I effing love you

Part 29

I notice Aaron's car is still in the alley so that's one good sign and I don't hear any screaming coming from the walls.
"Do you want to come over?" Jordan's message pops up on my phone as I walk in the door. "Believe me I'd love to but I really have to get some study done and you should too! Might come out for a while later" there's a fat chance Jordan actually will do any work, I wish he would, I mean he might not be the most academic but he is really good at Art, I've seen it, if he could just focus on that for a while he would be able to go to art college next year. Then again, I don't want Jordan to have to leave again!
As I make my way upstairs I hear the hum of voices coming from Missy's room. Oh no, I seemed to have walked right in on the conversation. I stop at the door trying to hear as much as possible. "So what now?" Then it goes silent. I move away from the door, my conscious starts to tell me perhaps this conversation isn't for my ears. Instead I go into my room and motivate myself to do some work, after scrolling on my phone, deciding to read an article called "Kim kardashians tone deaf instagram post" and lighting every candle in my room, I finally set in to quadratic theorems.

"Forget it Missy" I hear the door finally being opened, and I run over to look into the crack. Aaron storms down the stairs and I hear the front door slam. Oh for god sake not another runaway. At this stage I really think we should rename Aaron to Aaronisneveractuallyhere. I rush into Missy, who's sitting on the floor.
"What happened?"
"He's gone" she looks at me, much like Haley this morning no emotion shows on her face.
"He's gone..." she says with a finality. Not a tear escapes her eye and she simply stares at herself in the long mirror. "For good?"
"Probably" we stand there looking at each other. There's a sense of solemnity, finality. Like when you're expecting a climax but nothing happens, just a dull realisation. "So what now?"
She scoffs, "when I told him the answer, he left, so what do you want?"
"I want the truth"
"I'm having an abortion". She doesn't flinch and I'm taken aback by the calmness.
"I-"
"Don't pretend you're not happy"
"Missy..it's not about being happy you don't seriously think I would want you to go through this"
"Don't lie..we both know that's what you wanted me to do from the start"
"Missy..don't put words in my mouth" she doesn't look back at me this time, her blue eyes piercing her reflection in the mirror.
"Do you want me to go with you?" I ask
"No, I think this is something I have to do on my own, after all it's my own fault"
"Missy..it's not your fault, another scoff, "please let me come, this isn't something you should have to go through on your own"
"I don't even know how I'm supposed to this, like do I book it?!"
"How about I go and look it all up, you go downstairs and make yourself a cup of tea".
"I don't want tea" she replies. With that I close the door and head back onto my phone. It's the strangest feeling typing it all into a google search engine, something that seems so life changing. I find the main clinic in Bradford and get the directions. It all seems too easy, something so big and life changing and here I am writing down the directions to Missy's most important decision on the side of my Science notebook.
I creak the door back open, "I know all the details...we can go whenever you want" Missy nods "today..I want to go today". I would never admit to Missy that I was nervous, I shouldn't be the nervous one here but this all just seems like what wild girls on television sets do not Missy..not me. "Do you need an adult?"
"No, I'm not sure they can fit you in today but I suppose we can go and see" i could almost laugh if it wasn't so depressing, I sound like I'm talking about a hair appointment. "Right then" Missy grabs her famous leather jacket from the hanger and walks down stairs.

All the time we walk to the station into Bradford my mind can focus on only one thing- are we doing the right thing? What if Missy regrets this for the rest of her life and blames me for going along with her?
"Missy are you sure this is what you want?" I ask before getting on the tram. "Yes..I'm positive". We entwine our fingers together and hop on.
Ding
"What's happenin?" Jordan's message shows up on my phone. "Sorry something important has come up, I'll try and explain later x" Jordan's the last on my mind right now. It doesn't feel just this time yesterday I was getting ready for our date..god yesterday was excellent. I try to keep my mind on that while we make our way to the clinic. I've mesmerised how to get there still grasping Missy's hand. She's looking around desperately, "Missy nobody's going to see you" I reassure but secretly I'm looking out for anyone who would blast it all over the school Twitter page if we were spotted.
The clinic is pretty ordinary looking once we arrive, just a clean looking building with some sort of plaque on the door saying it was part of the national health service blah blah blah. I was almost disappointed that we didn't have to push our way through pro life protests or something but not everything is the same as what you see on tiktok I suppose. As I'm about to enter in after Missy, she stops me, "no, you stay here"
"What no- Missy come on you don't have to do it alone"
"You won't be allowed into the room anyway, knowing you're out here is enough"
I go to argue again but perhaps Missy is right it's either wait out here or wait on a plastic chair inside and I can see by Missy's face it's not up for discussion. I engulf her in a big bear hug, a tear escaping my eye, "I'm here" she smiles at me the tears bubbling up, "it's for the best" she reassures herself. "It is" I say definitely. With that, she turns on me and pushes the heavy door open. I hope she'll be okay. I mean I know she's not in any real risk, it's not the dark ages anymore this is a government service but nevertheless things can still go wrong. I have no idea how long it actually takes to have- well an abortion and the cold starts to set in. The small homely cafe across the road starts to look more and more enticing but I fight against it, I have to be standing here when Missy comes out.

The swish of the door, takes me out of my daydreams, I rush over to Missy, "are you ok?" I say grabbing her arm frantically. She laughs quietly "calm down, I'm ok" I can hear from her voice, the fragility and I don't want to push her asking stupid questions. "Would you like to go get a cup of tea somewhere or just head home"
"We should get home, it's getting late" I hadn't really noticed the darkening October sky I was so transfixed on my thoughts. I sneakily look Missy up and down, she looks ok, a little pale perhaps but other than that I can see nothing different from when she entered. "Stop staring"
"Oh sorry-" I guess I wasn't as sneaky as I thought. "I was worried about you" I admit. "It really wasn't an bad as I expected- I barely felt it"
"Are you sure?" Something about the way Missy was acting made me think she was putting it all on, so that I didn't ask too many questions. "Yeah- they said I might have some bleeding in the next few days and should take it easy, as if I'm going to go doing any gymnastics" she adds jokingly. I manage a small laugh but nothing more. "Are you going to tell Aaron?", her lips pierce at this.
"Did i not tell you?" I look away from her. "He's gone Ali, gone" I can't understand how this has all came about so quickly, I mean i didn't expect Aaron to be happy but I'm not sure I expected it to be all over like that, I thought he loved Missy more than that..
As we make our way to the busy tram, it's packed with commuters on their way home from work and I have no chance to speak to
Missy. Today has been so emotionally draining, I feel like I could fall over from stress. Missy doesn't want to seem to want to talk to me, it's understandable but it doesn't nothing to ease my nerves for her. She hasn't even acknowledged how she's going to tell everyone who knows about the baby- which is practically everyone we ever laid eyes on- that it's..gone.

Missy and I don't speak again, until we're inside the door with Haley waiting for us. "Nice of you to tell me where you are?!"
"Don't.." I say looking at her seriously. She states at both of us..taking in Missy's pale and miserable face and my clearly exhausted one.
"You didn't..." she says in disbelief. "Already!?"
"Haley.." Missy says tiredly. "It had to be done.."
"This was you! This was you this was!" Haley says raising her voice at me. I don't react, her voice skimming over me. "Don't start Haley please" the pain in Missy's voice is enough to make even Haley stop in her tracks. "Missy.." she pulls her hand and the two of them cuddle up together..sisters.
I'm not their sister...neither of them even look at me as they embrace.
Before the tears start to fall, I slam the door behind me, walking quickly away from the house. My legs take on a mind of their own as if my adrenaline knows no bounds.
How dare they..how dare they treat me as if I'm not there...the tears fall furiously down my face and I wipe them away angrily. After everything I've done! After everything..I'm so hurt that I can barely see sense. I don't know where I'm walking to but my feet seem to guide me to the only place, that I know can help me feel something, can help me feel like I belong.

Jordan opens the door, he looks like he's ready to go out somewhere, with his baseball hat and trainers on. "Alison-?" I push past him without even looking and race up the stairs to his room as he follows quickly behind. I feel as if a trail of fire is guiding my every action, "what's going on?" he asks half terrified of the look on my face.
I push him up against the wall...
"Fuck me Jordan..fuck me hard" I say desperately. Without being told twice, he rips my shirt off, pushing me back onto the bed. I want to forget..I want him.

Heyyy! So confession- I found this chapter pretty hard to write, it's such a delicate subject and as I'm writing it from the perspective of someone looking on, I've never written anything like this before so I'm really sorry if you think I've got it wrong. Also I would like to say if anyone was affected by the topics brought up in the chapter I apologise and if anyone is struggling right now please ask for help. I wanted to try and show how Alison was feeling left out towards the end because don't forget it is quite a focal point of this story that she often feels very alone- much like Jordan. So yeah this was a hard write! Please let me know if you enjoyed it I love reading your comments thanks for all the support xxx