Erinsborough Bay, part 1
This is something I've been wanting to do for a while, and I hope you like it! It's going to be played prosperity style, in storytelling mode, with the character focus different each update. At this time, I do plan on Rebecca being the central character, with the other story lines crossing over with hers. This is the story I've been writing for Nano, but I may slow that down to focus on this side, I'm not sure yet. But I plan on doing more of this once Big Brother has wrapped up. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
“Grandpa? Mum’s kicked me out. Can I come live with you?” Rebecca sobbed into the phone.
“What? Why? What happened? Of course you can stay here!” stuttered Owen, taken by surprise.
“I’m…I’m pregnant, Grandpa. Mum said that if I don’t…get rid of it, then I can’t live with her any more.”
“Oh, darling,” he sighed. He wasn’t surprised that Shantel was horrified and humiliated, knowing her to be quite cold hearted and shallow, but to kick her only child out? That was a new low for the woman who ran off with his only grandchild after his wife and son died in a car accident. “You come here, and we’ll talk this through. You can stay here as long as you want. Did you want me to come and get you?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Grandpa. I don’t want her yelling at you, about, well, you know.”
“About me being gay?” Owen sighed, knowing it wouldn’t be worth the fall out to face Shantel and tell her what he thought of her and her bigotry. “It’s ok darling. You get a bus over as soon as you can, and then give me a call. I’ll pick you up from the bus station, ok? Do you need some money?”
“I think I’ve got enough. I’ll call you if I don’t, will that be ok?” Rebecca wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, trying to calm herself. “I think there’s a bus leaving in a few hours, I should be there in the morning. I love you, Grandpa.”
“I love you too, darling. Call me if you need me.”
Rebecca hung the phone up and sat on her bed, unsure of what to do next. She could only think about the argument she just had with her mother, her thoughts seemed too loud for her head, for the empty house. Shantel had stormed out of the house an hour ago, not long after finding out her teenage daughter was pregnant. Rebecca had been too upset, too stunned, by her mother's rejection to do anything except curl up in bed and cry.
She kept hearing her mother call her a slut, whore, stupid and worthless. Some of her favourite names for Rebecca.
The slap across the face was a surprise. It wasn't the first time, but it had been a long time since Shantel had been that angry.
Shantel didn't want anything to do with the pregnancy, or with Rebecca if she kept it.
Rebecca stood up and started looking around her room, trying to decide what she would take with her. She wanted to be out of the house before her mother came back, but she also didn’t want to leave anything important behind. It wouldn’t surprise her if her mother destroyed anything she left behind.
It was too much for her to deal with. She'd only just found out she was pregnant, her head was spinning and her stomach was churning. Rebecca ran to the bathroom to wash her face. She felt so dirty, so unclean. She wanted to make herself as presentable as she could before she left the house, but she couldn't stop thinking about her mother.
Shantel had always been a controlling woman, but Rebecca's father Marcus had helped calm her down. After the accident, Shantel Fletcher lost any semblance of polite behaviour. Immediately after the funeral she packed up the house and took Rebecca to live in an apartment in Pleasantview. If she had her way, Rebecca would have no contact with Owen or anyone in Erinsborough Bay at all. But as the accident occurred just after Rebecca had transitioned into childhood, she not only loved and remembered her grandfather, she was able to keep in contact with him. Shantel drew the line at the 'loser friends' Rebecca wanted to write to, only letting Rebecca speak to Owen on the phone once a month.
Rebecca dragged her suitcases out of her closet and threw them onto her bed. She began filling them with clothes, books, posters, her knick knacks, anything she could find that meant something to her. Holding the framed family photo, she looked down into her father’s smiling face, and started crying again. She missed him so much.
She was sure he wouldn’t have kicked her out. She didn’t mean to get pregnant. She didn’t mean to start sneaking out at night to hang with the older kids from school. But her mother had been so overbearing since they moved here, that when Rebecca finally transitioned into her teen years, she needed to rebel, to break free. The kids from school didn’t care that her grandfather was gay now. They thought it was kind of cool. They thought she was smart and pretty, two things her mother said she wasn’t.
And when Oliver - one of the cool, older boys - started paying lots of attention to her and asked her out, she didn’t say no. She enjoyed sneaking out at night to meet up with him. She enjoyed kissing him in his car. She enjoyed sneaking him into the house when her mother was out.
She wanted to be his girlfriend, but he wasn’t the sort to get tied down. He was a player, and had several girls on the go at any time.
But she enjoyed his attention, and he was very attentive when he wanted to be. She gave him everything he wanted from her, and she took what she could get.
Now that she was pregnant, that attention had disappeared, and his circle of friends had shunned her.
Rebecca wanted to get out of Pleasantview and back home. This place had never been home to her. Erinsborough Bay, with its beaches, the warmth of her grandparent’s home, her father’s grave. She wondered about her childhood friends, and how they’d react to not only seeing her again, but hearing the news.
Pushing her hair out of the way, Rebecca finished packing her things up. “I’ve got to be strong. I have to be,” she said out loud. She knew she could count on her grandfather, but she was just a kid still. She wasn’t ready to be a mother, but she couldn’t ‘get rid of it’, like her mother wanted. She had had so much loss in her life already, that she didn’t think she could handle more, especially if she was the cause of the loss. Maybe a baby would be good for her. If it would get her away from her mother, then maybe that would be for the best.
Maybe she got pregnant on purpose, knowing how her mother would react.
Rebecca stopped in her tracks, wondering if that was true. She had been mad at her mother for so long, but she had always felt powerless. Now she was old enough to hurt her mother in return…but did she do it deliberately? Rebecca shook her head and continued packing. Maybe the sneaking out and the drinking and the messing around with Oliver was a way to try to get some love and affection. Maybe…maybe she meant to get pregnant. Maybe she just wanted someone to love her for her. No strings. No games.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby, that’s all that’s important,” she said to herself. She looked around her room, which now seemed so empty, and sighed, trying not to cry. Slowly, she zipped up her bags, and left the room. Stopping in the doorway, she looked back. The room felt more than empty, it felt soulless.
Her brown eyes filled with tears again as she walked down the stairs, but she couldn’t wipe the tears away until she reached the bottom of the stairs. Grabbing some tissues from the kitchen, she found the note pad her mother used for writing up the shopping list, and sat at the kitchen table, trying to come up with the right words.
“Mum,
I can’t “get rid” of this baby. I can’t live with you any more, you hateful, spiteful bitch. I hope I never see you again.”
Rebecca sighed, and tore the page up. It may be how she felt, but she couldn’t leave it like that.
“Mum,
I’m keeping the baby. I’m going to stay with Grandpa Owen. I’m sorry I disappointed you.
Rebecca”
It didn’t say what she really wanted to say, but she couldn’t burn her bridges. Maybe her mother would come around.
Throwing the torn up note in the bin, Rebecca called for a cab to take her to the bus station. As much as she wanted to take her car, she was sure her mother would report it as stolen and have Rebecca charged. She was sorely tempted, but she couldn’t do it.
“Oh shit,” she swore, and ran upstairs, back to her room.
Pushing her mattress out of the way, she pulled out her diary, which was hidden inside an hollowed out Harry Potter novel, a book her mother couldn't stand to touch, let alone read. Also inside were her savings, money she had kept hidden from her mother. Money her grandfather had sent her.
“How could I forget you??” she asked herself, knowing it contained her most important possessions.
She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and looked at herself in the mirror, desperate to see her father in her face. But as usual, she couldn't.
Hearing the cab pull up outside, she shoved her diary into one of her suitcases, and her money in her pocket. Grabbing her bags, Rebecca walked out of the house, slamming the front door behind her, and took some small satisfaction from how much that would have upset her mother.
She never wanted to see her mother again.
~*~
The bus pulled away from the terminal, and Rebecca breathed a sigh of relief. She had worried that she was going to miss it, or that she wouldn’t have enough money for it, or that her mother would turn up and create a scene or beg her to come back. None of those things had happened, and the bus was only half full. That meant she didn’t have to sit next to anyone, and she could spread out across the seats as she listened to her to music and read her magazines, and try not to think about the life growing inside of her.
Somewhere along the way, she fell asleep, lulled by the motion of the bus. Before she knew it, they were pulling into the bus terminal in Erinsborough Bay, and the sun was rising behind them.
Yawning and stretching, Rebecca looked around the bus, and saw there was only a handful of passengers left. She ran her fingers through her hair and redid her ponytail. She felt awful, and thought she might throw up. She wanted to get off the bus and to her grandfather’s house as soon as she could.
With only a handful of people there, she wouldn’t have long to wait for her bags. Stopping at a vending machine to grab a Coke and some chips, she sat down so she could put something in her stomach.
She figured this churning in her stomach was just morning sickness, and hoped it would go away soon.
Without warning, she broke into tears. She sat there sobbing, the chips crumbling in her fingers, all over her face and her clothes.Her drink fell to the floor, which only made her cry harder. She didn’t want to cry in public, she didn’t want to cry at all, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t find where she put her tissues, and could only use one hand to search for them, as the other was covered in crumbs and she couldn't figure out how to get rid of them. She was a mess.
“Are you ok? Oh, of course you’re not!” she heard someone say. Rebecca buried her face in her hands, not caring now that she was smearing food every where. She nodded, even though she wasn’t ok. But she didn’t know what else to do. Having a complete stranger not only find her at her weakest like this, but want to help was more than she could handle right now.
“You really covered yourself in that stuff, didn’t you?” the stranger asked, and handed Rebecca some wet wipes. “Here, I always have plenty. Clean yourself up a bit. I think I have a mirror in here somewhere too…oh, yup, here it is!”
Rebecca looked over at the person sitting beside her, and was surprised to see it was a fair skinned, blonde teenage girl.
“I’m Jessica. Are you new around here? I’ve lived here all my life, and probably will for the rest of it!” Jessica laughed, as she reached out and started wiping away some of the crumbs that Rebecca had left on the table. Rebecca looked at her, feeling confused. She seemed familiar.
“Jessica Parker?” Rebecca asked.
“Yup! That’s me! Wait, do we know each other?” Jessica tossed the used wipes into a nearby bin and looked at Rebecca quizzically.
“We used to, back when we were kids. I’m Rebecca Fletcher.”
Jessica gaped in shock and then squealed joyfully. “BECCA! Oh. My. God. Are you serious?? Holy cow it IS you!” Jessica immediately threw her arms around Rebecca. “I haven’t heard from you in a million years! What are you doing back here? What’s wrong?”
Rebecca tried to answer, but found she couldn’t. Instead, she ran outside, and emptied her stomach into the gutter.
Jessica had been one of her best friends when they were kids, even though Jessica was a bit older than her. But thanks to Shantel, they had lost touch after the move. Before Rebecca could come back inside, let alone answer, Jessica was out there with her,to make sure she was ok, hugging her.
Jessica was then almost knocked over as a little girl barrelled into her, one who had obviously only just learnt to run. She was all chocolatey skin and blonde hair and full of giggles. Right behind came running a blonde boy, who was looking exasperated.
“She got away from me again Jess! I told you I can’t keep hold of her!” the boy whined, pointing at the little girl who was bouncing in Jessica’s arms saying “Mama Mama Mama” over and over.
“Aww, you’ve just gotta be quicker, Mattie! Carrie’s a little speed demon!” Jessica said, kissing Carrie’s forehead.
“Is she…yours?” Rebecca asked, stunned that the old friend she had run into might also be a teen parent.
“Yup, she sure is,” Jessica said, smiling affectionately at her babbling daughter. “But the other one is my brother, Matthew. Do you remember Grant Reeves? Yeah? Well, we started going out once we got to high school, we got serious, things happened, and, well, along came Carrie.”
“Is it…hard?” Rebecca asked, both scared and relieved. Jessica laughed, and led them back inside.
“Of course it is! I’m still at school, the posh one even, and mum said that Carrie is my daughter, so I have to raise her, as well as go to school. Mum has been great, she pays for everything, and Grant and his parents help out, but mum wasn’t going to let me palm the hard stuff off to her.” Jessica hugged Carrie tightly, and the little girl giggled. “But I do love it. I don’t care much about what those bitches at school say.”
“Oh?” Rebecca didn’t really know what to say. Should she just blurt it out?
“Yeah, you probably remember them. Brittany Parker, Chloe Gonzagas and the Queen Bee herself, Marsha Bruenig. They rule the school. Three of the biggest skanks out there. I've got it on good authority that they've shagged the entire football team already.”
Rebecca felt her head swim and her stomach churn. It was like she was being sucked back into time. Those three girls had been the most popular girls in primary school, and Rebecca’s mother had insisted she be friends with them. She had never liked them much, as they said horrible things about people when they were alone, and used people all the time.
Realising that her stomach was churning again, and not just from anxiety, she ran over to the bin and threw up, again, which embarrassed her. She stood bent over the bin for a minute, to make sure the retching had stopped, before using one of the wipes to clean her mouth. She sat down again, not quite able to meet Jessica’s gaze. Jessica passed her a bottle of water.
“Here, you might want to rinse your mouth out” Jessica looked at Rebecca shrewdly, as Rebecca rinsed and spat into the bin. “So, what’s his name?”
“Whose…whose name?” Rebecca asked nervously.
“The guy who knocked you up.”
Rebecca looked up, surprised. Was it that obvious?
“I’ve had this sort of conversation a lot, Becca. I’ve learnt to read the signs. Is that why you’re suddenly here, and crying and throwing up?”
Rebecca nodded. “Mum kicked me out, so I’m going to move in with my Grandpa for a while.”
”So you’ll be staying in town? That’s great! Well, not great about your mother, but she was always a bitch. Your granddad will love having you here! I’ll love having you here! Are you going to go back to school?” Jessica asked, talking a mile a minute. Rebecca smiled as Jessica prattled on, feeling reassured that she was making the right decision. Running into an old friend who knew what she was going through first hand was like a sign. She was a big believer in signs, and she was sure this was one.
“I’m hoping to keep up with school. I don’t want to drop out. Will the school be ok with me going if I’m…like this?”
“They couldn’t keep me out! It’s not that uncommon, you know. The headmaster is pretty cool, so I reckon if you and your granddad have him over to dinner or something to talk through it first, it’d help. Hey, do you need a ride somewhere? I’ve got the car, and we just came down here so Mattie and Carrie could watch the buses come and go. Do you want me to drive you to your granddad’s?”
Rebecca felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She had more than enough money for a cab, but she didn’t want to go there alone.
“That would be fantastic.”
“Grandpa? Mum’s kicked me out. Can I come live with you?” Rebecca sobbed into the phone.
“What? Why? What happened? Of course you can stay here!” stuttered Owen, taken by surprise.
“I’m…I’m pregnant, Grandpa. Mum said that if I don’t…get rid of it, then I can’t live with her any more.”
“Oh, darling,” he sighed. He wasn’t surprised that Shantel was horrified and humiliated, knowing her to be quite cold hearted and shallow, but to kick her only child out? That was a new low for the woman who ran off with his only grandchild after his wife and son died in a car accident. “You come here, and we’ll talk this through. You can stay here as long as you want. Did you want me to come and get you?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Grandpa. I don’t want her yelling at you, about, well, you know.”
“About me being gay?” Owen sighed, knowing it wouldn’t be worth the fall out to face Shantel and tell her what he thought of her and her bigotry. “It’s ok darling. You get a bus over as soon as you can, and then give me a call. I’ll pick you up from the bus station, ok? Do you need some money?”
“I think I’ve got enough. I’ll call you if I don’t, will that be ok?” Rebecca wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, trying to calm herself. “I think there’s a bus leaving in a few hours, I should be there in the morning. I love you, Grandpa.”
“I love you too, darling. Call me if you need me.”
Rebecca hung the phone up and sat on her bed, unsure of what to do next. She could only think about the argument she just had with her mother, her thoughts seemed too loud for her head, for the empty house. Shantel had stormed out of the house an hour ago, not long after finding out her teenage daughter was pregnant. Rebecca had been too upset, too stunned, by her mother's rejection to do anything except curl up in bed and cry.
She kept hearing her mother call her a slut, whore, stupid and worthless. Some of her favourite names for Rebecca.
The slap across the face was a surprise. It wasn't the first time, but it had been a long time since Shantel had been that angry.
Shantel didn't want anything to do with the pregnancy, or with Rebecca if she kept it.
Rebecca stood up and started looking around her room, trying to decide what she would take with her. She wanted to be out of the house before her mother came back, but she also didn’t want to leave anything important behind. It wouldn’t surprise her if her mother destroyed anything she left behind.
It was too much for her to deal with. She'd only just found out she was pregnant, her head was spinning and her stomach was churning. Rebecca ran to the bathroom to wash her face. She felt so dirty, so unclean. She wanted to make herself as presentable as she could before she left the house, but she couldn't stop thinking about her mother.
Shantel had always been a controlling woman, but Rebecca's father Marcus had helped calm her down. After the accident, Shantel Fletcher lost any semblance of polite behaviour. Immediately after the funeral she packed up the house and took Rebecca to live in an apartment in Pleasantview. If she had her way, Rebecca would have no contact with Owen or anyone in Erinsborough Bay at all. But as the accident occurred just after Rebecca had transitioned into childhood, she not only loved and remembered her grandfather, she was able to keep in contact with him. Shantel drew the line at the 'loser friends' Rebecca wanted to write to, only letting Rebecca speak to Owen on the phone once a month.
Rebecca dragged her suitcases out of her closet and threw them onto her bed. She began filling them with clothes, books, posters, her knick knacks, anything she could find that meant something to her. Holding the framed family photo, she looked down into her father’s smiling face, and started crying again. She missed him so much.
She was sure he wouldn’t have kicked her out. She didn’t mean to get pregnant. She didn’t mean to start sneaking out at night to hang with the older kids from school. But her mother had been so overbearing since they moved here, that when Rebecca finally transitioned into her teen years, she needed to rebel, to break free. The kids from school didn’t care that her grandfather was gay now. They thought it was kind of cool. They thought she was smart and pretty, two things her mother said she wasn’t.
And when Oliver - one of the cool, older boys - started paying lots of attention to her and asked her out, she didn’t say no. She enjoyed sneaking out at night to meet up with him. She enjoyed kissing him in his car. She enjoyed sneaking him into the house when her mother was out.
She wanted to be his girlfriend, but he wasn’t the sort to get tied down. He was a player, and had several girls on the go at any time.
But she enjoyed his attention, and he was very attentive when he wanted to be. She gave him everything he wanted from her, and she took what she could get.
Now that she was pregnant, that attention had disappeared, and his circle of friends had shunned her.
Rebecca wanted to get out of Pleasantview and back home. This place had never been home to her. Erinsborough Bay, with its beaches, the warmth of her grandparent’s home, her father’s grave. She wondered about her childhood friends, and how they’d react to not only seeing her again, but hearing the news.
Pushing her hair out of the way, Rebecca finished packing her things up. “I’ve got to be strong. I have to be,” she said out loud. She knew she could count on her grandfather, but she was just a kid still. She wasn’t ready to be a mother, but she couldn’t ‘get rid of it’, like her mother wanted. She had had so much loss in her life already, that she didn’t think she could handle more, especially if she was the cause of the loss. Maybe a baby would be good for her. If it would get her away from her mother, then maybe that would be for the best.
Maybe she got pregnant on purpose, knowing how her mother would react.
Rebecca stopped in her tracks, wondering if that was true. She had been mad at her mother for so long, but she had always felt powerless. Now she was old enough to hurt her mother in return…but did she do it deliberately? Rebecca shook her head and continued packing. Maybe the sneaking out and the drinking and the messing around with Oliver was a way to try to get some love and affection. Maybe…maybe she meant to get pregnant. Maybe she just wanted someone to love her for her. No strings. No games.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby, that’s all that’s important,” she said to herself. She looked around her room, which now seemed so empty, and sighed, trying not to cry. Slowly, she zipped up her bags, and left the room. Stopping in the doorway, she looked back. The room felt more than empty, it felt soulless.
Her brown eyes filled with tears again as she walked down the stairs, but she couldn’t wipe the tears away until she reached the bottom of the stairs. Grabbing some tissues from the kitchen, she found the note pad her mother used for writing up the shopping list, and sat at the kitchen table, trying to come up with the right words.
“Mum,
I can’t “get rid” of this baby. I can’t live with you any more, you hateful, spiteful bitch. I hope I never see you again.”
Rebecca sighed, and tore the page up. It may be how she felt, but she couldn’t leave it like that.
“Mum,
I’m keeping the baby. I’m going to stay with Grandpa Owen. I’m sorry I disappointed you.
Rebecca”
It didn’t say what she really wanted to say, but she couldn’t burn her bridges. Maybe her mother would come around.
Throwing the torn up note in the bin, Rebecca called for a cab to take her to the bus station. As much as she wanted to take her car, she was sure her mother would report it as stolen and have Rebecca charged. She was sorely tempted, but she couldn’t do it.
“Oh shit,” she swore, and ran upstairs, back to her room.
Pushing her mattress out of the way, she pulled out her diary, which was hidden inside an hollowed out Harry Potter novel, a book her mother couldn't stand to touch, let alone read. Also inside were her savings, money she had kept hidden from her mother. Money her grandfather had sent her.
“How could I forget you??” she asked herself, knowing it contained her most important possessions.
She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and looked at herself in the mirror, desperate to see her father in her face. But as usual, she couldn't.
Hearing the cab pull up outside, she shoved her diary into one of her suitcases, and her money in her pocket. Grabbing her bags, Rebecca walked out of the house, slamming the front door behind her, and took some small satisfaction from how much that would have upset her mother.
She never wanted to see her mother again.
~*~
The bus pulled away from the terminal, and Rebecca breathed a sigh of relief. She had worried that she was going to miss it, or that she wouldn’t have enough money for it, or that her mother would turn up and create a scene or beg her to come back. None of those things had happened, and the bus was only half full. That meant she didn’t have to sit next to anyone, and she could spread out across the seats as she listened to her to music and read her magazines, and try not to think about the life growing inside of her.
Somewhere along the way, she fell asleep, lulled by the motion of the bus. Before she knew it, they were pulling into the bus terminal in Erinsborough Bay, and the sun was rising behind them.
Yawning and stretching, Rebecca looked around the bus, and saw there was only a handful of passengers left. She ran her fingers through her hair and redid her ponytail. She felt awful, and thought she might throw up. She wanted to get off the bus and to her grandfather’s house as soon as she could.
With only a handful of people there, she wouldn’t have long to wait for her bags. Stopping at a vending machine to grab a Coke and some chips, she sat down so she could put something in her stomach.
She figured this churning in her stomach was just morning sickness, and hoped it would go away soon.
Without warning, she broke into tears. She sat there sobbing, the chips crumbling in her fingers, all over her face and her clothes.Her drink fell to the floor, which only made her cry harder. She didn’t want to cry in public, she didn’t want to cry at all, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t find where she put her tissues, and could only use one hand to search for them, as the other was covered in crumbs and she couldn't figure out how to get rid of them. She was a mess.
“Are you ok? Oh, of course you’re not!” she heard someone say. Rebecca buried her face in her hands, not caring now that she was smearing food every where. She nodded, even though she wasn’t ok. But she didn’t know what else to do. Having a complete stranger not only find her at her weakest like this, but want to help was more than she could handle right now.
“You really covered yourself in that stuff, didn’t you?” the stranger asked, and handed Rebecca some wet wipes. “Here, I always have plenty. Clean yourself up a bit. I think I have a mirror in here somewhere too…oh, yup, here it is!”
Rebecca looked over at the person sitting beside her, and was surprised to see it was a fair skinned, blonde teenage girl.
“I’m Jessica. Are you new around here? I’ve lived here all my life, and probably will for the rest of it!” Jessica laughed, as she reached out and started wiping away some of the crumbs that Rebecca had left on the table. Rebecca looked at her, feeling confused. She seemed familiar.
“Jessica Parker?” Rebecca asked.
“Yup! That’s me! Wait, do we know each other?” Jessica tossed the used wipes into a nearby bin and looked at Rebecca quizzically.
“We used to, back when we were kids. I’m Rebecca Fletcher.”
Jessica gaped in shock and then squealed joyfully. “BECCA! Oh. My. God. Are you serious?? Holy cow it IS you!” Jessica immediately threw her arms around Rebecca. “I haven’t heard from you in a million years! What are you doing back here? What’s wrong?”
Rebecca tried to answer, but found she couldn’t. Instead, she ran outside, and emptied her stomach into the gutter.
Jessica had been one of her best friends when they were kids, even though Jessica was a bit older than her. But thanks to Shantel, they had lost touch after the move. Before Rebecca could come back inside, let alone answer, Jessica was out there with her,to make sure she was ok, hugging her.
Jessica was then almost knocked over as a little girl barrelled into her, one who had obviously only just learnt to run. She was all chocolatey skin and blonde hair and full of giggles. Right behind came running a blonde boy, who was looking exasperated.
“She got away from me again Jess! I told you I can’t keep hold of her!” the boy whined, pointing at the little girl who was bouncing in Jessica’s arms saying “Mama Mama Mama” over and over.
“Aww, you’ve just gotta be quicker, Mattie! Carrie’s a little speed demon!” Jessica said, kissing Carrie’s forehead.
“Is she…yours?” Rebecca asked, stunned that the old friend she had run into might also be a teen parent.
“Yup, she sure is,” Jessica said, smiling affectionately at her babbling daughter. “But the other one is my brother, Matthew. Do you remember Grant Reeves? Yeah? Well, we started going out once we got to high school, we got serious, things happened, and, well, along came Carrie.”
“Is it…hard?” Rebecca asked, both scared and relieved. Jessica laughed, and led them back inside.
“Of course it is! I’m still at school, the posh one even, and mum said that Carrie is my daughter, so I have to raise her, as well as go to school. Mum has been great, she pays for everything, and Grant and his parents help out, but mum wasn’t going to let me palm the hard stuff off to her.” Jessica hugged Carrie tightly, and the little girl giggled. “But I do love it. I don’t care much about what those bitches at school say.”
“Oh?” Rebecca didn’t really know what to say. Should she just blurt it out?
“Yeah, you probably remember them. Brittany Parker, Chloe Gonzagas and the Queen Bee herself, Marsha Bruenig. They rule the school. Three of the biggest skanks out there. I've got it on good authority that they've shagged the entire football team already.”
Rebecca felt her head swim and her stomach churn. It was like she was being sucked back into time. Those three girls had been the most popular girls in primary school, and Rebecca’s mother had insisted she be friends with them. She had never liked them much, as they said horrible things about people when they were alone, and used people all the time.
Realising that her stomach was churning again, and not just from anxiety, she ran over to the bin and threw up, again, which embarrassed her. She stood bent over the bin for a minute, to make sure the retching had stopped, before using one of the wipes to clean her mouth. She sat down again, not quite able to meet Jessica’s gaze. Jessica passed her a bottle of water.
“Here, you might want to rinse your mouth out” Jessica looked at Rebecca shrewdly, as Rebecca rinsed and spat into the bin. “So, what’s his name?”
“Whose…whose name?” Rebecca asked nervously.
“The guy who knocked you up.”
Rebecca looked up, surprised. Was it that obvious?
“I’ve had this sort of conversation a lot, Becca. I’ve learnt to read the signs. Is that why you’re suddenly here, and crying and throwing up?”
Rebecca nodded. “Mum kicked me out, so I’m going to move in with my Grandpa for a while.”
”So you’ll be staying in town? That’s great! Well, not great about your mother, but she was always a bitch. Your granddad will love having you here! I’ll love having you here! Are you going to go back to school?” Jessica asked, talking a mile a minute. Rebecca smiled as Jessica prattled on, feeling reassured that she was making the right decision. Running into an old friend who knew what she was going through first hand was like a sign. She was a big believer in signs, and she was sure this was one.
“I’m hoping to keep up with school. I don’t want to drop out. Will the school be ok with me going if I’m…like this?”
“They couldn’t keep me out! It’s not that uncommon, you know. The headmaster is pretty cool, so I reckon if you and your granddad have him over to dinner or something to talk through it first, it’d help. Hey, do you need a ride somewhere? I’ve got the car, and we just came down here so Mattie and Carrie could watch the buses come and go. Do you want me to drive you to your granddad’s?”
Rebecca felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She had more than enough money for a cab, but she didn’t want to go there alone.
“That would be fantastic.”