Peter was a friend of a friend. I liked him from the moment we met. I liked his quiet chuckle and his thoughtful expression when he listened to someone speak. I liked his dark blue eyes, speckled with brown, and his tall, lanky frame. He was cute. Whenever I greeted him, his smooth cheek brushed against mine as we hugged. Greeting him became my new favourite part of the day – I impatiently waited for the school bell to ring, for the first school break of the day.

I didn’t know much about him, but I was sure he was right for me. I wanted him to be my boyfriend. Easier said than done: I was a quiet teenager who kept feelings to herself. I didn’t talk to him much, because I thought that someone might guess how I felt. Under no circumstances did I want anyone to know my feelings. I kept my secret for months before I had told someone. For so long, I felt I’d explode if I didn’t.

I confided in my friend, one year wiser than I. She was also much less shy and would certainly know how to handle the situation. She was surprised – she’d never have guessed I was interested in him. Straight away I could see the cogs turning in her head. With a sly grin she said she needed the bathroom; she wanted to ask Peter whether we could use his. After all, she told me, he lived closest. No other intentions, just nature calling.

As we walked towards his house, I made her promise not to say anything. Not yet at least, not while I was there. I’d be too embarrassed. She reassured me all she wanted was to pee. I looked at her, she was hardly able to hide her conniving smile. My stomach was fluttering and summersaulting, but I went with her.

She didn’t keep her promise. She didn’t even keep it for a second. As soon as I disappeared into his bathroom, my secret was out. Of course she didn’t tell me. Instead she swore that she hadn’t said a word. I was almost disappointed; in a way it would have been easier for me if he knew. I would’ve liked him to make the first move. Or not make the first move, which I would interpret as him being uninterested. 

One evening, I received a text message. “Is it true you like me?” It was from Peter. My heart raced, but I thought I might as well come clean. “Yes”, I replied. He called. After a painfully awkward conversation, we confessed our love for each other.

This was 14 years ago. I was waiting, impatient to be called into the doctor’s office. Peter had said he couldn’t join me, I suspected he didn’t want to. Ever since Jonas was born, he had kept to himself. I couldn’t get through to him. He spent his days in his pyjamas looking up treatments for our only son. Jonas was born with a rare disease, he had never left the hospital. He survived, but only with feeding tubes, machines and doctors looking after him 24 hours of the day. Without all this, he would die within seconds.

We had wanted Jonas. Now I wished he had never been born. It was a terrible thing to admit for a mother, but it was the truth. The door opened and I was asked into the office. The doctor sat behind her desk and got up to shake my hand when I approached. Her smile was weak and her eyes filled with sorrow. Sorrow for me? Or was she well past the point of feeling sad for her clients? It didn’t matter to me. Her presence soothed me. I had seen her regularly for the past four years and she had become one of my main contacts with the world, a strange friendship in an even stranger time of my life. I chose not to dwell on it. 

‘You’ve made your decision?’, she asked without any prelude. I studied a particular pattern of wood grain on her desk, something I was in the habit of doing. It had become almost a ritual to trace the pattern before starting to speak, and so I gave in to my neurosis for one last time. She waited patiently until I finally said, ‘Yes. I’m ready. We’re ready’.

I saw Jonas for the last time that day. I curled my finger into his little (far too little for his age) hand and waited for him to squeeze it, just as I did every visit. Of course he didn’t. He never did. I brushed over his cheek and looked into his face, tracing every line so I would remember it. For later on when it was done. I started weeping and walked out without turning back, without saying goodbye.

The next few months were hard. Not only had I just lost my son whom I’d never had known, I also lost what was left of my marriage. Peter blamed me for killing our son. He was certain Jonas would have woken up the day after the machines went quiet and his little heart stopped beating. Even though Peter had consented to ending our son’s life – he had signed the many forms and waivers – he blamed me. There was nothing I could say to change his mind. Peter refused to talk to me, to even look at me. Our relationship was lost. 

After four months my mother showed up with a truck, boxes, and two strong men. ‘You’re moving out today’, she announced when I opened the door. I stood in pyjamas I had worn for two weeks straight, watching the removalists pack everything my mum pointed to. Once everything was in the truck, one of the removalists grabbed hold of my shoulders and pushed me along to my mother’s car. I was the last piece of furniture they packed – stiff and wooden, unable to feel anything. Not once did Peter come out to see what was happening, what all the noise and footsteps were about. He, too, was stiff and wooden. Sometimes I wonder how long it took him to notice I was gone.

I moved in with my mother, into my old room where not much had changed since I moved out. For the next few months I was her child again. She stayed home, she cooked, she washed my clothes, she made me get up in the morning. Getting up, eating, watching TV, waiting for the night to come so I could go back to bed – daily routines for the first month I was with my mum. Then I started reading books about women who had gone through similar experiences, I connected with some via the internet. After three months I got up voluntarily in the mornings, and after four months I had lunch outside of home for the first time in years. 

All of this happened so long ago, I can hardly believe it was I who went through it. I am pregnant again. And I think about Jonas and Peter. Until now, I banned them from memory, I pushed them deep into one of my brain folds to be forgotten, to sit there quietly waiting for their time to come back. I’m not worried that my baby will be ill, I know Jonas was a rare case. But I wish my baby could have met her brother. Her brother who taught me that joy is followed by sorrow. Her big brother who stayed too little to live.