THE SEVENTEENTH

“You peed yourself?” Stix looks at me aghast. Jeez, I wish Taylor would stop telling this story. It’s not like he was much better, the way he completely panicked and lost the plot.

“Yeah,” I mumble feeling the heat rising up my face. I am curled up in my favourite chair in the conservatory enjoying the late morning sunshine. Well, I had been until Stix had returned from spending the day and night with Genevieve and Taylor had proceeded to tell her about yesterday’s events.

“Abs, that’s, like, horrific,” Stix says, her nose wrinkling in disgust as she looks between Taylor and me.

“Tell me about it,” I respond feeling a little fed-up with being the butt of everyone’s joke. So far I have had everyone wanting to know what happened with our false alarm and Taylor has been far too happy about revealing all the details to anyone who asks. I am silently contemplating murdering him in his sleep later.

I know everyone is focusing on the hilarity of the situation but I can’t help but remember the sheer terror that I felt when I thought that Bean was coming. I am suddenly feeling overwhelmed as I am nowhere near ready to bring a child into the world. Seriously, I am only twenty-two and about to become a mother. I’m not qualified to do this. I can barely look after myself these days so how on earth can I be left in charge of a tiny human being who will have to depend on me for everything?

I suddenly don’t feel so well so tell Taylor and Stix that I am going for a lie-down. They both look at me with concern and I get the feeling that Taylor realises he might have taken things a little too far. But I’m not in the mood to appease him so I stomp off through the living room to my bedroom where I proceed to bury myself under a blanket hoping that I can get rid of the swirl of thoughts currently tormenting me.