Natalie sat in her bedroom that night. It all fitted. Everything. She kept telling herself that it was just a coincidence, but everything was fitting. What was fitting? She was throwing up, she was late and she had gained some weight. She breathed in deep and said “Oh God, I must be pregnant”



It was no question of her not wanting it, it was just the wrong time for her. It would get in the way of her and Caitlin. She even questioned if James wanted this, but she had no time for guessing games, she sneaked out the house and walked to the twenty-four-hour pharmacy to get a test.

She walked back with it in her handbag and was crying the whole way home. If she was pregnant she didn’t know what she’d do. Her life was already in shreds, she was living in a house her boyfriend was supposed to rent. Caitlin’s dad was on the run and she didn’t even know if any of them were safe. Everyone was going out like it was nothing but she knew what that man could do and if he had the chance, he would kill.



As she got home she threw the test on the bed and sat down. She didn’t want to do it, she didn’t want her life to change. She didn’t want the future to be even more unpredictable. She just wanted to go back sixteen years and raise her child like she should have. Everything was so crazy, it felt like it wasn’t happening, she felt like she was in a bubble, a bubble she couldn’t escape, she just sat and stared at the test for a while. It was 11pm now, she was either going to certainly struggle to sleep because she didn’t know or she could have a smaller chance at not sleeping because she knew. She picked up the test and walked to the bathroom.



It was the longest three minutes of her life, she looked at the timer and only seconds had passed, even when it felt like hours. She sat on the bath as the time ticked down, down to her future. All the memories were flooding back, she remembered doing this seventeen years ago with Caitlin. At that time she sat on the bath in her parent’s house and could hear the calls from her sister as if it was almost yesterday… or today. “You alright in there?” she heard Julie call but this time, it was a real call. “Yeah, just… fine…” she shouted back.



Her timer beeped off and she quickly tried to turn it off. Suddenly Julie knew that you would only take a timer into the bathroom and lock the door for one reason. “Natalie… Let me in” she called again, in a serious tone. “I’m fine, I said, please Julie” but Julie didn’t take “I’m fine” she called again “Natalie, let me in… I know what you’re doing, I’m not an idiot, that timer was a dead giveaway” and Natalie then opened the door, crying. “I don’t want to look, I don’t want to be stuck in this situation all over again”



Julie grabbed Natalie and gave her a huge hug, “I’ll be here,” she said, taking Natalie back in time, “But this time, you can keep it and now… now you have James too” Natalie took a deep breath and walked over to the sink, and closed her eyes and picked it up. She slowly opened her eyes to the view of ‘PREGNANT’ on the stick and she let out a huge sigh, not of relief but of fear, fear for the future.



“I’d know that sigh anywhere, you did it last time you picked one of those up,” Julie said, and then she walked over and went to hug Natalie. Natalie dropped the test in a loud plasticky smash and she collapsed into Julie’s arms, crying. Julie brushed Natalie’s hair away from her face, saying “You know it would’ve been a lot worse if you didn’t know what was happening with Caitlin”



She knew it was true, it would have. If she had found out, the pain of losing her child would have been so bad that another child would’ve been too much for her, but now she could cope, knowing she had Caitlin back in her life…

After long sixteen years...