The girl was seventeen, and she didn't want the baby.
She had been drunk at a friends party, and he was a nice guy, and she was... well, she wasn't thinking. She never even saw him again, only knew his first name. Kevin.
Apart from that, she had no contact, no phone number, no adress, not even a last name. So a month later, when she'd missed a period, her friends had urged her to buy a home pregnancy kit. She laughed it off; she didn't feel any different. How could she be pregnant? She hadn't even finished school yet.
All the same, she'd bought a test kit, much to her embarrasment, and used it, expecting nothing. So when the little blue line appeared, she called her friend, Sue, crying and fearful.
"Jess? Are you alright?" asked her friend down the phone. She was distressed to hear sobs when the answer came.
"I'm pregnant." She burst into tears again.
Her friend took a breath. "Did you take the test?"
"Yes," Jess said, still crying. "I took it, and there's a faint line."
"A faint line?" Sue's voice sounded hopeful. "It might be a mistake. If the line's not very clear, you might not be... very pregnant."
"Don't joke, please," said the sobbing voice down the line. "I can't believe this is happening to me."
"I'll come over now," Sue said, and hung up. Jess was left with nothing but the dead phone line and the used pregnancy test for company until her friend came.
She didn't even know him... how could this be happening... abortion was out of the question... she'd been with a protest earlier in the year... couldn't be happening... deserved to live... wasn't the baby's fault... she was only seventeen...
She gave an odd hiccup every time she said "baby". Sue talked to her, tried to calm her down, but Jess was still upset and couldn't stop crying.
"I'm having a baby," she said, over and over again. I'm going to be a mum."
She looked up at Sue. "I'm too young for this. I don't want a child- I'm not even an adult. Things like this don't happen in real life."
Sue kept talking, trying to deal with Jess's naiveity while comforting her. "You could give the baby away to someone who can't have a child. Adoption."
The more Jess thought about it, the more she started to calm down.
It wasn't easy. People stared when she walked out on the street, when she went to lessons, friends laughed behind her back, called her names. She felt like she couldn't take it anymore. She didn't know what to do, who to turn to once it was born.
And suddenly, one night with Sue with her to keep her company; "I'm having the baby."
They had no car, so Sue had to walk Jess to the hospital in the darkening evening. She'd had no scans of the baby before, and now that it was finally happening, the nurse insisted on having a look at the child.
The nurse moved the ultrasound scanner over Jess's swollen stomach, and peered at the black-and-white screen of the baby. Jess gave a small cry every time the contractions were painful, which were becoming closer together, and Sue held her hand, in the absence of a father.
"You've got twins," the nurse said in a buisnesslike way. "Girl and boy, both healthy."
"Twins?" Jess was terrified. She wasn't ready for even one baby, but two?
The nurse took a pile of sheets from a waiting chansey and tryed to make Jess more comfortable. "I know, I know," she kept saying, though Jess was certain she could never possibly know.
Jess gave birth on the 4th March 1988 to a boy and girl, screaming and cryng for someone to hold them. But much as Jess knew they were her babies, much as she felt a strange but ceratin love for them, that she wanted to protect them and cherish them, she didn't want them. She couldn't, and she knew that. Jess cried again as she held each of the children in turn, and she only wanted a way out.
That night, when Sue had left, and the wards were quiet except for the occasional nurse patrolling the corridors, and the quiet sleep-snuffling of the twins, Jess had made up her mind. In a daze-like, quiet way she left the babies sleeping and slid out of the ward. She felt tired, like she was recovering from the flu, but she left anyway.
She couldn't keep her children, but she couldn't let them go. She was tired, a deep internal weakness that she knew would never be stifled. She wanted to let it go the easy way.
Jess found a window at the end of the briefly-empty corridor, and fought to open it. Her hands were weak, but she never bothered to pause. So what if someone heard?
The window suddenly swung outwards, letting in a blast of cold air that sent her shivering. She grasped hold of the window handle and slowly pulled herself up. It was a clean drop, for several stories, onto a courtyard of concrete.
Jess had thought of commiting suicide before, in her teenage years. She couldn't remember what about, but she had been crying as she thought about doing it. Now, however, she was calm, and ready. Her only tiny pang was for the twins, lying unawares of what she was doing. Too young to understand. She only hoped that somebody would look after them.
By this time, Jess was hunging out of the window, bare feet positioned on the ledge. She looked straight ahead, and prayed that it would be quick. Then she let go of the window's edges, and let herself fall.
E/N: The plotline here does not have much to do with the actual story, and is quite depressing, so I don't know what you'll think of it. Reviews appreciated though.