Valentina: A Hauntingly Intelligent Psychological Thriller by S. E. Lynes Read Free Book Online

either but we were settled enough, as settled as you can be, making a home after only three months together. We were each other’s home, you could say. Wherever he was, I wanted to be and he always said he felt the same. Thing about you, Shone, he used to say, is you get me.
    I’d bought the tester kit in my lunch hour and took it into the loo when I got home from work. I was supposed to wait and use the morning’s first pee but I couldn’t, I was too anxious to know. I sat watching the stick, my jeans around my ankles. The blue lines got darker: one, then two. My chest expanded like an accordion. I’d thought those things took ages but no, they’re quick. I checked the instructions. One line, the test had worked but the result was negative. Two lines, the test had worked and ... no mistaking, I was having Mikey’s baby.
    I went to phone my mum but stopped myself. Jeanie had already texted:
     
    Have you done it yet?
     
    But I didn’t answer. Mikey had to be the first to know, and I had to tell him face to face.
    Waiting for him to come home was torture. He was still working in a pub, still putting off the inevitable and now I was going to present him with that very thing: the inevitable. I worried it would weigh him down, that faced with the responsibility he would panic. And leave. I cleaned the flat from top to bottom, kept looking out the window for him coming up the road. Seeing no sign, I made spaghetti Bolognese, for something to do.
    Mikey got in about eight o’clock – a lot later than usual – complaining that he’d had to cover for some dickhead philosophy student who hadn’t turned up for his shift. He came into the kitchen, kissed the back of my neck with a loud smack and reached for a couple of beers from the fridge. I said hi and carried on stirring the sauce like my life depended on it.
    “ Sorry I’m so late.” He leant against the countertop, crossed his feet and held out one of the beer bottles to me.
    “ No thanks,” I said, unable to keep my face straight.
    “ Why are you smiling like that?”
    I turned down the gas and faced him full on. “You know how you said you wanted to have kids?”
    “ One day, yeah.” He tipped the bottle to his lips.
    “ One day in about, oh, I don’t know, six months?”
    He took the bottle away so fast it foamed at the neck. His eyes widened. Face the colour of stone, he stepped backwards. “What?”
    “ I’m pregnant.”
    He backed into the kitchen table, hard, as if I’d punched him in the stomach. Felt around the edge as if he were needing to grip onto something to steady himself. The beer froth slid like saliva down the length of the green bottle.
    “ Are you no’ pleased?” I helped him into the chair.
    He began to pant, low and shallow. I took the bottle from his hand, helped him put his head between his knees.
    “ Mikey?” I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. “Mikey, darlin’, are you all right?”
    “ I’m fine, I’m ...” His voice was thin, as if he were talking through a long tube.
    “ Are you no’ pleased? Mikey? Talk to me.”
    He reached up, took my hand and squeezed it. “It’s just. It’s just a shock, that’s all.”
    “ Wait there,” I said. “I’ll get you a wee nip.”
    I ran over to the shelf where we kept the only spirits we had: a bottle of Glenmorangie Mikey’s dad had brought us as a flat-warming present and one of Smirnoff. I poured a big dram of the whisky and took it to him. He’d managed to sit upright again, his brow damp, his face still greyish. He took the glass from me and knocked back the whisky.
    “ Are you OK?” I asked him.
    “ Yeah.” He gave me a half-smile. “I’ll have to get a proper job now, won’t I?”
    I threw my arms around him and sobbed into his neck. You might think that sounds daft, or soppy, but I was so relieved. I’d thought for a minute he’d ... well, never mind what I thought. What I thought barely matters, not any more.
     
    The next day Mikey came home