NOT ANOTHER DEAD GIRL — an extract

Two hours and she still hadn’t been seen. Olivia slowly massaged her right hand with her thumb. She was clammy. She stared at a small brown freckle just off centre of her palm, creased directly into her life line. She wondered what a palm-reader would say about the freckle’s positioning. Maybe it’s just a big shit stain on my life, she thought dryly. And that’s exactly where I am right now.

Rows of blue PVC chairs lined three walls of the room, and a spine of chairs back to back ran down the middle. Almost all were full. No one talked, but the silence was occasionally punctured by the clearing of a throat or a sneeze. It was stuffy and hot inside despite the wide-open windows. Earlier, Olivia had helped herself to water from the machine in the corner and was now regretting it; she desperately needed a wee but wasn’t allowed to yet. Not until she was seen. 

Olivia studied the obscenely loud poster on the wall across her. A long cactus wearing a woolly hat dominated the space, its spikes thrown into sharp relief against a saturated blue background. OUCH! COULD IT BE CHLAMYDIA? sat squarely across the offending plant. Olivia picked at her fingernails, wondering if whoever designed those posters really believed a succulent was the best way to relate to the youth.

A nurse appeared from down the corridor. She called out a name in the quietest voice humanly possible, waited for a microsecond and then flitted out the way she came. A tall stripe of a man with a thin face got up to follow, subtly giving his crotch a quick but presumably satisfying scratch as he adjusted his jeans.  Olivia stared at an elderly man a few chairs away who had come in an hour after her. He had heavy sacs under his eyes, so big that his eyes were almost completely folded away underneath. It was heart-warming in a way to know that people his age were still coming here too, still keeping active, but it was a little disturbing to imagine him going at it. Olivia was suddenly bombarded with imaginings of saggy bottoms and wrinkled bellies getting all hot and sweaty. She sighed, shaking her head to clear her mind. She’d been sitting here too long. 

It was nearly an hour later when a nurse emerged and called out her name. She was shorter than Olivia and very round, her face dewy from the heat. Olivia followed her into another stuffy room and caught a whiff of her perfume – something sweet and floral. As she folded herself into the patient’s chair, she appraised the nurse in front of her. Everything about her just seemed caring. Motherly. She felt a pang of hurt spike her from somewhere deep within her ribcage. 

‘Hello Olivia, hope you’re well. My name is Emily. One of the nurses here. What brings you to the clinic today?’ She spoke quickly and kindly, her introduction well-rehearsed and garbled together.

Olivia took a deep breath. ‘I think, I think I might be…’ she made a vague gesture towards her stomach, unable to finish her sentence. To say it out loud would be too much.

Emily turned to her computer screen with a practiced air of serenity, clicked around a few times and then started clacking at the keyboard. ‘Okay. Would you like to do a test now to confirm, and then we can discuss your options?’ 

‘Yeah, sure, I mean I already did like three, but okay. What do I have to do, pee in a cup?’ Nerves were making her overly chatty. Patches of sweat darkened her T-shirt under her arms, and she couldn’t say they were entirely from the heat.

‘That’s exactly right, just pop into the toilet at the end of the corridor and then bring it back to me.’ She handed Olivia a small plastic cylinder and a cardboard tray for her to carry it in once it was full. 

Olivia shuffled down the corridor, her trainers squeaking with every other step. She kept her eyes on the floor and shut herself in the toilet. It was a small, narrow room, barely any space to squeeze past the sink, but the toilet seat was refreshingly cool. She held the cup nervously between her legs, unsure where exactly her stream would start and where best to put the cup – which on second glace looked alarmingly small. 

She let a small dribble trickle out to test its direction – it overshot the cup, she adjusted accordingly, and let her muscles relax. The cup was filled before she was done and she quickly jerked it away before it overflowed. Pee sloped over the edges and ran onto her hand and she swore under her breath. She set the cup on the edge of the sink, wiped herself and pulled up her jeans awkwardly with one hand, keeping the wet one far from her body. 

She washed her hands, put the lid on the cup and then carried it on its brown cardboard tray to the nurse, and handed it over sheepishly. 

Emily took the tray with a practiced smile and carried it over to a metal table in the opposite corner of the room where she dipped in a small stick. ‘This is just to make sure,’ she said, as if she was worried that Olivia might be offended. ‘Once we get the result, we can chat some more about your options, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Olivia squeaked, bobbing her head quickly up and down. Her chest was tight. Even though she already knew what the answer would be, this would make it official somehow. This would set it all in motion.

  ‘Yup, positive. You’re pregnant,’ came Emily’s cheery voice from the corner a few minutes later. Olivia sat unmoving in the chair, sticky with sweat. Emily waddled back to her chair and tick-tacked some more on the keyboard. Olivia’s heart felt like it had migrated to her head and was pounding up against her skull. Even when she had told Marco, she hadn’t said that word. Pregnant. To hear it attached to her was surreal, and with it came the realisation that she wasn’t just herself anymore. There was something with her now. Her blood was being ferried somewhere else, down channels that hadn’t been there before, to something that would only take more and more from her and it would never stop, ever. She couldn’t do it. 

‘Are you okay?’ Emily asked.

Olivia’s head was spinning. She took a breath to try calm herself. ‘Yeah, just, you know. This doesn’t feel real.’

The nurse smiled sympathetically. ‘Let me get this admin out of the way first. When was the first day of your last period?’ 

Olivia told her.

‘And how many sexual partners do you have currently?’

Something hitched in Olivia’s throat and she coughed. ‘My boyfriend, Marco,’ she said, clearing her throat. ‘But he lives back home, in Norfolk. Otherwise he would be here, you know. With me. But I stayed up here for the summer, I didn’t want to go home. He does visit when he can…’ Her voice trailed off as she realised she was rambling again.

Emily typed. ‘Any others?’

Olivia stared at her hands. At that one small freckle in her palm.

‘Olivia?’

She tried to swallow but her mouth was dry, as if all the fluid she’d had in her body had come out in that one massive wee. She cleared her throat again. The lump still refused to budge. 

‘There was someone else,’ she said, forcing the words to come out. Her voice was barely above a whisper. ‘Another guy. It only happened properly once or twice, but, yeah.’

Emily turned back to her keyboard. ‘And what was his name?’

‘Kyle,’ Olivia’s cheeks were burning.

‘Okay,’ More typing. ‘We’ll do an STI test and take a blood sample. So,’ Emily finally took her hands off the keyboard and turned to face her properly. ‘I take it this wasn’t good news. Do you not wish to continue with the pregnancy?’

‘No. I just – just can’t.’ 

‘That’s okay,’ Emily reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a handful of leaflets and a box of tissues. She offered both to Olivia, who hadn’t even realised that she had started to cry. She rested the leaflets on her lap, her vision too blurred to make out the words. Two fat tears spattered onto the paper.

‘There’s nothing to be ashamed about,’ Emily said softly. ‘We offer a counselling service, for before and after the procedure. You’ll have support each step of the way.’

Olivia could only nod. 

‘We offer both medical and surgical procedures, and which one you have is dependent on how far along you are. I can book you in for a consultation tomorrow, how does that sound?’

Olivia nodded again. 

‘You can bring someone with you, your partner or a friend. It’s better than going through it alone.’

‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll let him know how I get on and stuff,’ Olivia said. Emily was watching her carefully. ‘I’ll bring a friend,’ she lied. It felt like it was the right thing to say.

As she left the clinic and stood at the bus stop, she felt her phone vibrate in her coat pocket. It was a Whatsapp from Marco.

How did it go? xxx

fine, yeah, getting it sorted tomorrow. Xx

Are you sure you don’t want me to come back? 

Can get a train tomorrow xxx

Nah, don’t worry, too expensive. I’ll be okay, can 

FaceTime tomorrow night if you want. Work okay? Xx

Chilled shift so cant complain. Talk soon. 

Love you Liv xxx

She put her phone back in her pocket and tilted her head back towards the sun, and sighed.

*

All she had to do was take five tablets.

They had done an ultrasound to determine how far along she was, the monitor rotated away from her. The jelly was cool on her stomach, still deceptively flat. It hinted at nothing of her small secret swelling underneath. As she lay there on the cool pleather chair staring at the ceiling, hands tucked behind her head and elbows jutting out as if she were basking in the sun, she thought of all the TV shows and movies that had a scene like this. How the expectant mother held the hand of her partner and they gasped with joy and surprise when they saw their little grainy foetus exhibited on the screen. The wonder of creation, everything lit by a warm glow that emanated from the miracle happening furtively inside the woman’s belly. 

But it wasn’t like that at all, really. She didn’t feel excited, or glowing. All she could feel was a small angry knot of worry in her stomach that she had to keep reassuring herself wasn’t it. The foetus. A few times she had mentally referred to it as the thing and felt disgusted with her callousness and lack of maternal instincts, but also wryly amused by the idea of her being assimilated by an alien lifeform. It was like her body had been taken over without her permission and she was now Ghostbustering her own uterus. Or Alienbustering. 

And she just had to take some pills. She took the first one right there in the clinic, a nurse with a hooked nose and steely eyes watching her and telling Olivia to come straight back if she threw up within the first hour. Olivia solemnly promised her that she would.

That evening Marco FaceTimed her.

‘How are you?’ he asked, his forehead a crumple of concern. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m okay, feel a bit woozy but nothing yet,’ she propped herself up on her bed, conscious of holding the phone at a decent angle so that she didn’t look like a thumb. ‘How’s home?’

‘Fine yeah, nice to be back,’

‘That’s good,’ 

‘Work’s going great, think I might come back over Easter and Christmas break as well. Try get something in the bag for after graduation next year.’ 

‘Sounds like a plan,’

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. Not feeling very talkative I guess.’

‘Do you not want to talk now?’

‘No, it’s fine, you want to talk so I will,’ Olivia plastered a big smile on her face. ‘How’re your grandparents doing?’

‘Good,’ he said tersely. 

‘What’s wrong with you now?’

Marco sighed. ‘You never feel like talking, Liv. You don’t ever feel like talking to me and I really don’t know what else to do with you,’

‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t realise,’ Olivia said feebly.

‘And it’s not just over FaceTime or whatever. Last time I came to visit you were so distant. You barely spoke to me. All we did was have sex and watch Netflix,’ 

‘I thought you liked having sex and watching Netflix,’ Olivia said teasingly.

‘You don’t ever want to talk to me and it’s not fair on me to be putting all the effort in,’

‘Okay, sorry,’ she said. She twirled a strand of hair around her finger, wanting to be talking about anything else.

‘Is that all you have to say?’ Marco asked her after a moment’s silence.

‘What am I meant to say?’

‘I dunno, Liv, talk to me. I know you’re going through a lot of… stuff. I want to know how you are.’

‘This is a bit of a shit time to do this, don’t you think? I really don’t have energy for this right now.’

‘Fuck, Olivia, I’m hurting too you know. I’m coming to you for support. What about what I need?’

‘You’re not the one having your insides shrivel up and fall out through your vagina, are you?’ Olivia’s eyes burned, her voice clotted with tears. 

‘Jesus, Liv, sorry okay? Just who else am I meant to talk to about this?’

‘I can’t deal with you right now.’

She hung up without saying another word and switched off her phone. Burrowing under her blanket, she curled tightly into herself and cried. 

*

She woke up the next morning feeling numb. It was almost midday – time for her second dose. She dropped her knickers and propped one leg up on the lid of the toilet, spread her labia and pushed the four tablets up inside her, one at a time. She pictured them fizzing inside her like an effervescent, flooding through her cervix to empty her out. Methodically, she disposed of the packaging and placed a thick pad between her legs and washed her hands. 

Soon the cramps begun. Scalding knives pierced somewhere deep inside her and caused her to retreat to her bed with a hot water bottle tight against her skin. She was flushed of her energy, hot sticky wetness pulsed out between her legs.

The doorbell rang. Olivia ignored it. It rang again, followed by a pounding on the front door. Olivia moaned, dragged herself out of bed and waddled down the stairs. The fat pad felt like a nappy between her legs and was already starting to chafe. 

She opened the door. Marco stood on the doorstep in a green button-down shirt and chinos, his black hair cropped close to his scalp, a bouquet of pink geraniums in his hand. 

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked as he embraced her, her arms pinned to her sides. 

‘Can I come in?’ he said. 

Olivia didn’t have a vase so she put the flowers in a tumbler and set them on her bedside table. He’d left the price on – they were £4 from Tesco. Marco settled himself on her bed and patted the space next to him for Olivia to join. She moved gingerly, folding her hands over her belly.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Fine, yeah. It’s started so I’m a bit wobbly.’

‘Okay. That’s good I guess.’

‘You came all this way to ask me how I am?’

‘I care about you. I missed you. I wanted to be there for you during all this.’

Her stomach twisted. All she wanted was to be left alone. Her head pounded ferociously. ‘You’re so nice to me,’ she said, turning her body away from him as she started to cry.

‘What, why are you crying?’ Marco chuckled, pulling her into his chest and wrapping his arms around her. He smelled like pine.

‘I need to go change my pad,’ Olivia said after a while, wriggling away. 

She shuffled to the bathroom and sat on the toilet, appraising the small constellation of red and black blobs dotting the material. It’s really working, she thought. It’s going to be okay. Things are going to be okay. Back to normal. Like it never happened. She splashed some cold water on her face and refilled her hot water bottle from the kettle downstairs, holding it tight to her belly.

‘Do you ever think about how different things could be if you had just done one thing differently?’ Marco asked her when she climbed back into bed.

‘Is now really the time for this?’ Olivia said, pulling the duvet up to her chin. 

‘I don’t mean, you know, this,’ Marco said awkwardly, gesturing to her stomach then quickly sitting on his hands. ‘I just mean, like, everything. Each small choice we make affects the rest of our lives and we don’t even know it. I could decide to go out and get a takeaway and get hit by a bus on the way.’

‘If this is you telling me you want takeaway, we can order in. Minimise the risk of being squished by public transport.’ 

Marco gave her a quick kiss on the lips. ‘You’re so funny. I love it when you’re funny.’

Never again, Olivia thought to herself as Marco draped his arm around her. She would delete Kyle’s number, block him on all socials. Maybe she would even tell Marco. She would be better. She could turn over a new leaf once all of this was over, start again within herself. Be a better version of Olivia than the one she was right now. 

As she drifted off to sleep in Marco’s arms, she allowed herself a moment of pride. She had made a mistake and was using it to improve on herself. She hadn’t hurt Marco, because he didn’t know. In fact, not telling him was protecting him. And she was protecting him because she loved him. She always would. 

*

Marco had to leave the next evening because he had work the following day, but he spent the morning and afternoon looking after Olivia; he went out and got her croissants from Sainsbury’s for breakfast, even going so far as to warm them up in the microwave; he ordered in burgers for lunch, which Olivia only managed a few bites of because of the cramps in her stomach. If before she felt guilty at how much he cared about her, now she felt like she deserved it. She was, after all, becoming a better person. And she was going through hell to become one. 

The only thing she had to do was delete and block Kyle. She had left her phone untouched since Marco had arrived, and it sat like a red-hot brick on her bedside table, burning with evidence of the person she had decided she no longer would be. Each time Marco stepped out of the room, her brain told her to pick up her phone and quickly do it, quickly erase Kyle from her phone and therefore her life. But each time she thought to do it, she reconsidered; it wasn’t that she wasn’t going to do it – she was – but it was just how she would do it. Maybe she should text him and let him know why. He deserved that, at least. And seeing as though it was going to be an important step to transition to this new Olivia, she didn’t want to rush it. It was going to be a big moment and she wanted to give it the space it deserved. 

All this, she reasoned with herself, was a good enough reason to keep his number, just for a little while. Once Marco was gone, she would have the time and space to make herself a better person. 

It was late afternoon when she came back in from the bathroom, feeling a bit light-headed but the best she had felt all day. She found Marco pacing the small space, his shoulders hunched. 

‘What’s the matter?’ Olivia asked from the doorway. 

‘Your phone needed to charge,’ Marco said. His face was cloudy, unreadable.

Olivia glanced at her bedside table. Her phone was gone. She spotted it clutched tightly in Marco’s hand.

‘Okay. Plug it in?’ she said hesitantly. 

Marco seemed to be struggling to choose the right words. Eventually he asked in a strangled voice, ‘Who is Kyle?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Kyle. Who is he?’ The hand that was gripping her phone was starting to tremble. 

‘A friend of mine.’ Shit shit shit shit shit fuck. 

‘I checked to see if it was charging. Your phone. He’d messaged you. I saw it.’ 

Olivia blinked rapidly. ‘It’s password protected.’

‘I’ve never said stuff like – stuff like this – to a friend.’ Marco seemed to be holding back tears. He kept swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing aggressively in his throat. 

‘You invaded my space.’ Olivia said.

Marco stared at her wide-eyed, as if he was seeing her properly for the first time. This isn’t happening, Olivia thought wildly. That isn’t me anymore. It wasn’t me. Dear fucking Christ it’s not me anymore.

She opened her mouth to tell him this, but he cut her off.

‘Why would you do this to me, Liv?’ he said in a quiet voice. Olivia was watching him crumple before her and she felt sick to her stomach.

‘I didn’t –’

‘Don’t. Don’t lie. I read them. All of them.’

Olivia kept her face blank, silently pleading for him to stop this questioning and to let things be. Things were so close to being okay, but the world was slipping out from under her again and she was hanging by a thread, hung up and twisting in the air, slowly unravelling. She had been so close to being someone else.

‘I can’t do this,’ she said, turning away. 

Marco strode forwards and grabbed her by the arm and spun her to face him. ‘No. We’re talking about this. You can’t run from this, Olivia. You can’t keep running.’

‘Let go of me!’ He was barely holding onto her but he let his hands drop to his sides. Olivia wanted to bury herself in a hole and never come out.

‘I think you should leave,’ she said, shaking. A white-hot fire was seething in her uterus and it was too much to stay standing. She sunk onto her bed, doubled over. 

He stepped away from her and took a breath. ‘You owe me an explanation,’ he said, his voice strained but kept determinedly measured and calm. 

‘For what?’ she said, looking up at him. His eyes were wide, wet. He was wounded, and he was pleading with her. 

‘I want to hear you say what you did.’

‘You should go. Please. Leave me alone.’ It was too much. This wasn’t how she wanted it to go. She had been so close, so close, to starting a new life in herself. But she ruined it. Her own stupidity. She was nothing.

‘How could you?’ he said, his eyes filling with tears so heavy that he couldn’t blink them away. His cheeks glistened.

‘You hurt me,’ said Olivia, rolling up her sleeves to inspect her shoulders. ‘I might bruise.’

‘I loved you,’ he said through his tears.  

If she could undo it all, she would. If she could erase herself completely, scrub her stain from the fabric of the world, she would. In a heartbeat.

‘I did too,’ she said.