24 Hours

All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die...

I flushed a hot red and fumbled around for my ringing phone in the pocket of my too-tight jeans. The other people on the train were starting to look at me, giving me those nasty glances that they probably shoot at just about everybody who ever made a noise on public transport.

After what seemed like several long minutes, I finally pulled my Blackberry out and, after seeing that it was Joe, rejected the call. With the tiniest of sighs I held down the off switch and waited for the screen to turn to black. I didn't know what Joe would think about this whole situation. I didn't know whether he would judge me for the decisions I had made. I didn't know many things.

But I knew that I didn't want this baby.

Suddenly I began to regret not bringing a friend along with me. Suddenly I felt so vulnerable and alone. I'd been kidding myself this whole time that I was strong enough to be able to deal with all of this but the truth is that I'm not. I'm categorically weak right now and I need support. Someone to lend me a piece of themselves so that I don't crumble.

But I have nobody.

Instinctively, I placed my left hand flat against my belly. Of course, nothing happened. I don't know what I was expecting to happen. Maybe I thought I would feel a connection of some sort, and it would make me change my mind. But no. I didn't feel a thing. Not a kick, or a flood of emotion, or my maternal instinct kicking into life. Just the soft fabric of my T-shirt and the same dull ache in my frontal lobes.

I got off the train in the city centre, with everybody else. I wondered if anybody knew what I was about to do. Was I looking as guilty and nervous as I felt, or was I just another ghost passing them by on the platform?

My feet tugged my weary body along streets I'd walked a thousand times before. Past my favourite bakery, and the clothes shop where my sister used to work, and even the bar where this whole mess began, just six short weeks ago. It's funny, how different it had looked that night, through a blur of alcohol and loud music and what I thought might have been love but of course only turned out to be lust. I should have known better.

His eyes were so, so blue. I wondered if the baby would have had blue eyes, too, or whether they would have turned out dog-shit brown like mine. And then I hated myself for even allowing that thought to spew from my unconscious. There isn't going to be a baby, I reminded myself. That's why I'm here.

Weaving through side-streets, I kept my head down. Summer is great because you can wear sunglasses when you want something to hide behind.

The clinic from the outside was nothing exceptional. Just another office building at the back of town, tucked away from the commercial shops and the bustle of the city. It lay between a dentist's surgery and a marketing headquarters. A small piece of graffiti had been crafted onto the front of the building, just below a ground-floor window. Maybe we are the problem, it read. I wasn't sure what to think of that.

I took a deep breath and stepped inside. It was quiet and clean and I was terrified. My hands began to shake as I approached the reception. The lady behind the desk was typing something on the computer but stopped when she saw me and looked up at me through thick-rimmed glasses and gave me a smile. It was the kind of smile that makes you think that everything might just be okay. That maybe life is worth living, even when you are lost and alone and scared.

"Good morning, my love," she said softly. "How can I help you?"

I felt like my tongue had swollen to twice its size, or had caught in my throat, but finally I managed to speak. "I have an appointment," I said quietly, my voice barely audible over the whirring of her computer modem.

She nodded, still smiling. "And what name is it, darling?"

"Um, Ellie," I told her. I wasn't sure if she wanted my first name or last name or both names or what.

Thankfully my first name seemed sufficient. "Lovely. Now I'll just give you one of these, flower," she said, passing me a clipboard with a questionnaire and a pen attached. "Just take a seat over in the waiting area and fill that out for me while you're waiting to be seen, okay? Just bring it back here when you're done, love."

I nodded once and took the clipboard from her. For some reason I thought I might cry. Maybe because I finally felt guilty for what I was doing. Or maybe just because she was being so nice to me. I didn't know. I didn't know anything except that I wanted this all to be over now.

I slumped into a bright blue plasticky chair and threw my bag on the floor. Resting the clipboard on my knee, I skimmed a couple of questions. There were the usual age, gender, sexual orientation questions that you expect to get asked on these sorts of things, but no name section, which I quite liked. So quickly I scribbled down 18, female, heterosexual and I found that quite relaxing because it was routine and familiar and general.

But then the real questions started. When did you become sexually active? caught my eye first. I cringed a little at the phrase. It reduces human beings into two groups: active and inactive. Like volcanoes, or verbs. But it is far more complex than that. Human sexuality is a very grey area. You can't just lump people into one of these categories and hope to learn something from it. There is more to it than that.

So I left it blank, for now. A quick survey of the remaining 9 questions revealed much of the same pattern. Questions about whether I was a recreational drug user, when I last had unprotected sex, if I had ever had any sexually transmitted diseases and so on. I let a sigh escape me and brought the pen to my mouth. As I began to chew on the end of it, I remembered that it wasn't mine, but the receptionist was back to typing away so I figured she wouldn't notice and anyway, I needed something else to focus on just for a second.

I'm stupid. I'm aware of that. I'm a stupid girl who makes stupid decisions and I end up living with the consequences. I don't have an excuse for any of it. I can't claim to be stupid because my parents don't love me or my cat recently died or I have a personality disorder. I simply don't think before I act. I let my instincts control me. I'm impulsive, and where has it gotten me? A seat in the abortion clinic.

More than anything I wanted to turn my phone back on and call Joe and tell him everything, right from last month with Daisy in The Olive Bar where this whole fucking thing unravelled. I wanted to tell Joe about the handsome barman with the impossibly blue eyes who I fell in love with, just for one night. About how we spent hours walking along the beach just talking, about how I felt like he really knew me, in those few short hours, better than anybody in the world had ever known me before, better than I knew myself. About how we kissed as the sun rose over the ocean and it was perfect, and about how we made love right there on the sand. And then I wanted to tell him that I had found out that I was pregnant, and made an appointment at the abortion clinic because I didn't know what else to do.

But that wouldn't help anything, would it? I'd still be here. The only thing that would change is that Joe would be mad at me. And how would that be an improvement on the current situation?

A tear fell from my face onto the paper beneath me, landing on the number 18 and making the ink bleed into the page. I wanted this to be over now. That's all. I don't want this baby and the sad thing is that I'm sure somebody else does. Somebody else is out there right now, crossing their fingers and their toes and everything else that they have in the hope that their period won't come this month. And when it does, it will crush them. All they want is a baby of their own. And for whatever reason, it's been decided by a higher power, be it God or genetics or just plain dumb luck, that they can't have one. They keep on trying just in case, eating all the right foods and doing all the right exercises, but deep down in their heart of hearts they know that it just won't happen for them. They have to accept that their dreams won't come true.

And then there's me. Some stupid teenager who got knocked up on her first try just because some fucking barman took an interest in her. Some dumbass kid who is just going to throw it all away because she's too damn scared to face the consequences of her own actions and go through with a pregnancy that she was too stupid to protect herself against.

I hadn't told a soul. I think that's what made it so hard. The fact that I really was alone, and carrying around this huge secret because I was afraid that my family and my friends would judge me. But I deserved to be judged. I judged myself.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up from my incomplete questionnaire to see the kind eyes of the receptionist smiling sadly down at me. "Are you okay, pet?" she asked soothingly, taking a seat next to me.

Shaking my head, I let myself lean into her as she put her arm around my neck. She stroked my hair and told me everything would be okay. I didn't really believe her.

"You're not alone in here, honey," she was saying. "I've seen countless girls going through exactly what you're going through and it isn't easy. This is something life-changing and you will never just forget about it. But you have to remember that this is about you. This isn't about what anybody else wants. It's about what's best for you. So you have to stay strong and think hard until you can say yes, I have done the right thing. And you will get there, sugar, I promise."

These were the most wonderful words I could have heard. She was right. Of course she was right. It's her job to know this shit.

I nodded into her matriarchal chest and sniffled a little bit. "Thanks," was all I could choke out through the lump of tears swelling in my throat.

I heard a door open across the room and there was a tall female doctor standing with a sympathetic smile. "Ellie?"

"That's me." I rose to my feet and nodded gratefully at the receptionist. I could see now that her nametag said Georgina. She gave me a slight nod and she was still smiling but when I looked really hard I could see that she was sad, too. Perhaps we all are.