Frontwards

Friday, January 6th, 2006

The gel stuff was really cold and felt horrible against my skin. Immediately I wanted to wash it all off and run out of the door as far as my aching feet would carry me, but instead I just clenched Kate’s hand even tighter and squeezed my eyes shut. Suddenly there was a pressure on me and then there was a loud whooshing noise filling the room where silence once was. It was just like in the movies.

“Oh my god,” Kate gasped from beside me, and I managed to crack open one eye and glance over at the monitor and then I was hooked. The image was grey and black and blurry as fuck but there was definitely a baby shape on the screen. My features softened and I let out the breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding in and then a tear sprung to my eye and I laughed as it trickled down my cheeks.

“Congratulations, Miss Montague,” the technician smiled. The thing about being knocked up at 23 is that people tend to assume it is intentional. Because only stupid kids get pregnant through drunken shenanigans and callous indifference to protection. Anybody over the age of 20 is smart enough to know about birth control and planned parenthood. Ha.

I just smiled at her and then I smiled at Kate and she was smiling too and everything felt like it would be okay. After a few more minutes of staring at the image on that little screen, I was sent to wipe the crap off of my abdomen and get dressed and then I was given a little print out of my baby and I started to cry again. I got another ‘congratulations’ on my way out. Like I had accomplished something by managing to get up the duff. Hey ho.

Monday, January 9th, 2006

“Fucking seven hundred pounds for first class and still no fucking leg room,” I grumbled, flailing my chubby, water-retented legs around in front of me and pouting.

The middle-aged man in the seat in front of me let out an audible sigh and I was this close to starting a fight with him when I felt Kate’s hand on my forearm and she looked me in the eyes and shook her head slowly from side to side.

“We both know I could take him,” I said, hopefully just loud enough for him to hear. I folded my arms across my chest like a child and glared intently at the back of the seat in front of me, hoping that if I stared hard enough I could burn a hole through the chair and straight into the back of his stupid bald head. Bastard.

We had opted for the “band-aid” approach and boarded the first available plane from East Midlands Airport to Newark, New Jersey. Hence we were royally screwed out of a ridiculous sum of money for business class which was still fucking inadequate for my needs. I let out a long sigh and gazed out of the window. Two hours into an eight hour flight. Marvellous.

In all honesty, pregnancy is a wonderful excuse to not have to inhibit your behaviour. When you’re pregnant you can get away with just about anything. Nobody wants to have to argue with a crazy hormonal pregnant lady. I’m not really showing enough for it to be obvious just yet but generally I just don’t give a fuck what other people think nowadays. I’m allowed to be unreasonable, god damn it, and I have been exploiting my condition on a daily basis for the past week. It’s gotten me out of bus fares, supermarket queues and a bollocking for being late to work. All you have to do is cry hysterically and people tend to move out of the way for you. Even if they don’t realise you’re pregnant, you still tend to get some space if you start sobbing loudly in public. Yeah, pregnancy is a blast.

“So,” Kate began, presumably trying to distract me from the anger coursing through my veins for the ignorant bastard in front of me before I assaulted him. “Any idea what you’re going to say?”

I shrugged. “Probably something along the lines of, ‘Hey Frank, I bet you’re shocked to see me here but I just thought you should know that you’re going to be a father in seven months. Surprise!’” I started fiddling with the magazines in the pouch in front of me. “You know, pretty standard really.”

To be honest, and I do try to be honest when I can help it, I was more concerned about Atticus the cat. I was sure he would miss me when I was gone, and I was not entirely positive that our faith in Old Lady Ripley was well-placed. Sure, she said she would check in on him twice a day and feed him and let him in and out, but what if she misused the spare key we left for her and stole the TV and my laptop and my extensive perfume collection? The elderly can be extremely devious. You watch the news.

The rest of the flight was distinctly average. There was a shitty Eddie Murphy film showing, I had to pee about a hundred times, and whenever we entered turbulence, Kate would grab my hand in such a death-grip that I considered the chance of broken bones before landing. I also asked her to be my birth partner. Then we'd see who would be crushing whose hand.

We arrived at Newark airport at 1am our time, which happened to be 8pm in local time, but we were so exhausted that we just trudged out of the airport with our bags and into the nearest waiting taxi, simply telling the driver to take us to a cheap hotel. He seemed to take pity on us because he could easily have exploited us in our zombie-like state but he pulled up outside a Marriott after only about five minutes.

“That’s fourteen dollars please,” he said, turning to smile at us through the plastic.

I handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change; far too tired to negotiate foreign currency at late o’ clock. He gave us a sweet “God bless you,” and helped us with our bags into reception before smiling again and wandering off. It never occurred to me that he could have stolen anything and easily taken advantage of us, but perhaps I am being too naive in this big, bad world. I don’t think he did do anything anyway, and if he did he was very sneaky about it because I never noticed anything amiss.

“Room for two, please?” Kate muttered to the receptionist, a stout black woman with an overly chirpy attitude as she tapped something into her computer and beamed across the desk at us.

“We have a basic room available for fifty dollars a night,” she told us.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I replied, pulling out more cash and throwing it onto the desk. I reeeeally just wanted a bed. Any bed. Anywhere. Just a place to sleep and I’ll be happy.

She took our details and all this bullshit and then finally handed over a keycard and we only just made it out of the elevator and into room 112 before I crashed.

Tuesday, January 10th, 2006

I spent all day summoning the courage to get it over with, engaging in fierce arguments with both Kate and my rational mind before finally grabbing my coat and hailing a taxi.

I’m pretty sure when Frank scribbled his address down on a Burger King napkin the day before his departure he did not think by any stretch of the imagination that I would turn up pregnant on his doorstep two months later. But there I stood, outside his house, at five-thirty in the evening. Nine weeks pregnant, with a hazy state of mine and eyes raw from crying in the taxi ride on the way here but it did save me ten dollars in cab fare so I shouldn’t grumble really.

I took a deep breath and waited three seconds before releasing it and tapping ever-so-lightly on the front door. Somewhere in the back of my mind maybe I was hoping that if I knocked quietly enough they wouldn’t hear me and none of this would have to happen. But within seconds I heard a yell from behind the door and then some heavy footsteps. Then there was the sound of several locks being unlocked and my tummy began to feel very strange. Not just the normal ‘hey by the way there’s a baby all up in here’ strange, but nervous strange. Butterflies, if you like, but not in a good way like before. In a bad way like I was about to royally fuck up somebody’s life.

Why oh why oh why did I deny Kate’s offer to come with me? Why did I have to be so god damn independent? Argh. Just open the door already.

After what seemed like forever of unlocking locks, the door swung open to reveal a distinctly scruffy-looking Gerard. His raven hair was stuck out at wild angles, his body clothed in an AC/DC t-shirt and Batman pyjama bottoms, his eyes heavy and a cup of coffee clutched in his hand like a lifeline. His eyes widened as he took me in. “Oh.” I noticed his voice was several octaves higher than natural and somewhere my mind made a joke about suggesting to him that he try to recapture this moment if ever he wanted to hit a particularly high note. But no time for my hilarious observations now. Oh god I think I am going to be sick.

“Surprise,” I mumbled, waving my jazz hands by my sides in a kind of ‘ta-da!’ motion but with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

“Daisy,” he finally managed to choke out. Surprised is not even the word.

“Hey,” I said meekly, peeking up at him through my long fringe. “Can I come in?”

Silently he nodded, stepped sideways and gestured for me to enter, slowly pushing the door closed behind me. I stood awkwardly beside him in the hallway for a few seconds. There were a couple of paintings on the wall but otherwise it was nothing special. The walls were an off-white and the flooring was laminated wood or wood-effect. Who knows. Who cares.

“I guess you’re wondering what you’re doing here,” I said sheepishly after a few very uncomfortable moments of silence.

Finally remembering his manners, Gerard’s facial expression turned from dumbfoundment into a small smile. “Kind of,” he replied, pulling me into a weird little hug that last half a second too long for my liking. “Not that it’s not great to see you, obviously.”

“Nice of you to say,” I half-laughed, brushing my fringe away from my eyes. “Um, is Frank here?”

Gerard's eyes widened as if he had just remembered something of great importance. The kind of expression people make when they think they left the oven on, or they left their wallet at home, or they just remembered it's their wife's birthday tomorrow and they haven't got her a present but it's almost midnight and everywhere except the petrol garages are closed until the morning.

"Uhhhh. Yeah. He is. I'll just. Go get him." Gerard started heading upstairs, but then turned back to me. "Stay here.”

Pfft, like I had a choice. If I could I would have ran all the way back to Nottingham. In fact I would have run all the way back in time to that night on the train and I would have just sat down in a different seat and not thought twice about the stranger in the leather jacket. But, alas, here we were in this situation.

Whilst Gerard was gone I spent the time chewing on my lower lip and picking at my fingernails in thought. There is nothing quite like mild self-mutilation to take your mind off of things.

After a while, Gerard slowly made his way back down the stairs. He paused when he saw me at the bottom, as if he had forgotten I was even there, and then jumped down the last few steps. "Sorry, I am being so rude, would you like a drink?"

Despite myself, I couldn't help but laugh. "Gerard, please, I am the rude one, showing up here unannounced and with no invitation," I said casually, as if this wasn't extremely weird for both of us. "But I would love a glass of water."

"Of course!" he exclaimed, leading me through to the sizeable kitchen. "I mean, it appears you have had a long trip."

I laughed again, this time a bit more wryly. "Kind of."

He handed me my drink and looked at me. I could tell he was just dying to know what I was doing here. If he hadn't already guessed. It seemed to me pretty obvious. Why else would I fly three thousand miles across a vast ocean just to see Frank Iero?

"Thanks," I said quietly. I quickly looked away and sipped at my water. It tasted different to English tap-water, I think. Maybe the coppery taste was in my mouth, though.

“Do you want to sit down?” he asked politely, walking through another door and into a large living room. He motioned towards one of the leather sofas and I smiled vaguely as I perched on the end of it, gripping my bag tightly around my middle in case he could see a bump. I sipped at the metallic water and he took a seat on a chair across the room.

Suddenly I was exhausted. The events of the past twenty four hours; the packing, the airport, the flight, the stress, had finally all caught up with me, and I was beat. I was seconds away from falling asleep when Frank entered the room. He looked a bit dishevelled but I wasn't complaining. My god he's gorgeous. Hopefully the baby gets most of his genes.

"Hey," he said calmly, rubbing the back of his neck. "What brings you here?"

Obviously Gerard had told him I was here, but he was being terribly blasé for a guy whose one-night-stand (alright, one-week-stand) had just travelled across an ocean and turned up on his sofa on a Tuesday evening. I come all this way and I don't even get a shred of surprise? If I'd had the energy I would have kicked off, but as it was I just smiled. It was the most unconvincing smile I have ever attempted.

"Sit down, Frank," I said quietly, shuffling over to allow him more space even though there was plenty already.

He took a seat on the same sofa but at the opposite end from me. That hurt. Then he looked at me in a funny kind of way. I noticed then that Gerard had left the room. How conscientious of him. Maybe I would name him godfather for his tact.

"What's up?" Frank finally asked. It then came to my attention that I was crying. Damn hormones.

"Frank," I whispered, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. "I don't... I'm not sure how to..." I took a deep breath to compose myself and looked him right in the eye. "Frank, I'm pregnant."

He froze. The silence that followed was excruciating. Well, almost-silence; I was still sobbing.

We sat like this for some time. Frank frozen still and me, with my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees, sniffling and weeping in a highly unattractive manner. Although what did it matter now if I was attractive or not. I was going to be a mother. Nobody wants to go out with a single mother anyway. My life for the next few years would be nappies and late nights and huge bags under my eyes and babysitters and feeling hugely self-conscious that my vagina had had a person shoved through it.

"Pregnant," Frank eventually repeated, after an eternity. "Are you sure?"

"Well it's either that or I've been brewing a fairly hefty food-baby for nine weeks," I replied. He didn't laugh. Now was obviously not the time for humour.

I dug around in my bag for a second and pulled out a little black photo. "There," I said, handing the ultrasound image to him. "That's definitely a baby."

He stared at the image for quite some time. I don't know if he could tell which bit was the baby or not - it had taken me quite some time - but he just kept on staring.

Upstairs I could hear voices being raised, one of which I'm fairly sure was female. Probably just someone's mum, I assumed. Maybe it was Frank's mum. I could show her a picture of her first grandchild. That would be nice.

"Frank?" I said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder. He flinched at my touch, as if my hand had electricity flowing through it.

"Oh," he whispered. "Sorry. Here." He handed me back my sonogram picture.

"You can have this one," I told him softly, pushing it back to him. "I have one at home."

Hesitantly he took it back from me. "Wow."

"I know this is kind of unexpected," I began, "and I'm really sorry for turning up out of the blue like this, but obviously I had to tell you, and Kate convinced me that face-to-face would be the way to do it, so..." I paused. "Are you okay? Do you want me to leave?"

He hesitated and then eventually shook his head. "No," he croaked. I wasn’t sure which question he was answering. Maybe both.

I didn’t have a chance to ask for clarification because upstairs it sounded like a door had slammed shut and then there were heavy, ominous footsteps down the stairs. Within seconds, a woman had burst into the room Frank and I were currently occupying. But I don't think it was his mother. She was probably no older than me. Tall, slim, brunette. Dark eyes, olive skin, you know the type. She had one of those faces where she looked nasty even when her face was neutral.

Or maybe she was just snarling at me.

"Who is this?" she demanded of Frank, eyeing me up and down with a look of distaste.

Frank cautiously stood up, still clutching the image of my baby. Our baby. Or foetus. Zygote? Whatever. I'm not a scientist.

It was then, as this woman and I were checking each other out - obviously not in a sexual way, it was more like a tiger eyeing up a baby gazelle it was about to have for lunch and I am the gazelle in this scenario - that I noticed a huge diamond ring on her left hand.

No fucking way.

As if on cue, Gerard and Mikey burst into the room behind her and hushed me into the kitchen, closing the door that separated the two behind us.

I couldn't hold it back anymore. The tears came a-flooding. Mikey was supplying me with sheets and sheets of toilet roll which was scratching my face as I wiped them away but he was so sweet and I was so distraught that I didn't care, I just kept taking it and mopping up the tears. And when the hiccups came Gerard pulled me into his chest and stroked my hair.

"I'm pregnant," I sobbed into him.

He froze for a second, and then resumed comforting me. "Shit," was all he could muster. Mikey couldn't even manage that. He just kept dispensing paper towels and when the tears and the hiccups eventually stopped, I recomposed myself (although I didn't see much point) and pulled away from Gerard.

"Is that Frank's girlfriend?" I sniffed, jerking my thumb towards the room behind me and daubing again at my eyes.

They both nodded, keeping their heads down, like kids getting told off. God I was becoming a mother already. Next I would be telling them I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.

"Fianceé," Gerard corrected. Ouch.

“Oh.” What else could I say, really? Fuck.

“Fuck,” Gerard sighed, voicing my own thoughts exactly. “I’m really sorry, Daisy.”

I nodded. There were a million questions buzzing around my head but I reasoned that none of the possible answers I could be given would make me feel any better so I kept them to myself for now.

Shouting could be heard from the living room, both male and female, and I cast a glance over to the dividing door. I couldn’t make out any actual words though.

“I should go,” I said quietly, and neither of the Way brothers tried to convince me otherwise.

“I’ll drive you,” Mikey offered. These were the first words he had said to me today. He is so sweet really, past the shyness. He is certainly a very endearing young man. I get the feeling he lives in Gerard’s shadow but he doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe I could get more out of him on the ride back to the hotel.

“Oh, you don’t have to,” I protested politely, though we all know I was in no position to find my own way back across town. He had already grabbed his keys.

“Here,” Gerard piped up, tearing off a scrap of kitchen paper and scribbling a number onto it with a Sharpie. “This is my number. Call me tonight, okay? We’ll go for dinner tomorrow and talk this through. Just the three of us.” He glanced from me to Mikey and back again with a small nod. “In fact, call me whenever, okay? I mean it.”

I took the sheet from his hand. “Thanks, Gee,” I sniffed, forcing a smile that I hope looked sincere.

It was colder outside than I remembered, even for January, so I pulled my coat tighter around my frame as Mikey led me to a rusty old car. He opened the passenger door for me and ushered me in silently. It had gotten extremely dark outside in the short space of time I’d been inside the boys’ house, and I glanced up at the stars in front of us as Mikey started the engine.

“Did you know that a lot of the stars you see in your peripheral vision aren’t actually there?” I said, rubbing my hands together for warmth. “Your mind just fills in the gaps.”

Mikey gave a small smile. “Where to, Copernicus?”

I couldn’t help but smile, despite all the shit. “We’re staying at a Marriot near here,” I said vaguely. “Near the airport.”

He nodded and we set off. Most of the journey was sat in a not altogether uncomfortable silence.

“So,” he eventually said, slicing through the atmosphere. “Pregnant, eh?”

I had to laugh. A proper, throaty laugh that caught me completely off guard. “Yep,” I replied. “Up the duff without a paddle.”

This was all that was said until we reached the hotel. "Thanks a million, Mikey," I grinned as I hopped ungracefully out of the car. As I was grinning I remembered that Frank was engaged and I was carrying his love child. A sad predicament indeed. Kate would love it.

"I'll probably see you soon," he replied, waving as he pulled away.

"Yeah," I muttered to myself. "Probably."