Page 149 of Forever, Maybe
“Was that okay? Did you like it?” Darren asked afterward, already having assured her that he’d enjoyed it a great deal.
Nell said “yes” automatically.
There was a second time. And a third—each secret coupling growing easier, more thrilling, the risk sharpening the pleasure.
Two weeks later, Darren Hardy was dead.
A newly qualified driver, he took a corner too fast. His father’s black Audi TT lost traction, spun off the road, and slammed into an ancient beech tree. The impact ignited the fuel tank. The car exploded.
The town reeled. His parents moved through their grief as if carrying something vast and sodden, dragging it behind them wherever they went.
At school, his death was a tragedy—a golden boy gone too soon. Teachers spoke in hushed voices. Students left flowers at the gates. His girlfriend wept along with the rest of them—no more, no less. She had no choice.
No one had known about them.
Cate and Bobby, oblivious, chalked up their daughter’s overwhelming sadness to the loss of a childhood friend.
Such a shame,they murmured.Those two used to love playing together when they were little.
They never questioned why, months later, she still burst into tears for no reason at all.
Except now, Nell had plenty to cry about.
According to the book she’d skimmed in the library—standing between the shelves, heart pounding, making sure no one saw—the baby would arrive on or around the third of September.
She couldn’t picture her future. Not properly. It was too hazy, too slippery—something she reached for but could never quite hold.
But one thing was certain.
It did not include a child.
It was time to tell her parents.
Downstairs, her mum moved around the kitchen, the faint clatter of plates and running water drifting up through the floorboards. The front door slammed. Her dad’s voice rang out, warm and familiar, delighted—as always—to be home.
In a few minutes, she would walk down those stairs, and everything would change.
There would be yelling. Tears. Disappointment.
For a few seconds more, she lay still, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars. Holding onto these last moments of calm before her world cracked open.
Sorry, Mum. Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Darren.
Chapter sixty-four
“Oh,Nell.”
Daniel pressed her head tighter to his chest, feeling the warmth of her tears seeping through his shirt.
She had only told him half the story.
Questions churned inside him—Why didn’t you tell me before? How did you keep this to yourself for so long?And how had her parents managed to carry the weight of this secret, too?
But he said nothing. He wasn’t a journalist. Nell needed to tell the story in her own time.
She exhaled shakily. “They hit the roof, of course. Dad was ready to march over to the Hardys’ house and give Darren’s mum and dad a piece of his mind—Your scumbag son wasn’t such a golden boy after all!But Mum and I talked him down, and the Hardys moved away a week later anyway. Said the house held too many memories.
“And then Mum and Dad came up with a plan. Since she worked as a school secretary, she could take two months off over the summer. Dad decided he’d commute. So we packed up and moved to Cambridge. I gave birth there. Two days later, the baby was placed with foster parents. The social workers assured us he’d be adopted once they found the right family. And then we went back to Norwich. I’d only missed two weeks of school.”
