Free-Falling Read online

  And then New Year’s Eve had arrived, her first one as a single girl since she was nineteen. She had been anticipating a difficult night, of course. Not having Andy wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close for a midnight kiss was going to hurt. But she hadn’t expected it to be so damned depressing staying in for the night, trying to ignore the festivities going on in the surrounding apartments. Her friends had all tried to convince her she should come out, but she felt fat and uncomfortable and insisted they go without her. She’d briefly wondered what all of Andy’s mates would be doing for the night, but she hadn’t seen any of the guys since the funeral. She was still too afraid to call them: they didn’t even know about the pregnancy yet and obviously they didn’t want to catch up with her, seeing as she’d stopped hearing from them.

  She spent a demoralising night on Facebook, watching the status updates flood in from people’s iPhones.

  Eventually, Belinda managed to wrench herself away from the computer and climb into bed, although not before removing Leah Attard as a friend from her Facebook account. By three in the morning, she’d had enough of tossing and turning. The heat was unbearable and, admirable as its attempts were, her tiny bedside fan was doing nothing to keep her cool. Not only that, the neighbours across the hall seemed to be having a massive party that was still going loud and strong. These days she desperately needed all the sleep she could get, so she clambered out of bed and headed for the apartment door, intent on getting them to turn it down and not caring one bit about her embarrassing ‘My Little Pony’ nightie or her messy bedhead hair. She muttered absentmindedly as she stumbled through the living room. ‘If you really were still here haunting me, you’d have done something about that bloody music by now.’

  She thought she was being ironic. She literally had her hand on the door latch, ready to head out into the hall, when the music stopped abruptly, followed moments later by a guy’s voice calling out, ‘Sorry!’ And then: nothing. Silence.

  ‘Andy?’ she whispered. She touched her fingers gently to the door, allowing herself to briefly entertain the thought that if she were to wrench open the door, she would see Andy standing waiting for her, arms outstretched. But then common sense took over once again. That wasn’t his voice. And it couldn’t be him. She refused to let herself believe in such utter nonsense. The party across the hall had just happened to finish up right when she was about to go and complain. And maybe the person yelling out ‘sorry’ meant just a general ‘Oops, didn’t realise the time, sorry to anyone around who happened to still be awake and disturbed by us!’

  Andy is not haunting you.

  Over the next couple of weeks, life went on as usual, or as usual as it could get with a giant belly taking over her whole body (not to mention her life). The pool opened up after the Christmas break, so she was back at work, volunteering for as many shifts as she could manage during uni holidays. She did grocery shopping, caught up with friends, read her baby books religiously, and avoided the gym just as religiously. Was there really any need to keep up her membership now? After all, she was getting plenty of exercise working at the pool and each shift was surely the equivalent to an aqua aerobics class, right? And, of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that the gym had been packed that night when she’d fallen off the treadmill.

  One evening, she arrived home from a double shift at work with the car boot full of shopping. She’d dropped by the supermarket on her way and, along with the normal groceries, she had decided it was time to start stocking up on a few newborn essentials: nappies, wipes, bath oil, cotton wool and a whole heap of other stuff that she had come across in the baby section of the supermarket. As she looked at the overflowing boot, she wished she’d accepted Stacey’s offer of meeting up with her to give her a hand to unload. The bigger Belinda’s belly got, the more her back ached, the more her ankles swelled, and the less she could carry at a time.

  She grabbed the first two bags and made her way around to the lift, leaving her car boot open. She was about to head straight back to the car, intending on making a few trips and stacking all the bags by the lift, when she realised that she needed to get to the bathroom, now. Ah, another joy of pregnancy, the increased pressure on her bladder that meant the frequency of her visits to the toilet had increased at an alarming rate. Stuff it. She was going to have to go straight upstairs. Fingers crossed no one would be nasty enough to steal baby supplies from her car. She collapsed against the mirrored wall inside the elevator and loosened her grip on the handles of the two heavy shopping bags, letting them sink to the floor as the elevator slowly made its way up to her level. By the time she’d walked the long hallway to her apartment door and let herself in, she was already feeling exhausted, not to mention the fact that she had needed to stop twice to cross her legs together and do an attractive ‘please don’t wet my pants’ dance on the spot, before being able to continue.

  After she’d (mercifully) made it in time to the bathroom, she hesitated to examine her image in the mirror above the sink as she washed her hands. She looked awful. Dark circles under her eyes, shoulders slumped, hair a mess from driving home with the windows open wide. All she wanted to do was sit down, close her eyes and shut the world out for an hour or two. But the boot-full of shopping couldn’t wait. She turned to head out of the bathroom and back to the front door when a sudden and unexpected wave of grief overcame her and her whole body became too heavy. This isn’t fair. I shouldn’t be having to do this on my own. I had a fiancé, I had a life, I was fit and strong and capable and confident and beautiful and now . . . I have nothing. Almost instantaneously, her belly seemed to explode with kicks from within.

  Guilt. Extreme guilt. Of course she had something. She had two somethings, and they were clearly going to make sure she felt their presence. Yet here she was, feeling depressed and sorry for herself when there were other people to consider. And more than that, not only were there two brand new babies on the way that deserved her consideration, there was Andy himself. Her babies’ father. What the hell was she complaining about? Sure, her life got changed, but how about Andy? His life didn’t just get changed – didn’t just get affected by someone else – it got cut short. Dramatically.

  Now, along with feeling physically heavy with this massive stomach, she felt heavy with guilt. She took a deep breath. All right, just get through this and once everything is inside you can sit on the couch, put your head in your hands and have a good, long cry.

  She opened her apartment door and almost immediately tripped up as she stepped out into the hall. There, in front of her door, were five or six of her massive shopping bags, neatly stacked, waiting for her. This time she didn’t feel shock or surprise. She bit her lip to stop the tears as she slowly took the bags, one at a time, from the front door into the kitchen.

  When that was done, she went down the hall to the lift. There by the lift doors were another four bags of shopping. She left them where they were, stepped into the elevator and headed to the car park. She tried to tell herself she was going there to get the rest of the bags, but who was she kidding? She was going down there to try to see him. This was not the kind of work a maintenance guy did. This was quite, quite different from fixing a faulty letterbox flap. And this was not like flowers being delivered to the wrong address. This was no case of mistaken identity. Whoever was bringing her shopping to her door knew exactly who they were doing it for.

  As she rounded the corner, bringing her car spot into view, she saw a figure wearing a familiar cap leaning into her boot. Her stomach began to flutter, and this time it wasn’t because of the babies within. She saw long, tanned, slightly muscular arms. Her heart beat faster. She saw a face turning to look at her and a shy smile appearing on familiar features.

  Andy.

  She put her hand to her mouth, ready to stifle a sob, and then Andy opened his mouth to speak. His voice came out wrong. Andy’s face morphed slowly into James’s and nausea swept
over her. Her whole world began to shift, putting her dangerously off-balance.

  Andy is James.

  James is Andy.

  Dizziness overcame her and she stumbled. The world spun around her and she was falling. It was too late to steady herself and she braced for the impact. There was none.

  Instead, she felt strong arms around her body as she was gently lowered the rest of the way to the ground. She squeezed her eyes shut and did her best to imagine that they were Andy’s arms. But it wouldn’t work. The spell had been broken. She already knew that it wasn’t him. It never had been. And she realised what a fool she’d been. In that moment, as she finally accepted that Andy truly was gone, that he was not here haunting her, it was as though she had lost him all over again. Watching his face vanish like that, before her eyes, swallowed up by this whole other human being, was simply devastating.

  ‘Take it easy there. You okay?’ James’s voice broke through the clutter of her mind and she opened her eyes to look at him.

  ‘Thanks,’ she whispered. ‘That probably would have hurt quite a lot.’

  ‘Anytime.’ The concern in James’s eyes slowly changed to shock as his gaze settled upon her stomach.

  ‘Are you . . .?’ He trailed off uncertainly.

  ‘Yes. Of course I’m pregnant, surely you can’t mistake this massive stomach for a little extra fat, can you?’ she snapped a little crossly.

  ‘Better to be safe than sorry.’ He raised his hands in a gesture of mock self-defence. ‘You can hardly blame me for being surprised: this was the last thing I was expecting. And what was that just now, like a pregnancy faint or something?’

  ‘Can we please talk about this inside?’ Belinda was starting to feel silly, sprawled on the floor of the underground car park. Plus her mint choc-chip ice-cream would be melting if she didn’t get it into the freezer soon.

  He helped her up, loaded the rest of the bags on just one arm and supported her with his other as they made their way back over to the lift. Her legs felt like jelly.

  ‘Not to sound at all ungrateful but, James, what are you doing here, bringing my shopping in for me? I mean, it’s just that I haven’t even seen you since . . .’ She stopped herself saying the words ‘Andy’s funeral’, it didn’t feel right.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry, that’s what I came here for.’

  ‘You came here to help me with my shopping?’

  ‘No, you twat. I came here to talk about the fact that I haven’t seen you all this time. It’s just that I came into the car park to park in a visitor’s spot and saw your car all open and full of shopping. I figured you might need a hand. Hang on, let’s get inside and then we can talk properly.’

  On the way up in the lift, Belinda commented quietly, ‘You’re wearing his hat.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, sorry,’ said James, snatching it off his head.

  ‘Don’t apologise. It just gave me a bit of a jolt, that’s all.’ And she felt so stupid. She should have realised that the light-brown hair curling around the edges of the baseball cap was just slightly longer than Andy’s. And if she’d looked harder, she would have realised that the shoulders were just that bit broader. They may have been identical, but there were definitely differences, subtle things that a fiancée ought to have noticed.

  He got her safely into the apartment and sitting on the couch, and then went back for the last few bags that were still out by the lift. Once all the shopping was in and the cold things had been put away in the fridge, he sat down next to her. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, James finally took it upon himself to break the ice.

  ‘So. Guess I maybe took you by surprise turning up here, hey?’

  Belinda smiled a little sadly. There was no way she would be telling James exactly what was going through her mind in that instant she’d first seen him. She made an effort to focus and responded as naturally as she could. ‘Kind of a shock to see you, that’s all.’

  ‘Ha. Pot. Kettle.’ James grinned at her and Belinda had to laugh despite herself.

  ‘Touché,’ she replied graciously.

  ‘All right, you first. Spill it. Who’s the father?’

  ‘Are you freakin’ kidding me? You think I moved on from Andy so soon? Who the hell do you think is the father?’ Belinda fired up quicker than she meant to – most likely from a guilty conscience, considering she had actually ‘moved on’ the very next night after Andy’s death. Well, almost anyway.

  ‘Shit! Are you serious? Is that even possible? You mean that’s my niece or nephew in there?’ He immediately started counting on his fingers, as though trying to confirm that his brother could have been the father.

  She slapped his hands down crossly. ‘Yes, I’m serious, you bastard! Andy’s the father and it may just be a niece and a nephew in there, by the way.’

  ‘’Scuse me?’

  Fifteen minutes later, the ice was sure as hell broken. Belinda had to admit, she was getting a little tired of telling people the big news about the twins and then having to join in happily with their shock, excitement, amazement, etc, etc. However, she had forgiven James for his original faux pas after he apologised profusely.

  ‘Mum is going to go ballistic when she hears the news,’ James commented, a little too casually for her liking.

  ‘Is that right? And how exactly is she going to find out?’ She raised her eyebrows dangerously at him.

  ‘No way! You can’t expect to keep this from her!’

  ‘I bloody well can and I bloody well will . . . at least until I’m ready, all right?’

  James opened his mouth to protest but Belinda stared him down. ‘Drop it,’ she said firmly. Keen to change the subject, she added hastily, ‘What’s the story with you, then? Haven’t heard from you in months and now here you are to explain. So . . . Explain.’

  ‘Can I start with I’m sorry?’

  ‘You can. Doesn’t mean it’ll do you any good though.’

  ‘Not going to make this easy on me, are you?’

  ‘Why would I? I thought we’d become friends. You were going to be my brother-in-law. Then we lose Andy and I lose you too. You barely even looked my way at the funeral and I haven’t seen you since.’

  ‘Jeez, Belle, tell me how you really feel.’ James looked a little taken aback by her honesty.

  ‘What did you expect, seriously?’ Belinda was prepared to stand her ground on this one.

  James leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees and tapping his fingers together. Eventually, he took a deep breath and spoke. ‘All I can say is that when I lost my brother, it destroyed me. Spending time with you, even looking at you, just made me think of him and it hurt too much.’ He puffed his cheeks out nervously.

  ‘Right. So looking at me made you think too much of Andy?’ She paused before continuing, ‘So then how the fuck do you think it makes me feel when I look at you?’

  He nodded his head fervently. ‘Fair call, fair call,’ he agreed. ‘But I’ve been feeling terrible about it, you have to believe me. And you know what? I missed you. We did have fun together, getting drunk, taking the piss out of Andy; I guess that’s how we bonded, really. Anyway, I know if Andy were still around he’d be furious with me. All he wanted was for us to get along and I’ve just been a complete bastard.’

  ‘Yes, you have.’ Belinda began to soften just a little. ‘But then again, I get it – why you found it hard to be around me. Plus I have been pretty hormonal lately, so I tend to overreact to things at times.’

  ‘Can we start over then? I’d really love to hang out with you again. Though I take it we won’t be having any big nights out at the pub anytime soon?’

  Belinda shook her head and then smiled. ‘Remember the night Andy first introduced us? That ended up being a big one.’

  ‘So this is the chick that took my little bro off the
market, eh?’

  ‘Hey, Belle, why don’t you look after the table while we grab the drinks?’

  ‘Hang on, Andy, did I just hear James say ”little bro”? Excuse me, but aren’t you guys twins – therefore the same age?’

  ‘Apparently being born first makes him the “older and wiser” big brother. We’ll be right back – Frangelico and lime, right?’

  ‘Sure, thanks.’

  Belinda narrowed her eyes at James. ‘Did you know that I overheard the two of you at the bar that night, when you guys were grabbing the first round? I was supposed to be guarding the table, but I needed to head to the bathroom and when I realised you guys were talking about me, I kind of couldn’t help listening in.’

  ‘Christ, are you kidding me? I was being such an arsehole that night.’

  ‘To start with? Yes,’ said Belinda with a laugh. ‘But you improved, so I forgave you.’

  ‘Best behaviour, remember, James?’

  ‘What’s your problem, man? What have I done this time?’

  ‘I could see the way you were looking at Belle. You’re not even going to give her a chance, are you? Look, she’s a great chick and I’d appreciate it if you could try and get along with her. I really like this girl.’

  ‘Jeez, I wouldn’t have guessed you “really liked” her by the size of that fucking rock on her finger. How much did that chunk of metal set you back anyway?’

  ‘Not the point here.’

  ‘Whatever. But, man, where do you get off proposing without even flicking me an email or something first?’

  ‘Is that what this is about? You’re mad cause I didn’t consult you before getting engaged?’

  ‘Whatever. It doesn’t matter; I couldn’t care less about the whole thing.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know why I didn’t contact you first. I guess I was just nervous and therefore worried you might try and talk me out of it. And ever since you stayed overseas and I came home, it’s not as if we’ve been that close. But I really do care about your opinion, so can you please just try and get to know her. It’s going to be a crap wedding if the best man doesn’t get along with the bride.’