Give them time,” she says to me softly. “They’ll come around.”
“No they won’t.” I reply and hang up the phone.
I’ve lost my parents. My reputation. My dignity. My will to live.
Since yesterday, when I found out about the video, I haven’t left my room. I don’t know how to and Lockhart is trying to get me to speak to a therapist.
Enri has called me endlessly on my phone with a cracked screen but I’ve been avoiding him. Dane and Kai have avoided me, not knowing what to do or how to act.
Lockhart has been busy on the phone, trying to get it completely removed. I’ve heard him promising vast sums of money to different magazines to stop them from publishing and to run with something else. By his anger he wasn’t successful.
I tackled my parents last night. Calling my dad and having to admit that there’s a sex tape of me and Lockhart going viral is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
He gasped and then hung up the phone. My mum called me back, screamed at me, cried with me and told me she’d never forgive me and how badly I’ve embarrassed her.
Her words swim around in my head over and over.
Like I’m not already embarrassed?
That nurse is going to think I’m a whore.
Speaking of that nurse.
My cracked phone screen lights up and my phone vibrates. I tentatively put the phone to my ear. I’ve had a few random calls from publishers asking for me to give my side of the story.
I hung up.
I figured this would be the same.
It’s not; it’s the nurse.
“Sweet,” she says softly, “Are you there? Are you able to talk?”
“I’m here. I’m alone.”
“I’m calling you to discuss your results.”
Please say dying. Please say dying.
She continues, “But I can’t do that over the phone. You’ll have to come to the clinic.”
“That’s not happening,” I mumble. “I’m never leaving my apartment again.”
“Right,” she responds softly. “I could come to you? It’s not the normal way, but considering the circumstances…”
“Just please… I need to know. Do I have an STD? Yes or no.”
She hesitates and I hear her chair squeak in the background. “No, sweet, you’re clean, but you will have to be retested in six months as some do take longer to show than a few days. It’s still ninety-nine-point nine percent accurate though, so I don’t think you have to worry.”
I wipe my nose on the back of my hand, feeling no relief at her words. “Which means I’m pregnant.”
“I can’t…”
“Confirm. I know. That was confirmation enough.”
“Please come and see me. I can help you.”
“Nobody can help me,” I whisper and hang up.
There we go.
This is rock bottom.
It has to be rock bottom.
There’s no rockier bottom than this.
I turn over and scream into my pillow so loudly Lockhart comes racing into the room, preparing to tackle an attacker.
“What?” He pants, sounding panicked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” I yell, into my pillow. “Nothing is wrong! Except everything is fucking wrong.” Then I stand, grab my jacket off the side and my scarf.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to go out. I need to get out of this fucking apartment.”
“Let me go with you.”
“No!” I shout, circling around him to get to the door. “Nobody is coming anywhere with me. Ever. I need fucking space. I need to breathe!”
“Cerise.”
“Stop, Lockhart. Stop acting like you’re okay and everything is going to be okay because you can wave money at it. It’s not okay. IT’S NOT OKAY! I’m falling apart at the seams and you’re a fool to stay here and watch.” I pull the scarf up over my face. “Now, I’m sneaking out alone because if you come with me, they’ll know who it is. So back the fuck up.” When I reach the door, I turn to look at him through the fuzzy lining at the top of the wool mask I’ve made. “And please don’t be here when I get back. I’ve just had enough of seeing you.”
“You’re taking your anger out on me!”
“Guys,” Kai says softly. “Cerise. There are like a bunch of reporters camped out there. It’s not wise to go now.”
“Shut the fuck up! If it wasn’t for you, I never would have been at that stupid party to begin with!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He frowns.
I reply, “Why don’t you tell them, Tobias? Tell them what the terms of his employment were.”
Lockhart clenches his jaw. I can see he’s hardly restraining himself.
“What is she talking about?” Kai asks and I don’t have an ounce of feeling or regret towards him or his solemn face right now.
“In order for your junkie arse to stay in the band, I had to continue fucking him until he said otherwise.” I laugh callously. “You’re the reason I entered into prostitution. How about that?”
On that note, I turn, open the door and then slam it behind me, only to find a reporter crouching down outside my apartment door with a fucking video recorder in his hand.
“ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?” I don’t even think about it. I bring my boot clad foot up and push it powerfully into his face. His nose pops and he falls backwards. The door behind me opens and I hear Lockhart curse at the mess I’ve made, so I flip him off over my shoulder as I walk away with slumped shoulders. “I hate this fucking life!”
“Cerise! Wait!” Lockhart calls but he doesn’t follow. He’s doing damage control with the guy I just assaulted.
I’m pregnant.
I’m fucking pregnant.
* * *
When I reach the ground floor I peek around the elevators and realise just how correct Kai was. There are at least fifteen men and women with cameras, chatting as they wait for us to leave.
I won’t give them the satisfaction.
I knock on door number 2. An elderly man with shocking white hair and a large humpback opens it and smiles at me.
“Are you okay?” He asks. “I think you might have the wrong apartment.”
“I’m actually hoping you’ll let me climb out of your window.”
He throws his head back and laughs before inviting me inside and offering me a coffee.
I don’t take the coffee. I do what I needed to do and escape through his bedroom window, dropping four feet to the dirt below, in between two bristly looking bushes that have survived the cold weather so far.
It’s nice to see something thriving in this shit storm. Just a shame it’s not me.
Pulling my hood over my head and my scarf over my nose, I sneak away, being mindful of the alleyway being blocked either end. Luckily nobody pays me any mind as I pass with my head dipped. They’re too busy looking at the back-exit door.
I wish there was a life exit door, where you step through it and it reboots. I’m not sure what to do.
I know I don’t want this pregnancy or this kid.
I’m not ready to be a mother.
It’s not the baby’s fault, it didn’t ask for this, but I didn’t ask for this either…
Adoption isn’t an option. The thought terrifies me. Thatcher has money. What if he finds out I’m pregnant, thinks it’s his and gets custody? It’s happened before to other mothers. He raped me. He assaulted me. He forced this choice on me.
But I didn’t convict him. I let him go free, which means I’ll never stand a chance against him in court. I can’t do that. I can’t go through that.
I should have been more careful with my pill. It should have been the first thing I took when I got home that night. I should have gotten the morning after pill but I wasn’t thinking. Why didn’t that fucking nurse offer me one?
Shouldn’t she have done that? Or is it too late after a few days?
I’m pregnant.
I’m pregnant!
There’s something growing inside me that I can’t comprehend and I don’t want.
Does that make me a bad person? My options are so limited.
There’s nothing else I can do!
No matter what I decide, I’ll never be able to live with myself.
I want my mum. I want her to hug me and hold me and tell me it’s okay.
Does the foetus want that too? Is it in there, swimming around, begging me to just wait a few more months and hug it?
No.
“No it’s fucking not,” I say aloud, bitterly. “It’s not even a group of cells yet.”
I consider going to the clinic to speak to that nurse but I can’t. I don’t want anybody to influence my decisions. This is all on me. All of it.
My body carries me and my burdens through the city with no clear objective in mind. I pray for a miracle. I pray that a bus might hit me. Dying would be easier. Even if I do terminate the pregnancy, which is the goal here, I’ll still have to go on with life like I am, with the knowledge that I killed something pure and innocent simply because its father hurt me.
It didn’t ask for this any more than I did.
Any more than my aching knuckles that still throb and sting from the mirror impact. Any more than Kai deserved the blame I put on him for my choice.
All of my choices led me here. All of my choices and my actions.
I thought I was in love. I thought I was happy.
I’ll never feel that again.
What’s the point in this anymore?
Lockhart: Where are you?
I don’t text him my location. I don’t want him to find me.
Instead I sit on a bench overlooking Hyde Park. I’ve been walking for so long my entire body feels like a fleshy block of ice. I stopped shivering a while ago and started shaking so violently I likely look like I’m having a seizure.
When my eyelids start drooping I stand and continue on, walking more, pushing my legs through the pain.
There’s only one place I want to go now. There’s only one thing that will help me through this. There’s only one that I can think of.
I pick up a bottle of aspirin on the way in a low-key corner shop. I tell myself it’s for my headache. Aspirin is a good drug to take when one has a headache, or so I’ve heard my mother say. I always took an ibuprofen but I wanted to be different this time.
It’s for my headache.
When I reach Lockhart Enterprises, I stare up at the building, remembering the first time I did this and how excited, young and carefree I felt. They were signing us.
Us.
It was insane.
I wish they hadn’t.
I take the elevator up, not the stairs. People look when I pop a handful of pills into my mouth and dry swallow. A man offers me some water. Does he not realise I just took ten at once? I accept the unopened bottle with a nod and keep it when we get to the floor I desire.
I’m not even sure what I’m doing as I tip the bottle back, the bottle of pills, and more pile on my tongue. They taste bitter. It’s the first thing I’ve tasted in weeks, except when I went to that spa with Lockhart. The memory of our two nights together make me smile. How he held me so tightly in the night as though frightened to let me go.
I wonder how angry he’ll be when he finds out I’ve forced him to.
Switching on the smart watch I was gifted, I use it to enter the room I was also gifted what seems so long ago.
The lights come on automatically but, with a spinning head and frozen fingers, I tweak the settings and set them to low. The room looks orange. My piano, which has been gathering dust, shines like a beacon of peace in this sandstorm of fail.
I always judged those that were suicidal.
I always thought they were selfish, leaving behind their loved ones.
Though as I cut into my numb flesh, straight down the middle of each wrist, I realise it’s not even a thought. You don’t even entertain it. You don’t think about it. You just do it, knowing the pain of death is so much less than the pain of life.
I call Lockhart and he immediately answers. I place the phone on top of the piano as crimson pours down my frozen fingers, warming them as I press the first key of the piano.
“Cerise?” I hear my name in the distance and I begin to play.
The melody is haunting. I’ve never played it before. I don’t have to play them before. They just flow from me. It’s why I was so famous. The girl who could play a piece with just a few notes in her mind.
This piece is my soul, my life force. It’s solemn, a mix between Moonlight Sonata and Palladio, but also none of either. Dramatic, loud, then soft and slow.
All thoughts of Frank, the reason I stopped playing the piano to begin with, are null. The reason I stopped letting it flow from me like this. He was never worth it. I never loved him, not like I loved Lockhart.
I never hated him like I hate Lockhart. I never fancied him like I fancied Lockhart.
I was a fool to stop. Maybe if I’d kept playing, I wouldn’t be so weak now.
Though for final pieces, this one goes a long way.
If music could cry, it would be this piece. If music could sob, it would be this piece.
It is this piece.
I am this piece.
As the blood flows from my wrists and the blood thinners kick in, I power my fingers across the stained keys, slipping onto the wrong notes but not caring.
The continued movement is stopping them from healing. It’s almost over.
I feel the blood slow. It’s everywhere, on my lap, on the keys, my hands, my feet, the floor around the bench, though it’s no longer gushing and pulsing from me.
My vision is blurred but I can see the red and I smile at it.
There’s no more pain as I play the last few notes that I can muster.
Then there’s no more colour.
No more thinking.
No more pregnancy.
Just death.
I greet it like it’s the best friend I ever had. My only regret is that I didn’t bring Thatcher down with me.