Unintended

“I think it’s a terrible idea, Ash. And I told him so.”

I sent up a silent thank you to whoever was listening up there. Someone had to be on my side after all.

“And you’re definitely sure about that?” I asked, my eyes closed while I waited for definite confirmation.

“I’m sure. We talked for a really long time. Maybe for him, it was an option, but it wasn’t for me. Not for a second.”

I almost said the word ‘good’, but then I realised that would lead to an awkward conversation, and Evie had probably had enough of those for one day.

“Well… how do you feel now?” I asked. “Now you’ve told him.”

She sighed, and I heard her moving, as if she was getting comfortable on her bed, and the thought made me wish I was beside her. I wanted to hold her hand like I had so many times when she was sad, when she needed someone.

“I feel okay,” she said. “All the things I’ve tried not to think about, I had to think about today. Like, actually having the babies. How we would figure out Jay seeing them. He’s thinking of moving back to Stockport, but nothing is definite yet.”

“That makes sense.” The idea was enough for the nagging worries to start up again though. If he was back in Stockport, once the babies were born, maybe Evie would start to look at him differently again. See what they should have had before and want it all back.

“It does. It would be easier for sure. He’d have to drive down a lot to see them, and it’s a hell of a journey.” I could almost hear her shrugging her shoulder. “That, or I’d have to drive back and forth. And I would have to sometimes because I couldn’t leave it all up to him. So, I guess we’ll have to see what he wants to do. He’ll be down in a couple of weeks for the next scan.”

And so it begins…

I immediately hated myself for the thought. Jay had way more right to be there than I did, and I had a quick internal chat with myself about not being a dickhead. They were his children, not mine.

“I’m really glad you got everything worked out,” I said.

“Me too. It won’t stop the constant worry about whether the babies will be okay, but at least Jay has been told now and I know he wants to be involved.”

“Did you ever think he wouldn’t?”

She let out a small laugh. “No. I knew he would. It’s who he is. As much as I wanted to be a mum, he wanted to be a dad.”

“Sounds like you would have made a good family.” I hoped the words didn’t sound as bitter as they tasted. I really did want the best for her, and if that was Jay then… so be it. Didn’t stop the thought hurting though.

“We would have once,” Evie said. “But not now. Now we’re just really good friends.”

Like me and you. Just friends. Maybe that’s all we’ll ever be.

Had she ever really given me any signal that she felt more than that? Nope. I knew she cared about me, that much was clear, but not in the way I wanted.

I wasn’t enough.

I would never be enough.

When I got home from Edinburgh, there was a card pushed through my letterbox from the Post Office, telling me a parcel had been delivere

d and was with a neighbour. I couldn’t remember ordering anything, so when I entered my house with a shoebox-sized package in my hands, I was curious.

I left my overnight bag in the hallway and went to the kitchen, placing the parcel on the table. As I ripped into the grey bag it had been packaged in, I wracked my brain, trying to work out what it could be. I’d noticed the address was handwritten but I didn’t recognise the writing.

After fighting through the bag, I did indeed find a shoebox, taped up with brown tape. Growling from the frustration of wanting to see what was inside, I went to the kitchen drawer to get some scissors and used them to cut through the tape.

When I finally managed to get the lid off, I let out a yelp of surprise.

Right after Ash moved in, and he told me what Natalie had done to his photos, I’d reached out to his mum via Facebook. In spite of what he’d said, I was sure she must have copies of the photos he had somewhere, so I sent her a long message, explaining who I was and what had happened. After a few days, she’d messaged back saying she did have the photos and that she would send them over sometime. I gave her my address, thinking Ash would still be living there because I assumed she would get on it quickly.

Obviously, she hadn’t, but they had arrived now, and I smiled, thinking about how happy he would be to have his memories back.

I didn’t plan to snoop through them, but seeing a photo of Ash at around four years old, I picked it up for a closer look. His blue eyes hadn’t changed a bit, though he was quite chunky as a kid. Cute, though. Really cute, with his dark hair falling across his eyes as he sat on the floor, playing with pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I looked down into the box and saw Ash as a baby, being held by his mother who had looked a lot different then. Instead of the bleached blonde hair and layers of make-up, she had light brown hair, and was make-up free. I could see where Ash got those eyes from, and his mum was actually really pretty.