A/N I LOVE YOU GUYS!! I got 16 reviews for last chapter, the most I've had since I started this story :D:D I was like OMFG,yayyy!! Well, since you all liked last chapter, here is part two. I meant to update yesterday night, but I went to a party and came this morning hehehe. Anyway, here is part two of 'Like a knife'! Which is by Secondhand Serenade, not Lifehouse like I said last chapter. Sorry about that, I got them confused for a yeah...LETS GET READING!

Chapter 13: Like a knife (2)

BPOV
Saturday 19th July, 2001

It is not as easy as that, though. The real evidence is inside me. Now the thought is in my head I can't shake it out. I am gripped by a sudden need to know.*

I get dressed quickly, not bothering to shower. I make do with washing my face and swilling my mouth out until I get rid of the taste. I take the key off the hook, pick up my purse and pull my jacket. I switch to automatic pilot for the walk to the chemist's. All sorts of thoughts are going through my head. Above all I feel stupid. Fifteen-year-old-girl-stupid for not even thinking of it before. The chemist is in the process of opening up as I get there. I walk past, pretending I have other things to do, places to go. A few minutes later I turn and walk back again. Inside it is cool and feels suitable clinical.

I find the pregnancy testing kits in the far corner. They are sold in packs of two. I wonder if this is a cynical marketing ploy to rip off the desperate or whether the manufacturers think that if you got yourself into this mess once you will probably do so again. I pick up a box that promises 99% accurate results in two minutes. I consider whether to buy something else to disguise my purchase but decide I would be fooling no one. The chemist smiles politely at me as he takes my money and wraps the box discreetly in a paper bag. Presumably he is past judging people. I am grateful.

I walk home twice as quickly, my legs seemingly anxious to know even if my head is not so sure. I dash upstairs straight into the bathroom, which still smells of sick. I open a window, tear open the box and fumble with the cellophane wrapper. I scan the instructions for anything that looks important, take the stick from out of the case and hold it under me. I am shaking as I start to pee; more urine seems to go on my hand than on the stick. When I have finished I put it back in its case, deciding I will wait two minutes before looking rather than watch second by second.

I sit in the lavatory tapping my finger on my legs as I count in my head. I don't want to be pregnant. Pregnant with a baby whose father is about to marry someone else. I used to read about people like that in women's magazines. Think how stupid they were. And now it could be me. I would have to lie about who the father was, make up some story about a drunken one-night stand to tell them at work. Or else get rid of it. Like Edward got rid of me.
The time is up. I open the case. Two thick blue lines stare back at me. One in each window. I am pregnant. I start to cry. Unable to believe what is happening to me, on this of all days. I sit staring at the blue lines through my tears, watching them blur into one then expand into a line of a dozen or so. Eventually I put the stick back in the case and throw it in the pedal bin. Out of sight, out of mind. If only.

I start cleaning the bathroom. Frantically, desperately, manically. I scrub at the bath first, rubbing at the plastic until I fear I will rub it away. I can see my face now, not that I want to, but I can. The toilet cleaner has dust on it, that is how little I use it. I squirt it violently round the rim, wanting to flush everything away. The smell is overwhelming, making me feel sick again. I retch into the toilet bowl. My sparkling clean toilet bowl. Covering it with whatever combination of liquid, bile and alcohol left in my stomach. The alcohol, I had forgotten the alcohol. This thing inside me has been growing in it. Forty percent proof. It is probably poisoned, deformed beyond all recognition.

I tell myself the test result must be wrong. That mine was the one per cent inaccurate test. Someone's has to be. I swish my mouth and go into the kitchen and drink of water straight down. I pace around the flat for a bit, giving it time to work, trying to stop myself from shaking.

When I can wait no longer I go back to the bathroom and take out the second stick from the box on the floor. I repeat the test, sure it will be different this time, brazenly daring the blue line to appear before me as I watch. When it does I throw it in the bin with the other one and slide off the toilet into a quivering heap on the floor. I am crying again now, safe in the knowledge that I have messed up big time. There is no mistake. This is my penance, sent by whoever it is that stands in judgement, who has watched my selfish behaviour and felt repulsed by it.

Eventually, I haul myself up off the floor, stagger into the main room and collapse on my bed in a giddy mixture of nausea, hysteria and panic. The invite is still on the table, the gold embossed lettering glinting in the sunshine. Mr and Mrs Jenkinson request the pleasure of my company at the wedding of their daughter Tanya Jane to Mr. Edward Anthony Masen Cullen. It is taunting me from across the room. I hear the congregation laughing at me as hey wait for the main event. I am the warm-up act, the funny girl who screwed up. Would it have made any difference to Edward if he'd known? Probably he'd have thought it was a ploy, a trap to snare him. That is what the other woman does, isn't it? Get pregnant 'by accident' in a desperate bid to win her man. He might not have though. He might have seen I was mortified by this. That genuine mistakes do happen.

I glance at the clock. Eleven-thirty. He should be on his way to church by now. Perhaps he is there already. Waiting nervously inside. Realising that this is it, there is no going back now. It is too late.

Or is it? Maybe there is still time. Maybe if I told him it would prompt him a last-minute change of heart. Make him realise he is doing the wrong thing, marrying the wrong woman. He has the right to know. It is his. This baby growing inside me.

I gather myself up off the bed, gripped by a desire for a dramatic final scene instead of seeing things ebb away privately, quietly, without a struggle. I run to the bathroom and splash cold water over my tear-stained face, the shock hitting my skin first then seeping through beneath, jolting my body into action. I will wear my wedding outfit. I am a guest, after all. Even if I am out to spoil the party. I dash back into the room, take my top off and grab my dress from the wardrobe, pulling it over my head as I wriggle out of my jeans, letting it slither down, finding its way over the curves, settling into place. I slip on my black slingbacks, grab my hat from the top of the wardrobe, pick up my handbag and clatter downstairs.

My hand is shaking so much I struggle to open the car door. I throw my hat on the passenger seat, jump inside and start the engine, pulling the seat belt on as I drive off. My heart sinks as I see traffic crawling along the main road into town. I wind down the window; the heat is stifling. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel, the tapping getting louder as the minutes tick by. I decide to take a different route and turn left, accelerating between the speed humps and hitting each one hard. I have written stories about people who do this, interviewed the residents who complained, the same ones who will be twitching behind the curtains now, threatening to ring that woman in the newspaper again. I turn left and right and right again, only to find myself staring at a queue of cars in front, people who all had the same idea as me and are now wishing they hadn't bothered. I notice there are traffic cones along the side of the main road and barriers further towards the town centre. Families are milling around, small children with looks of anticipation on their faces. The carnival. Despite everything I have written about it, I have forgotten the bloody carnival.

It all comes back now. The town centre is going to be closed to traffic from midday. I am not going to make it. I am going to be sitting in the car, pregnant, watching the carnival procession go by when Edward marries someone else. I pull out of the queue of traffic, perform an unconventional three-point turn and park on the other side of the road. I am on double yellows, I will get a ticket but I don't care. I have more important things to worry about. I put my hat on, lock the door and start to run, aware that people are watching me. I weave in and out of the gathering crowd. At first I say 'excuse me', after a while I don't bother. I can hear the tutting and complaining as I push past, children staring, mothers explaining that the woman is in a hurry and that is why she is being rude. I raise my wrist to look at the watch, only to realise that I didn't put it on. The policeman up ahead is turning the traffic away now, so I guess it must be gone twelve. I still have more than a mile to go. It is not easy to run in my slingbacks. I wish I'd put trainers; it wouldn't have mattered. It is getting there which is important. I stumble over a cracked paving stone and come crashing to the floor. The pain sears through me, bringing tears to my eyes. A small, elderly woman asks if I'm okay.

"Yes," I say, "fine thanks,"

I am used to telling lies by now. I am very good at it. A man hands me my hat which is slightly crumpled but otherwise unscathed. I pick myself up; my left knee is bleeding. I reach down and dab at it with my hand, brushing dirt into it in the process. A St John Ambulance woman is walking towards me. Fucking busybody Elastoplast brigade. I have no time for tea or sympathy, for antiseptic or kissing it better. I put my hat back on and start off again towards the town centre, walking at first until I feel steady enough to run again. My eyes are still watering. That is how I explain the rivulets of hot, salty liquid running down my cheeks. I run under the railway bridge, past the park gates, familiar places passing by in a blur. I give up pushing through the people on the pavement, scramble through a gap in the barriers and take to running in the gutter. The best place for me.

"I love you," I whisper in gasping breaths, "I love you, I love you."

The crowd is denser now. I am joined in the gutter by a man dressed in a lion suit brandishing a collecting bucket.

"Have you lost your float, love?" he says as I push past. I want to tell him to fuck off but I don't have the breath left. Someone throws twenty pence at the lion's bucket; it misses and hits me on the arm. The first floats are approaching from behind. I can hear the soft growl of a lorry engine and the distant beat of a drum. I squeeze through a gap in the barriers back into the crowd, ready to cut down the next corner, away from the procession route towards the church.

"I love you. I love you."

I am wheezing now. I have no idea how I am managing to keep my legs moving. I round the corner, and can see St Andrew's church, set back in a shady recess behind the cast-iron railings. I look up at the church clock, twelve forty. I want to climb up and haul the hands back to twelve but I can't. The energy has sapped from my body. I slow to a trot, sure I am too late but drawn to go closer. Perhaps he was late as usual, or she was. Caught up in the traffic. Perhaps there is still a chance.

The wedding car is outside, a silver Rolls-Royce with a white ribbon, the chauffeur mopping his brow with a handkerchief. I walk past him, up to the railings. The front doors are open. I think I can hear music drifting across from inside but it hard to tell with all the noise from the carnival behind.

"I love you, I love you;"
I stand and brace myself for what I am about to do. There is nothing for it but to go on in, to see where they are in the ceremony, to find out if it is legal yet. To do what I have to do.

As I start down the path I see a vision in white drifting towards me from the darkness inside. I dart back out of sight behind the railings as the happy couple emerge on the church steps to a flurry of activity from the photographer. She is radiant, her hair piled elegantly on top of her head, the smile on her face tearing me in two. Hail the victor, who won without even knowing she was in a battle. Beside her Edward is smiling too. Beaming, in fact. Like he was genuinely happy and I have been kidding myself all this time to think he loved me more than her. The shutter clicks. Their happiness captured forever in film. He is hers now. My gaze drifts down to his left hand. The ring is in place: the circle is complete, unbreakable.

Unlike me.

"I hate you," I whisper under my breath, "I hate you."

Tell me what you think please!! Whether you like it or hate you hate it,, review!! If you're a writer as well, you know how good it feels to know your readers' opinions. And if you're readers, then just know it's wonderful to get reviews. it makes it worthwhile, you know, knowing all your opinions. If you think something after reading this chapter, please please please let me know. (:

Hope to update next chapter soon!

-Angel on Air