The Guilt Bump.

I stared at the little strip in my hand in horror.
A few weeks ago, I’d gone to a party and I only hooked up with one bloke there. Afterwards, I started to feel nauseous, constant headaches, and my breasts were beginning to hurt. I’d also fainted a couple of times. The fainting wasn’t that surprising, seeing as I did suffer from epilepsy, but I was on tablets for it, so I shouldn’t be fainting. Then, when I was three weeks late with my period, my mum joked I may be pregnant. Even though she was joking, I started to worry that I might be. So I went to the chemist and brought myself a pregnancy testing kit. And now, I was looking down at it, being told that I was definitely pregnant. And there was no mistaking who the father was.
“Chantelle? Are you going to take long in there?” Mum knocked on the bathroom door.
“Sorry, Mum,” I unlocked the door, and came out of the bathroom.
“What was you doing in there?”
“Going number two,” I smiled.
“Eew, grose.”
“Well, you did ask,” I laughed. I made my way downstairs, and made myself a cup of hot chocolate, and mused things over.
What was I going to do once the baby was born? Would I have to move out into my own place, or could I carry on staying at Mum’s? After Mickey and I split up, I had nowhere else to go. And then last of all, the crunching question. Would I have to tell Harry, the possible father?
By the time Mum had showered and come downstairs, I’d made up my mind to tell her. Mums always had this special ‘Mum’ magic to make everything all right.
I made her a cup of coffee, and said: “Mum. I’ve got something to tell you.”
“What is it, Sweetheart?”
I took a deep breath, and launched straight into it.
“A few weeks ago, I went to that party that my boss at work threw.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember. I don’t think I heard you come in that night.”
“Well, that’s because I didn’t come home. I went to Harry’s place, and stayed there all night. I came home at around nine the next morning, you’d gone work by then.”
Mum took a drag of her coffee, and lit her first fag of the day.
“Well done, Chantelle. You scored! But why are you telling me this now?”
“I…’m pregnant. And I think it’s Harry’s.” I said it all fast, so it came out as one word.
The fag drooped as Mum stared at me, dumbstruck. “Oh my God! Are you serious!? How did you know?”
“Well, you remember last week when I fainted a couple of times, and we just put it down to my epilepsy? And then I complained my breasts were starting to hurt…”
“… And the neusea, and the headaches, and the fact you were three weeks late with your Lady Time,” Mum finished off. “ I remember you moaning now. And then I joked that you may be up the duff.” Mum started to light her fag, and stopped, and stared at me. “You went out and brought a pregnancy kit, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “Mum, what do you think I should do?”
“What do you mean?”
“About the baby?”
“Oh, I see. Well, when you next see your Harry friend, you’ll have to tell him, won’t you?”
I sighed.
“There’s no use sighing, Missy. You got yourself into this mess, don’t expect me to bail you out this time. You tell this Harry, and I expect him to do his share in looking after my first grandchild. You‘re twenty three now, Chantelle, you need to stop expecting me, and relying on me to bail you out every time. Next time you see this Harry, you tell him, and you marry him. And then you move into a place of your own.”
I smiled weakly. “Thanks, Mum.”
“You’re welcome. Anytime.”

For the next week, I had a holiday from work, which gave me some time to think things over. By the time I went back to work on Monday, I had made up my mind. I was going to tell Harry.
I did telemarketing on the first floor, while Harry worked in Admin on the second floor. In my break, I went upstairs to his office to tell him the news.
I found his office, with the words: “HARRY RETTOP” on the door. I knocked sharply three times, and waited for his reply. But none came. I knocked sharply three times again, thinking he hadn’t heard me, but still nothing. I got confused, then figured maybe it was his day off today. I was about to turn and head back downstairs, when a voice rang out: “Can I help you?” I turned. A pretty young blonde girl was looking at me. She couldn’t be no older than sixteen.
“Er, yeah, sorry, I was looking for Harry Rettop. Is he in, do you know?”
The girl looked at me with such a sad look on her face.
“I’m really sorry. Haven’t you heard? He took some time off work to take his wife and three daughters to Ibiza. But the plane crashed, and they all died.” The girl gabbled it all out really fast, because tears started welling up in her eyes.
I felt like I was going cry myself. First of all, Harry was a family man? He cheated on his wife? And second, he gets killed? Leaving me alone with my baby? My heart felt like it was ripping in two, and the world crashed down around me.
“Just before he went away, he had a one night stand and cheated on his wife while she was away on a conference call,” the girl told me. “So he took his family on holiday purely out of guilt. And the girl he cheated on his wife with got pregnant. You know what? I know this is going to sound really sick, but it wouldn‘t surprise me that he planned the plane crash so his family would never find out.”
I was flabbergasted. “But how could he know?” I asked. “I didn’t find out I was pregnant myself until this morning. That‘s why I came up here for. To tell him.”
The girl looked confused. “You?” She asked. “You mean he got you pregnant as well? But I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about myself. I had a one night stand with Harry Rettop, and now I’m pregnant with his baby.”