trying to weigh something up in her own mind. Uh oh, here it comes. I felt a bit sick. Scared.
‘There’s something I need to tell you.’ Did I know that what she was going to say would change everything? Maybe not. But I knew it was going to be big.
‘I think I’m pregnant.’ Four words, that’s all it took. All I could manage to splutter out was ‘Jesus!’ Nice. Good work. Very supportive.
Sal began to cry and it just about broke my heart. I put my arms around her and held her tight. She kept saying the same thing over and over again: ‘What am I going to do?’ I said that it would be OK and that we’d figure it out and was she really sure? But I wasn’t getting through to her, so I held her face between my hands and made her look me in the eyes. ‘Listen to me, Sal. Are you sure you’re pregnant? Have you done a test?’ Sal shook her head and sobbed, ‘I know I am. I know it, I know it. How could this happen?’
We must have sat there for a good twenty minutes before I noticed that Sal was shivering really badly. She looked terrible. We headed to the bus stop, me with my arm around Sal’s shoulders, her stumbling along in a kind of dazed stupor. I think she was all cried out.
We sat in silence all the way home. I could not have been more shocked. How could this happen? I thought she was supposed to be a virgin … Surely she’d have told me if … When? Who with? And why hadn’t she told me before?
I led her into my house and straight up to my bedroom. We changed out of our wet clothes. I even let her wear my favourite jeans. She sat at the dressing table while I ran a comb through her matted, damp hair. She was looking in the mirror, but I could tell she wasn’t really seeing much of anything.
I looked at Sal’s reflection. Would I call her beautiful? Maybe. Definitely. Blonde hair that skims just above her shoulders. She often gathers it up in some complicated arrangement that always looks completely effortless. Brown eyes and permanently honey-hued skin. Lucky cow.
When I was done with Sal’s hair and had quickly run the comb through mine (boring brown beneath MANY layers of red dye), I sat down on the edge of the bed. Sal turned around on the stool to face me. We were practically knee-to-knee, but somehow more distant from each other than ever before. ‘So, are you going to tell me what happened?’
She shook her head. No eye contact.
‘Okaaay, how late are you?’ The words almost got stuck in my throat. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.
‘Two weeks,’ she said softly. Two weeks? Could she be two weeks late just from stress or something? Or did it definitely mean she was pregnant? Aargh. I haven’t got a clue about this stuff.
‘OK, two weeks. You know, you can’t be sure till you’ve done a test. You could just be late cos you’ve been stressing so much. Let’s not jump to conclusions here.’ That sounded all right in my head, but pathetically inadequate when said out loud. Maybe you just know when you’re pregnant. Maybe your body feels different? How the hell was I supposed to know?
The supply of tears had been replenished and began to spill out again. ‘I know I’m pregnant. I’ve known ever since …’
‘Please tell me what happened, Sal. I’m your best friend – if you can’t tell me, you’re screwed …’ I winced. ‘Sorry … bad choice of words.’ She half laughed at my bad joke, but then shook her head and looked at me sadly.
‘Please … you have to understand. I just can’t.’ I felt like I’d failed some sort of test – probably the most important test our friendship would ever face. If only I’d said the right thing I could have got her to open up to me. Instead, I’d put my foot in it as usual, making a joke of something that was so not funny.
I practically begged her to tell me, but she wouldn’t budge. And I couldn’t help but feel a seed of resentment planting itself within me. I’d told her my deepest, darkest secrets; shouldn’t it be a give-and-take sort of thing? I looked away and gazed out the window. The rain had finally stopped.
Sal took hold of my hand.