Page 73 of Don't Tell Teacher

And anyway, Olly is the father of my child. Who else is going to support me when this baby comes? I’m not qualified for anything.

Yes, Olly shouts and rages. And sometimes other things happen. Things I just want to shut away and pretend never happened. Things that cannot be acknowledged, for my own sanity.

After I accepted Olly’s proposal, I threw up in the toilet.

Hormones, probably.

The wedding ceremony took place the next day, after a short interview at the registry office.

A thunderbolt wedding, Olly called it.

Exciting. Romantic. Just like us.

Except I’ve never liked thunder and lightning.

None of my friends were there, since the only friends I have are ex-boyfriends and Olly is jealous. My father died when I was sixteen, so I had nobody to walk me down the aisle. But my mother came.

Mum turned up in a cream dress and matching pillar-box hat, smiling like a velociraptor.

‘But I’m a terrible stay-at-home wife,’ I say.

‘You just need practice,’ says Olly. ‘Try harder at being organised.’

‘Olly, I’m so down right now,’ I say, gesturing to the messy kitchen. ‘This baby wasn’t planned. I get anxious. You shouting at me doesn’t help.’

‘You’re going to be a mother,’ Olly says. ‘You have to work all this out, Lizzie. This self-obsession. Someone else is going to come first soon.’

‘I’m self-obsessed?’ I laugh, and it sounds like knives. ‘I moved into your house. I gave up my nursing course. I’m having our baby—’

‘Oh, don’t give me that. You didn’t give up your nursing course for me. You were failing exams left, right and centre. You were happy to give it up.’

‘Nursing gave me a sense of … a sense of something. That I’m more than just a shadow. I feel that way sometimes, Olly. Invisible. Like I’m nothing in my own right. That I’m only real as part of someone else.’

‘You’re not a shadow.’

‘Yes. I am. My mother’s little shadow, that’s what she used to call me.’ Tears well up. ‘I don’t know how we’re going to cope with this baby.’

‘Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.’ Olly grabs my arms. ‘Do you hear me?’

‘But I’m scared. I feel trapped.’

Olly looks at me then, his eyes clicking back and forth. ‘Just admit it.’

‘Admit what?’

‘Tell the truth. Admit you don’t want this baby. That this is a mistake.’

‘I love you. I just …’

‘Just what?’

‘It’s not how I would have planned things, that’s all.’

‘You don’t plan anything. That’s the trouble.’

‘And your life is so much better?’ I say. ‘With all your planning and your ambition and your Olympic dream? Life happened and where did planning get you?’

It’s a low blow and I know it. But I’m fed up with Olly criticising who I am. Picking away, forcing me to admit all my failings over and over again.

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