter they’d texted at least twice a day with suggestions about cots or travel systems or breast pumps, none of which Millie had much of a clue about or was that bothered about, if she was honest.

  Six months into her pregnancy, she and Louis were over at his parents’ house in Staffordshire, a huge modern pile that Louis had paid for and was excessively proud to give to his parents. They were eating Sunday lunch and talking about the previous day’s match, in which Louis had scored the only goal of the game, taking his newly promoted side into the top half of the Premiership table.

  ‘We were so proud when we saw you hit that goal on Match of the Day,’ simpered his mum. ‘Such a shame we couldn’t come to the game, but we’re free for the next few matches, thankfully. It must have been amazing being there and seeing it for real, Millie.’

  ‘It was,’ she said, smiling at Louis. ‘The crowd went crazy. He was quite the hero.’ What she didn’t say was that she’d been left to make her own way home from the ground and Louis hadn’t reappeared until 4am that morning, when he’d disturbed her already fitful sleep by fondling her breasts and pressing his erection against her thigh. She had murmured something about not hurting the baby and hoped he had drunk enough beer to pass out. Thankfully, he had begun snoring seconds later.

  ‘You know, I was thinking, Mills,’ he said now, pointing his knife at her in a way she found quite irritating. ‘You don’t really need to be doing that job anymore, do you? I mean fashion buying is great and everything, but it’s not as if you really enjoy it, do you? Why don’t you take your maternity leave early and do something you really want to do, like designing your own clothes or whatever?’

  ‘That’s a brilliant idea, Louis! And it’s not as if you need the money, is it, Millie?’ his mum crooned.

  While Millie couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do – after all, designing her own fashion range was her dream – she didn’t like the way Louis and his mum were ganging up on her and implying that she and the baby were now completely reliant on him.

  ‘Maybe,’ she replied. ‘Let’s see how things go.’

  As it happened, a week or so later she was diagnosed with suspected pre-eclampsia and told in no uncertain terms by the specialist at the hospital that she needed to slow right down or she would be admitted to hospital and confined to bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy. The last three months seemed to drag by. The nursery was all decked out with shiny new baby accoutrements and her hospital bag was packed and waiting by the door. Millie spent hours lying on the sofa watching TV and scrolling through the internet, waiting for Louis to come home from training or another team-bonding night. Most of her friends were at work all day and weren’t that sympathetic when she complained about feeling like a beached whale without a cause.

  When she eventually went into labour, her overriding emotion was relief, but eighteen hours of pain later, she was unable to feel any emotion at all. By the time she ended up in the operating theatre the following day for an emergency C-section, three short words were playing on repeat in her head: get it out. Thankfully, the doctors did, but Millie was so exhausted by then that as soon as her baby had been shown to her and she’d been stitched back together, all she wanted to do was sleep. However, that was the last thing that was going to happen, as the midwife soon wanted to show her how to get the baby to latch on, and Louis’ parents appeared bearing balloons and babygros.

  It wasn’t until everyone, even Louis, had gone home later that night and she was left with the baby in its cot beside her hospital bed, that Millie’s brain was able to process what had happened. She was a mother. And her baby was completely and totally reliant on her.

  The first few weeks sped by in a haze of painful breastfeeding, constant nappy-changing and a few snatched hours of sleep. Louis seemed to take to being a father like he had to scoring goals on the football pitch, and he had a knack of jiggling the baby in just the right way to stop him crying. Millie was too exhausted and full of hormones to do more than be thankful he’d actually stopped mewling.

  ‘We really need to decide on a name,’ Louis whispered a few days after they’d returned from hospital, when the baby was asleep on his chest and Millie had gingerly sat down on the sofa after putting the washing machine on for seemingly the millionth time.

  ‘I suppose we do,’ she replied, mustering a weary smile.

  ‘I was thinking maybe Wolf because I play for Wolves and the baby’s our little wolf cub. Then hopefully in a few years we’ll have a whole pack!’ Louis grinned at her.

  Millie screwed up her face. ‘What about Jacob or Luke? I’ve always liked those names.’

  ‘Too Biblical, especially as neither of us is religious. I like Wolf.’ Just then, the baby started to wake up, wriggle around and purse his little mouth. ‘See, he even knows his own name already!’ It was a done deal.

  As the months went on, Millie’s confidence grew and her bond with Wolf strengthened as she learned what he needed and when. But her bond with Louis seemed to grow weaker with every month that passed. While he clearly loved being a dad and doted on little Wolfie, he wasn’t so interested in the washing and the cleaning and the cooking and the night feeds and the shopping. It frequently caused arguments between them.

  ‘Louis, I’m not asking you to clean the house from top to bottom, just maybe wash your own training kit once in a while so I can concentrate on making sure Wolf has enough clean clothes.’

  ‘But I was out working all day yesterday and I’m tired this morning. Can’t you do it?’ he whined, sipping a small glass of orange juice.

  ‘Well, when you say working . . . yes, you were playing football yesterday, but you weren’t last night, were you?’

  ‘Come on, Millie, you know part of the job involves drinks with the lads after the match, it’s hardly anything new.’

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t get in till 3am and now you stink of booze and look like you’re going to throw up. It’s not much fun for me being stuck here all day on my own with Wolf.’

  ‘You wanted the baby, don’t forget, Millie,’ Louis replied, his anger rising with the strength of his hangover. ‘I distinctly remember you saying “I’m going to have this baby whether you like it or not!” and now you have the baby you’re moaning you have to look after him. That’s not fair on Wolfie,’ he added self-righteously. He scooped the snoozing six-month-old out of her arms and began whispering to him. ‘Don’t listen to Mummy, my little Wolf Cub, Daddy’s here now.’

  ‘Louis, that’s not fair! For god’s sake, I just need you to do some washing, is that really too much to ask?’

  ‘Is Mummy getting angry, Wolf Cub? That’s not very nice, is it, especially when Daddy’s head is hurting. Maybe Daddy should go for a nice drive and leave you to sleep and Mummy to calm down.’

  He handed the baby back to Millie, reached for his car keys and shut the door.

  Things had gone downhill from there.

  *

  The group therapy had been helpful, but once Millie had moved out of the area with Wolf, she hadn’t bothered to find another group nearby, presuming she’d be okay now she was away from the pressure-cooker of her relationship. And she had been, up to a point. She’d never returned to that scary place in her head
where she couldn’t see how she could possibly be a good mum to Wolfie, but she had experienced definite low moments. Not that she was going to admit to them, though, in case it somehow got back to Louis and he used it against her. As it was, things between them seemed fairly stable at the moment, and that’s the way she wanted it to stay.

  She had enough problems with random people on social media telling her what a bad mum she was, anyway. Her Story earlier had prompted the trolls to tell her she should be looking after her son and not going out and ‘getting shitfaced’ as they put it, adding ‘wonder what the social will have to say about this’. Millie knew she needed to keep deleting and forgetting about the comments, but sometimes she couldn’t stop them adding fuel to the bad-mother fire that was already burning brightly inside her head.

  *

  By the time the following weekend came around, Millie was wishing that she and Bell were going for several vats of wine again, rather than merely coffee at the community centre café. The week had gone from bad to worse, with Wolfie acting up at home and apparently misbehaving at school, too. The school secretary had called her mobile on Tuesday with the news that the headteacher had asked her to make an appointment with Wolf’s mum and dad at their earliest convenience.

  ‘Why, what’s happened, is Wolf okay?’ Millie had asked, white-faced in the middle of the Topshop changing room in her bra and pants.

  ‘He’s fine, Mrs Price. Mrs Spencer hasn’t informed me of her reasons, but I believe there are some concerns over Wolf’s behaviour of late. Would Thursday afternoon be convenient for you and Mr Price?’

  ‘My name’s Morley, and it’s Ms,’ Millie said with as much dignity as she could after being told the son she thought she’d brought up okay on her own was causing ‘concerns’ over his behaviour. ‘Thursday afternoon is fine for me, though I’ll need to check with Wolf’s father.’

  ‘Thank you, Ms Morley,’ replied the secretary crisply. ‘If you could let me know if that also suits Mr Price, I’ll book a slot in Mrs Spencer’s diary. Goodbye now.’