do our handovers. Meet you in—’ he glanced at his watch ‘—ten minutes?’
‘By the entrance.’
‘OK. And if anyone asks, we’re simply colleagues flaking together after a heavy shift, in need of breakfast.’
They didn’t speak as Holly led the way to the café. Not until David had ordered two bacon sandwiches with lots of ketchup and two large black coffees.
‘I’m too tired to be polite. Let’s cut to the chase,’ he said as they sat down at a table at the back of the café. ‘Where do you get this “abandon” thing from?’
‘I can understand why you did it. Typical teenage boy. Can’t face telling his girl it’s over, so he doesn’t ring her, doesn’t contact her, doesn’t return any of her calls—and if she’s pushy he gets his mum to tell her it’s over.’
He snorted. ‘Rubbish! More like you’d finished slumming it and you got your mum to tell me it was over. And don’t lie, Hol. You didn’t return any of my calls.’
‘What calls?’
‘Come on. I must have phoned you dozens of times, and every time you got your mum to say you were out. When you didn’t turn up to take your A levels, I asked Mrs Smith what had happened to you.’ Their old biology teacher. ‘She was in the exam room. She told me you’d arranged to take your exams somewhere else.’
She frowned. ‘Yes.’
David’s lip curled. ‘So you’d had it planned for God knows how long.’
‘No. It was a last-minute thing.’
He scoffed. ‘Come off it. You can’t change your exam centre at the last minute.’
‘Yes, you can.’ Holly lifted her chin. ‘Mum organised it. I suppose she knew who to talk to.’
Yeah, well. Laura Jones would. She’d probably been mates with the chairman of the examining board.
His thoughts must have been written all over his face, because Holly folded her arms defensively. ‘But there was a good reason for it.’
‘Such as?’
‘If you remember so much about it, then you’ll also remember there was something else worrying me besides exams.’
‘You were stressed, yes.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! Do I have to spell it out?’
She’d dumped him, and now she was trying to claim it had been the other way round. ‘Yes, Holly. You do.’
‘I’d missed two periods.’
‘You told me it was exam nerves, because the same thing had happened just before your GCSEs. And you were a vir—’ He exhaled sharply, as if someone had just thumped him in the stomach. Hard.
Holly had been a virgin before he’d met her. When their relationship had progressed to making love they’d been careful, but condoms weren’t a hundred per cent reliable. His head started spinning. Was she telling him…?
‘Oh, my God.’ He couldn’t get any air into his lungs. ‘Are you telling me we’ve…we’ve got a child?’ He stared at her in disbelief. ‘I’ve got a son or daughter who’s—’ he calculated the age quickly ‘—about eleven years old?’ How could she have kept a secret like that from him? How could she possibly have had his child and not told him?
Holly shook her head. ‘You don’t have a child, David.’
‘All right. So you didn’t name me as the father.’ But no way could the father have been anyone else. Holly might have dropped him without bothering to tell him it was over, but she’d been faithful to him while they’d been together. He was sure of that without having to ask. But he had to know the truth. Did they have a child? ‘Are you telling me that you have a child who is eleven years old?’ he asked, his voice shaking slightly.
‘No.’
‘Then what? You had the baby adopted?’ Her mother would have put pressure on her. A lot of pressure. Of course Holly would have caved in. Nobody could withstand Laura Jones in full flow.
‘No.’
He stared at her. She couldn’t have…She wouldn’t have…Surely not. Not even if her mother had frogmarched her to a private clinic somewhere…would she? ‘You had a termination?’ he asked, his mouth dry.
‘I had a miscarriage,’ she informed him quietly. ‘It started two hours before I was going to sit my first exam. I was in hospital for two days. So I didn’t take my A levels at all that year. I had a gap year and sat them the following summer.’
‘You had a miscarriage?’ Even though her eyes were telling him to back off, he needed to touch her. Comfort her. Feel her touch comforting him. They’d lost a baby and he’d had no idea. He reached across the table and took her hands. ‘Hol, I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea. If I’d known, or even guessed…I would have been right there with you. I’d have sat by your bedside and held your hand, and to hell with my exams.’
She withdrew her hands. ‘Yeah, right. You cared that much.’
‘You know I did. I loved you, Holly. More than anyone.’ Before—or since. Not that she needed to know that. ‘Your mum said you didn’t want to speak to me. I didn’t believe her, so I waited outside your house, hoping I’d get a chance to see you. You were in the car with your mum. And you blanked me.’
‘What did you expect? David, I’d just had a miscarriage. I couldn’t take my exams so I lost my place at university, and my career plans had gone down the toilet. And, worst of all, my so-called boyfriend couldn’t even be bothered to return my calls.’
‘I did ring you. Several times.’
‘Right. And that’s why you went on holiday with another girl?’
‘I did what?’
‘When I…Afterwards.’ She gulped and David suddenly realised how much it must have affected her. Maybe that was the reason why the sweet Holly Jones he’d once known had become so hard. Since she’d lost their baby and thought he’d deserted her.
‘When I thought I could face you without crying, I went round to your place. Your mum was there on her own. She said you’d gone on holiday, with another girl.’
None of this made sense. Had he just been transported to some weird parallel universe? ‘Don’t be stupid. She wouldn’t say something like that.’
‘You’re calling me a liar?’ She folded her arms. ‘You weren’t there. It was the week after the exams finished.’
He thought back and frowned. ‘I went on holiday, yes.’
‘With another girl.’
‘What? That’s ridiculous. I nearly cracked up, what with you dumping me just before the exams. So my uncle David—my mum’s brother, the one I was named after—took me on holiday to get
