"The child is your future." Jac Naylor looked up at the peculiarly dressed woman in surprise. She felt as if she'd been caught off guard.
"I don't have a future," Jac murmured. "Not any more." The woman smiled at Jac, her face full of understanding and warmth.
"Why do you feel like this?" She asked Jac. Jac let out a deep sigh and brushed her faded ginger hair out of her eyes. Her eyes were bristling with long fought tears.
"I don't deserve a future, I don't deserve him, I don't deserve her, I don't deserve anything from anyone. Not ever." The woman stepped closer to Jac and placed her arm gently around her shoulders.
"You say her?"
"This," Jac said, indicating her stomach.
"You know the gender?"
"I just know." For a few minutes there was silence between the pair, broken only by the rhythmic ticking of a clock. It was the eccentrically dressed woman who finally broke the quiet.
"When you said you didn't deserve him, what did you mean?" Jac swallowed, her manner uncertain.
"The nurse...Jonny," Jac spoke slowly, she found that saying Jonny's name was painful.
"Is he the father?" The woman asked, putting two and two together.
Jac nodded as she pushed herself up onto the counter, letting her legs dangle in the air.
"He doesn't want anything to do with me," Jac's voice was subdued, it was as if there was no more fight left in her.
"What about his child?"
"He doesn't know yet."
"Don't you think you should tell him?" Jac shrugged helplessly.
"I know I should, but I can't bring myself to do it, I just can't."
"What did you do that was so wrong?" The woman's voice was soothingly gentle as she looked Jac straight into her eyes.
Jac opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She closed it again, pausing to take note of her thoughts.
"I hurt him, and do you know what the worst thing about it is?"
"Tell me," the woman said in a whisper.
"He still loved me back. So I hurt him again and again and again." Jac stopped speaking, her chest was heaving up and down and the woman could see a solitary silver tear streaking down her left cheek.
"Do you want to continue?" she asked Jac, squeezing her hand. Jac thought about it for a moment and nodded her head in a slow movement.
"He loved me, he actually loved me and I still treated him like he was nothing. What does that say about me?"
"You're not a bad person Jac," the woman said pointedly.
"I'm worse than that. I'm poison. I have destroyed every relationship I've ever had. I'm the worst kind of poison; I'll string people along if it's convenient to me but the moment you become a hindrance, I'll just throw you aside." Jac paused to brush away her falling tears. "Without a second thought."
"We learn from our mistakes. None of us are perfect. We're all just fumbling through the dark, hoping we find the light."
"I feel like my life has been nothing but darkness. I know that I've snuffed out every chance of light I ever had."
"Do you love him?" Jac looked taken aback by the directness of the question. She mulled it over carefully in her mind, weighing up exactly how she felt. The woman waited patiently for her answer.
"Yes. Yes I love him," Jac said at last. "I'm certain of that."
"Do you want to be with him?"
"Yes. I want to be a family. For the first time in my life, I know that's what I need." Another silver tear rolled silently down Jac's cheek. "But I ruined my last chance and now there's no going back. Not this time."
"Maybe he still loves you?" Jac laughed, her voice hollow.
"I've seen more likely diagnoses from Valentine," she said with a hint of her old sarcasm shining through.
"Speak to him Jac. Tell him how you feel. Tell him about the baby," the woman urged. Jac breathed heavily.
"I don't know, I don't know if he wants to know."
"You won't know if you never try. He may rejected you, that's true but at least you'll know that you tried, that you didn't miss out because you were scared of rejection. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger Jac, it really does."
Jac was silent as she stared wistfully out of the open window. The midnight air was cool but not too cold, and Jac liked the way the stars shone bright as fire lamps. They were almost comforting, she thought as she watched a shooting star streak across the night. Make a wish, a voice in her head told her firmly. Wish upon a star. Jac screwed her eyes up tight and as her chest heaved up and down, she made the only wish she had. The only wish she needed. She opened her eyes but the woman was gone as though she had never been there in the first place.
"Who were you?" Jac muttered to herself. "Why me?"
"Why anyone?" said a calm gentle voice. Jac looked around, but there was nobody there. She was alone yet for the first time in a long time, Jac realised that she wasn't alone, not completely. She knew she had to tell Jonny the truth and no matter what he said, she knew she had the baby. She was not alone.
THE END