Having finished in the bathroom, all Gab could do was walk. She had to walk and walk and walk, and if there were people around her, she had no idea. Gab walked past old buildings, past shops, over crossings, through parks, under trees.This thing inside her … this growing mass of cells that perhaps already had a beating heart … it was such an entirely disproportionate, preposterous outcome to one evening, one hour, maybe even one minute completely out of beat with the rest of Gab’s existence. It was living evidence of actions Gab could not even integrate into her own self-understanding. She couldn’t accept what she had done, couldn’t even believe it; it was like trying to absorb a solid object through her skin. And yet this was living proof. What should she do? What could she do?

This whole situation could be solved with one decision. She turned it over and over in her mind. But something in her was resisting. The voices in her head spoke loudly.

It will be too much. You can’t manage it.

That’s the end of uni. No career, no future.

You are not old enough to have a baby!

Wow, you fell pregnant to someone you don’t even know?

And the worst one: Like mother, like daughter.

Gab didn’t need to encounter other peoples’ judgmental sentiments, uninformed incredulity or discomfort with her situation to hear these pronouncements. She didn’t need them, because all those judgments arose within herself. She knew what others might say; she knew the looks she’d get. And there was that intractable question about Robbie. The thought of telling him and the imagined implications of what might follow were unendurable. As she walked, the urges she felt to end her life and escape the shame of it all became so awful, so heavy, that all she could do was put one foot in front of the other. But her soul was dragging, falling down into the concrete. It just wasn’t possible for her to cope with this. If Robbie was single, maybe it would be different. Maybe not. The thought of being shackled to another person through a child—of being roped into relationally with someone she had hardly met and didn’t know—that was absurd enough.

As the sun began to set, Gab realised that she needed to turn around and walk home. As she made her way past a row of townhouses, she heard a baby crying, jolting her to awareness. She stopped to listen. One decision. One afternoon, and no one would know. That would be it; it would be gone, all evidence, all change. Her path restored.

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The baby cried on and on. The sound tugged at her heart strings, seeming to last forever. Where were the child’s parents? Who was going to comfort and look after it? Gab couldn’t bear it. Her hand went instinctively to her abdomen. Then, the baby stopped crying. Had it been comforted? She hoped so. In fact, the baby had been crying only as long as it might have taken anyone to walk from downstairs to the upper floor, but to Gab it had felt like forever.

She shook her head and continued. Her mother would have said it was a sign, but she was doing everything she could not to think of her mother right now; not to think about following in her mother’s footsteps. That was the worst thought of all. And yet, to eradicate this growing mass of cells—did she want that? What would be worse—having her life turned upside down by becoming a single mother at nineteen? Or continuing things as they were while knowing she could have had something entirely new, unexpected—her own child—and that she had chosen not to? Would she spend her life wondering about this almost-child? Wishing she’d been able to meet it? It seemed obvious that having her life turned upside down by a baby was by far the worse option; but something in still resisted.

What the hell would she do with it? Where would she live? Could she afford it? Would she have to move back home again, now that she had tasted freedom? It was unimaginable; she couldn’t go back—she just couldn’t. Her sanity, her wellbeing, her ability to cope with life was at stake. She couldn’t have Gina looking over her shoulder constantly, telling her what to do or freaking out all the time.

Gab was halfway back to the apartment when she thought of Freya. And then she thought of Saanvi. And she felt a spark of warmth, just a tiny one. She felt that in the few moments of time she had witnessed mother and daughter together, she had seen something she wanted. Something comfortable; something like home. She thought of Freya’s family. Things didn’t have to be what Gab had always known. There might be alternatives.

Gab thought too of working with Tony on the farm and of his teaching her to drive. She thought of Mr. C and how it felt when he’d said he was proud of her. She knew she held her head high now through others’ belief in her—belief that came even before she was ready to genuinely believe it herself. This wasn’t a fake overcompensation for insecurity. This was genuine, growing confidence.

“You’ve got as much right to be out there, living your life, as anyone,” Mr. C had told her once. “And as much right to be happy, too.”

Yes. She did. Why should she miss out?

The problem was, it felt like she would be missing out either way: baby or no-baby.