Chapter 3

Chapter the third...

 

Lara hated sleeping. She hated the sweaty feeling under the duvet. She hated not being in control of her thoughts. She hated the disorientated state you woke up in that lasted for a sickening 30 seconds or so when you weren’t sure if you were still in a nauseating dreamland or if you were back in the real world. It was horrible.

 

Alex loved it of course. So when she shrugged him off to ‘go for a lie down’, he didn’t think anything of it. It was times like this that she wondered if they really were meant to be together.

 

It didn’t matter if they were meant to or not; she was carrying his child. S**t. What was she going to do? Of course she was going to have to tell him…wasn’t she? Or could she just… no. She was going to have to. But when? Christ babies were meant to be a happy occasion. So why was she so sad?

 

Lara fell down on to the bed and then remembered she hated anything to do with sleeping so jumped straight back up again and crossed over to the window.

 

There was a homeless man outside urinating against over the road’s garden wall. She should really knock on the window and stop him. But she did hate the snooty b******s over the road. And she was a bit scared of this tramp. Who knew what he could do? Probably got a knife on him or something. Maybe he could help her with her problem… Or maybe he could steal her purse and tear a nice gaping wound in her abdomen.

 

No, she needed some real help. She would ring Jude. Yes, why hadn’t she thought of this before? He was exactly what she needed. He was down to earth, he always knew what to say and he knew her best. He’d been her brother for each one of the 26 years of his life. Or was it 27? She should really know these things.

 

Lara went over to the bedside table, picked up the receiver, dialled Jude’s number and sat on the bed. It rang. And rang. And rang. He wasn’t there. S**t where was he? She began to waffle her way through a message then blurted it out. She just couldn’t hold it in. Then she tried to work her way round it by asking about his love life. This was possibly the worst message she had ever left.

 

She ended the disaster speech abruptly and slammed down the receiver.

 

Why was it that when Mum blundered her way through the talk, she never mentioned how much being pregnant actually hurt? And it was only 3 days old. Jesus why was being a girl so hard? How come all guys did was go in, mess the place up a bit and get the hell out, completely unscathed? Another one of life’s great injustices.

 

She could feel herself getting more and more worked up. Maybe she should try and calm down. She went into the bathroom and washed down a couple of aspirin to try and stop the freight train that was thundering through her skull.

 

Lara wandered over to the window again. The tramp was now sitting on the wall. He seemed to be eating some sort of plant. On closer inspection, Lara saw that he was in fact munching his way through over the road’s tulips. Serve them right. Last year their dog ‘accidentally’ crapped all over the lawn.

 

So karma did exist.