Hidden Cottage by Erica James Page B

that happened was that she was violently sick and nearly passed out.
    Still very much pregnant, she went home to Basingstoke and broke the news to her parents. It was her mother who led the charge in their combined anger and disappointment with her and declared she never wanted to set eyes on Mia again. Unless she had an abortion. In an instant Mia felt fiercely protective of the child she was carrying. No one was going to make her kill it. This was her baby. It was hers and she was going to give it the right to live.
    Refusing her mother’s demand point-blank, and believing her parents would come round, that they would eventually calm down and do all they could to help, she stood firm. But they didn’t come round and the shock of their adamant rejection hit her more than Jeff’s abandonment. Parents, weren’t they supposed to be there for you, no matter what? Wasn’t their love supposed to be unconditional?
    Not in this case. And so she returned to Bristol in a state of shocked denial. This really wasn’t happening to her, was it? Somehow she managed to continue fooling herself, along with everyone else, until finally one of her tutors took her aside and asked outright if she was pregnant. Things happened very quickly after that. She was given the opportunity to defer her place, to return after the baby was born and initially Mia was tempted to say yes, but then she thought how trivial it all seemed. She was about to become a mother; the luxury of study was no longer an option for her. She had to find a way to support herself and the baby.
    She moved out of her halls of residence and, using the local paper, she looked for somewhere to live in Bristol. She ended up renting a room from a woman called Mrs Frost, whose manner was as cold as her name might suggest. She was a gorgon of a landlady, but Mia was determined to make it work, if only because the rent was so reasonable. Her parents had cut her off without a penny but at least Jeff remained true to his word and regularly sent her money. Other than that, she didn’t hear from him. She had an address for him, but she had promised herself the only time she would contact him would be to let him know she’d had the baby.
    When the time came she wrote telling him that he had a son and she’d called him Jensen, after his car. His response was to send her more money, and as regular as clockwork, every month, a payment was made into her bank account.
    She didn’t see him again until Jensen was nearly four years old and had been admitted to hospital.

Chapter Nine
    Back from her sleepover at Lauren’s, Madison unpacked her overnight bag.
    When she had put everything away, she smoothed the duvet on her bed and placed a large round cake tin on it. She then sat at the desk JC had bought for her. Squeezed in between the chest of drawers and the door, it was her favourite thing in her bedroom, that and her electronic piano keyboard and the pretty shell Lauren had brought back from her holiday in the Caribbean. It was a conch shell and when Lauren had given it to her she had explained that she’d bought it from a man selling them on the beach in front of the hotel where she and her family had been staying. Originally Madison had kept the shell on her bedside table, but now she had it on her desk.
    JC had surprised her with the desk on her ninth birthday three weeks ago. Even Mum had been amazed and had thought it might be too big for her tiny bedroom. JC had said he wasn’t stupid and that he’d checked the measurements before he’d bought it at Ikea.
    So now she had her very own desk with a drawer where she kept her diary. The diary now open in front of her, she selected the pen she wanted to use – it was Saturday, which meant it had to be the pen with the sparkly gold ink; she had a different colour for each day of the week. She placed the cap on the top of the pen and tapped it against her teeth wondering how to start and thinking that maybe if she didn’t actually