Page 68 of Lilly
I expect her to push me away but to my surprise she relaxes under my touch and her lips soften against mine—until someone else in the room clears their throat to distractus.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I pull back. I know that isn’t enough to cover what I’ve done, but it’s all I’ve got rightnow.
I continue looking down at Lilly as I stand to full height once again, and I see the tension and anger descend like I was expecting when I went to kissher.
“One kiss changes nothing, Lucas.” I nod because there is nothing I can say right now to try to make any of thisbetter.
I sit back down and allow the sonographer to finish what she’s got to do. I listen to everything Lilly says in the hope it will give me some insight into what I’ve missed so far with thispregnancy.
“Well…thanks for coming. It’s nice to know you care about these two,” Lilly says sadly when we’re back in the waitingroom.
“Of course I care, Lilly. That has never been in question.It’s—”
“Stop,” she interrupts. “I’m not interested. If it was that important, you would have found a way to tell me before now. Here,” she snaps as she hands me one of the scan photos she just had printed. “I’ll see you around—maybe at the birth, if you can bebothered.”
“Lilly, please,” I start to beg as she and her mother turn to walkaway.
“No, Lucas. You made your bed when you walked away. Now you’ve got to lie in it. It’s been eight weeks. I’ve moved on and have more important things to worry about,” she says, placing a protective hand on herbelly.
I keep my mouth shut this time and watch her walk out. The pain in my chest is well deserved after doing the same to her. I freaked out. I know I should have manned up and followed her into her flat, explained properly about my childhood, about my birth mother and how scared I am to turn into that kind of parent. But I didn’t. I took the easy route and I ran. It wasn’t very long before I regretted that decision, but I didn’t know how to rectifyit.
There is only one place to go after the hospital appointment, and that is to my parents’ house to face my mother’swrath.
Her anger at me lessens somewhat when I flash the scan picture in front of her but it only lasts solong.
“What the hell are you going to do, Lucas? Your babies need you. Lilly needs you. I can’t imagine bringing up twinssinglehandedly.”
“I have aplan.”
“You have a plan that will make her forget what a selfish bastard you’ve been? That must be one hell of a plan,Luc.”
I pull up the photo on my phone and hand it over toher.
“What have youdone?”
“It’s forher?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s important toher.”
“But it’s miles away, Lucas. Why on earth?” Mum doesn’t finish her sentence as she starts swiping through the photos. “I hope you’re right and this works,” is all she says before handing my phoneback.
I’m not sure what I was expecting her reaction to be, but what she said didn’t fill me with hope. Maybe I’d gone about this all wrong and I’ve made a massivemistake.
I jump out of the car and jog across the car park outside Lilly’s building. I’m like a drowned rat by the time I get there, which just about matches myattitude.
I hold my finger down on the button for the longest time. I can only presume Taylor has already left for London, and I have no idea if Lilly would have had to find another flat mate. I fucking well hope not. The thought of Lilly living with someone else gets my temper flaring. I slam my palm down on the wall next to thebuzzers.
“FUCK,” I shout out into the grey and wetday.
“So you decided to show your face at last,” a soft female voice says from behindme.
When I turn, I see an elderly lady with a crutch and a bag of shopping. “Uh…”
“Well, I have to say I didn’t think I’d ever see the day. I thought Lilly was stupid, holding on to hope that you would reappear when you saw fit. She’d be a fool to take you backthough.”
“Okay. Who are you?” I ask. Lilly never mentioned a grandmother, but there’s a lot we didn’t get a chance to talkabout.
