Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Five

Rideten, Five Years Before

There was a lot of noise in the background, many voices talking and laughing, with the occasional girlish shriek interspersed. Aislen was certain that she could hear Rhett’s voice, and then Cameron’s, and that almost brought her to her knees. “Hello?” She said again.

“Aislen,” it was Heath. There was static on the line. “Are you there? uc-k this,” he said with an irritated sigh.

“I’m here, I’m here,” she garbled out hastily. “Heath--”

“The signal is bad tonight,” he told her, interrupting. “I can’t move from this spot, or I will lose it, so you’re just going to have put up with the background noise.”

“Heath,” she fought back tears, pressing her hand to her mouth. “I… Well, I am…”

Bianca made a small noise of sympathy and reached out, placing her hand on Aislen’s back. (Poor thing. What sort of jerk-off would…)

“Aislen, you need to stop calling the Edisons,” he said tightly. “You’re causing problems. I can’t believe that you can cause problems and not even be in the town. Stop it, okay? Just behave, for fuck sake.”

“Heath… I need to tell you…” She said, her heart racing. “I need to talk to you.”

“Aislen… fuck,” he cursed at something nearby. “Look, I can’t talk. It’s too noisy, and the signal is in and out. I can barely hear you. Did you hear me? Stop calling the Edisons. When you come back to Havermouth…” There was a crackle and then a disconnect tone.

Aislen stared at the phone in shock. She immediately redialled, but the call would not correct. “No,” she said to the phone. “No, no, no!” She redialled again, staring at the phone and panting with stress as she willed the call to connect. There was no signal. “No!” She cried out sharply, tears falling. She fumbled the phone in her urgent haste, and it fell to the ground with a crack.

She dropped to her knees and picked it up. The screen was shattered and had gone black. She burst into sobbing wails and Bianca wrapped around her, rocking, and murmuring in an attempt to comfort her.

(What a dick move) Bianca was incensed on her behalf. “What did he say?”

Aislen stared at the broken phone. “Is there… Is there a repair shop in town?”

“Yeah, of course. They won’t be open until after ten tomorrow though.”

Aislen blew out a breath slowly. It wasn’t a lost cause, she told herself. The first deposit of scholarship money had cleared that morning. She could afford to have the phone repaired, and then she’d call again, and hopefully Heath would be in town, rather than at the river house. “It was a bad signal,” she told Bianca. “He was at a party a bit out of town. The reception there is a bit in and out. He couldn’t really hear me.”

“Okay, so we’ll get the phone repaired, and you can try again tomorrow, when he’s not at a party,” Bianca stood, dusting off the knees of her jeans before offering Aislen her hand.

“Yeah,” Aislen let her pull her to her feet. “Yeah, you’re right,” she nodded. “I’m sorry. That was a bit… dramatic and stupid.”

“No,” Bianca disagreed. “It really wasn’t. You’re pregnant and your boy finally called you, only for a bloody party and bad signal to mean you couldn’t tell him. I’d have had a melt down and thrown the phone in a hissy fit.”

They reached the school and crossed the grass. “What do you think he’s going to say?” Bianca wondered. “I mean, do you think he’ll, like, propose or something? Would you accept if he did? Have the baby, give up your scholarship, and go home to play housewife and mother?”

Aislen swallowed hard. “No,” she admitted heavily. “He’s not going to marry me. And…” She felt her cheeks heat. “I’m not entirely sure if it’s his.”

“Go girl,” Bianca’s eyebrows raised. “I’m impressed. I would have thought you a one-guy type of girl, and here you are, a player.”

“Not really,” Aislen demurred as they entered the house. It was quiet within - Helena and Christina had gone to the clubs and it was too early for their return. “I’m sort of like that. I don’t date, and I don’t sleep around… Not really,” she thought of Toby with a wince. Was it his baby? She’d screwed up her pill several times over that crazy month, taking it late, or forgetting it entirely… “I need to see a doctor,” she realized.

“Yeah,” Bianca agreed, leading the way up the stairs. “Either way you go, you’re going to need a doctor.”

As she lay in bed an hour later, with Bianca beginning her nightly snore, Aislen stared up at the ceiling, her mind too restless for sleep. Was there any point to telling the Triquetra? She wondered. She didn’t know whose baby it was, and probably wouldn’t until it was born. What if it were Toby’s? If she told them, then she would have to come clean about Toby…

Not that Toby would probably matter to them, at all, she amended, as they had probably already moved onto someone new.

The baby would be unwelcome news.

She couldn’t have a baby alone, she thought in despair. Bianca was right – she couldn’t complete her scholarship if she had a baby. She couldn’t exactly fit a baby into the tiny half-bedroom, and its crying would drive everyone in the cottage nuts, and then what would she do with the baby during the day whilst she was at school? Babies weren’t like puppies; you couldn’t just put them outside whilst you were away from the house.

She would have to have an abortion, she decided. It was the only way. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the imaginary baby within her, although she knew it was just a cluster of cells, not even vaguely human-like.

She cried herself to sleep and woke in the morning with a headache and gritty eyes which made the morning sickness even more unpleasant. The morning sickness was far worse, too, she thought when she vomited a second, and then a third time. The third time, she was utterly empty, dry-heaving and retching until she was covered in sweat and shaky from it.

“I’ve heard keeping some crackers by the bed helps,” Bianca commented through the door. “You’re supposed to eat them before you get up.”

“Ugh,” Aislen was crying, and her throat was raw, her head throbbing. “I’m so sick.”

“We might have some in the kitchen. I’ll go see.”

Aislen started the shower, dropping to her knees under another attempt of her body to vomit out its emptiness. She rinsed her mouth out in the spray and washed her hair and body quickly, not wanting to test her new friendship with Bianca by making her late because Aislen had taken too long in the shower.

“Here,” Bianca handed her some crackers as Aislen opened the door. “And a bucket,” she held out the cheerfully pink bucket.

“Thanks,” Aislen said.

“Glad it’s you and not me,” Bianca replied ruefully as she closed the door.

Aislen sat on the bed with the bucket between her knees and ate the biscuits. They did seem to settle her stomach down, she thought with relief.

“I’m off to my yoga class,” Bianca paused in the doorway. “When you’re feeling better, you really should join me. It’s good for you.”

“Yeah, I will,” Aislen replied weakly, more because agreeing seemed to be easier than disagreeing. “I think I’ll just lie down until my headache goes, and then I’ll go to town to get the phone fixed and see if I can find a doctor.”

“Good luck,” Bianca replied cheerfully as she headed away down the hallway.

Aislen lay on her back and closed her eyes. Surely, if there was a clinic in Trayrock that did that sort of thing, then there would be one in Rideten. She had drifted off to sleep, exhausted by the night and the vomiting, and jolted awake when Helena knocked on the bedroom door.

“Sorry,” Helena apologized. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump. But some guy is downstairs in the front snug. Said he’s here to give you a car.”

“Fuck,” Aislen pushed herself to sitting uneasily. Her stomach seemed okay, so she dressed hastily and made her way down the stairs. A man she didn’t recognize in a polo-shirt with “Dave” embroidered on the breast rose to his feet as she entered. “I’m sorry,” she said automatically. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“That’s okay. Aislen Carter, right?” He pulled open a wad of paper and spread it out on the coffee table. “Do you have some ID?”

“Upstairs. I’ll be right back,” she ran back up the stairs and down again with her wallet and showed him her driver’s license. He took a photo of it on his phone.

“Great, just sign here to say you’ve received the delivery.”

“Umm, what is it?” She asked him.

“Blue hatchback, current model, automatic transmission, a really sweet ride,” he told her cheerfully. “I’ll show you when you’ve signed the papers.”

Aislen flicked through the papers, bewildered by the legal language. “What am I signing?” She asked, confused. “Do I owe you money?”

“Oh, no,” he laughed. “It’s all paid for, and in your name, it’s really just so there’s a receipt that you have taken possession. I’ll take a photo of you with the car, too.”

“Okay,” she said, and signed at the bottom of the page.

He tore off his copy and folded it into a pocket, before holding out a set of keys. “Come have a look at your new car.”

She followed him out to the carpark where a glossy blue hatchback sat waiting next to a car branded with the local dealership, in which a second guy sat waiting.

“Wow,” she said, astonished. It was a brand-new car, not the second-hand piece of crap that she had been expecting. Her parents had really splurged out, she thought. It was newer and better than Tiffany’s by far.

Dave took a photo of her in the driver’s seat and standing beside it. “Congratulations, and don’t forget to bring her in for a service. The card is in the glove box,” he said as he got into the passenger side of the waiting vehicle.

Aislen sat in the driver’s seat, overwhelmed, and began to cry. “God damn it,” she cursed herself. “Stop crying over every little thing, Aislen. Pull yourself together.” She mopped herself up. “Well, might as well take advantage of the new wheels,” she decided. “And drive into town to get that phone repaired.”

The phone was beyond repair, however - the impact with the ground damaging beyond the glass, and Aislen had no choice but to buy a new phone, only to find that the sim was also damaged, and that she needed a new one issued – which didn’t have even her few contacts on it, and most certainly didn’t have the number that Heath had called her from.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “It’s okay, Aislen. Your number is the same. He’ll call again.”

But he didn’t.