How it Shouldn't Be
Everything’s supposed to be open now – but it’s not. This was supposed to be the end of keeping secrets. But you still can’t tell most people and it seems that the secret world has expanded to engulf most of your real world, so you have no time left to pretend to be fine.
People tell you that hiding your feelings is wrong. They don’t have a clue - you are not allowed to be upset, even though you have a perfectly good reason. Even though teachers have been told to be understanding and your friends know that something’s up, there is a line of acceptable behaviour, that you have crossed so many times in your head that you couldn't translate it into real life.
You have the choice. You can walk out of your class because the subject of the lesson is illnesses, or you can deal with it. Your exam grade, your choice. You can sulk at your best friends because they laughted at a crude joke about death, or you can deal with it. They’re your friends, choose to lose them or keep them.
And you can let it upset you, or else pretend to accept it. Either way, you won't change the world with the force of your emotions. Your only reward is self-destruction. People tell you that this is bad – but you’re not so sure, yourself.
And every time, things get a little more fine. The incentives to keep them so, pile over your head and before you realise, you are living the life you said you never would do, you are forgetting, without the loss of memory. And you promised to never forget.
So you find ways to remind yourself – a thousand little blemishes on life, signs that things are seldom as they seem. Your hands haven’t stopped shaking yet from the number of times you hit the brick wall outside last night. Your music won’t come out of minor. Your work is slowly slipping. And the worst of it is, you’re not sure if you want it to get better.

edited - sorry it took so long. i've tried to work some of the ambiguity out of it, whilst keeping it succinct, but these editions are from so far back that it's been hard to keep the original sense of the story.

Lillies
They were her favourite flowers and he'd bought them to please her, but in my mind, they evoked memories of the Lady of Shalott. They had been placed artistically on his kitchen table, though no doubt through some perfect accident: one of the kitchen lights had blown, so the leaves appeared half light and half dark.
He set out tea and biscuits for us, with another place set for Tam, his wife, and I, the mistress, sat with him in his and Tam's modern kitchen, till we’d finished our tea. I brushed up the crumbs with my thumb.
“How’re you gonna tell Tam?”
“Actually Alice, would it be better if you…?”
Sudden colour flushed to my cheeks as I stood up, my chair scratching against their varnished wooden floor.
“Joe, I’m her best friend. You’re her husband – and I’m only your – “
I hovered before our swear word, in unspoken acknowledgement that, although we shared the guilt, he’d take the blame. He was the married one in our relationship.
“No, you’ll have to tell her.”
The door clicked open, cutting our conversation short.
“Joe, Lillies! How beautiful.”
Tam saw me and my presence tightened her smile. I wondered if she already knew.
“Lillies can mean so many different things. Do you remember, Alice, how we used to talk about that?”

“Today, is gonna be the day, that they’re gonna give it back to you,
By now, you should somehow have realised what you’ve got to do.”
-Oasis, Wonderwall.
I put down my guitar.
On a good day, I might write an airy sonnet, whereas bad days I’m writing in harsh chords, or echoing the words of an artist I admire. Today, I am going to explain things properly to him, though. Pick up the phone.
“Hey, Di. S’up?”
“Fine.”
(Resist the urge to put down the phone). I fiddle with the bass string of my guitar.
“Look, I’ve got some stuff I need to tell you.”There’s silence and the humming of the phone - I want to fill it with casual nonsense. I could ask about the weather or something.
“I – don’t know how to tell you this. I…”There’s no easy way to say this. I’ve imagined the situation so many times that I can’t stop the different versions panning out before me.
“Look, Danny, I think I’m pregnant. I’m going down to the clinic to find out, in fifteen minutes...”
That was the first time I ever heard Danny swear.
“Are you going alone?””Yeah.”
“Want me to come with? If you want me there.”
Stroked the side of my guitar, its smooth varnish warm and familiar.
“Yeah, I would.”
“Alright. I’ll be down in fifteen, yeah? And remember,” I could hear his voice go a little higher, “I love you.”
I nodded. Don’t think I could sing right now, even a minor ballad.
“Yeah.”
I put down the phone.

“Maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me,
cos after all, you’re my wonderwall.”

Telling
Honesty takes you so far, but it’s
Cowardice takes you the whole nine yards, this
Had been going on too long, hurting too much
I told him to meet me at the park.

Refused his hugs and avoided his eye
Told him I didn’t love him any more
Silence is golden, but gold is so cold
Didn’t know speech could be so cold and hard.

Honesty takes you too far out, then it’s
Guilt that will follow you home in the dark
Have I led him on? Has it been too long?
This is how strains of bitterness are caused.

And not knowing or wanting to find a way to stop
I continued where love left off and hurt starts.

edited -
Tuesday
This classroom kills me. I refuse to deal with work when my life is so wrecked. Against the flutter of my closed eyelids, the classroom light seems too bright and people seem happy. All happy sets of coincidences – I don’t fit here. Let me go to the toilet, or something.
Lean against the bathroom wall. There’s a mirror and there should be something in the image. Something remaining from before all this started. Is there? Maybe there will be once this all goes away. I don’t know – I don’t know any more.
I count the days again on my fingers. Three. Until then, this classroom is killing me. I don’t know why – homework, people and life never seemed such a chore for the last few years, but they are superfluous. I’m sitting in a classroom, working out how best to ruin people’s lives. That’s sick, that is.
Friday. I can’t decide if that’s a sentence, or the end of one. Guilt’s a thing like that – real enough that you can’t get out of it and imaginary so you can’t explain. But I will explain, as soon as I can. I wonder how it ever got this bad. I wonder how they’ll react.
Someone’s wandering down the corridor. I’d best get back to class, before I do something stupid to myself. This is, after all, a school in which nothing untoward happens.
Heads bob up as I walk back in. I wonder if someone’s been in whilst I was out, to tell everyone what I’ve been thinking. No? Then I can pretend for a few more days that things are fine. Three more days.“Sorry. Just feeling a bit sick.”

Aftermath
45:38. The time taken (in minutes and seconds) to ruin his life. How do I start? I don’t know what to say… that Dad confronted me, or that we need to talk. His voice changes immediately. I wonder quietly if he’ll try to blame me.
Pregnant. Dad would have gone over to his place with a spade, if he knew where Alex lived. It wasn’t Alex’s fault – could be mine - but like he’d told me from the start, boys are bound to get it worst when dads find out.
Dad is planning on calling the police, except … yeah, I’m fourteen, and he’s seventeen, but I don’t count myself as a child. Alex never treats me like a child and…this isn’t fair. Pregnant.
I ring him the moment Dad leaves me alone, mobile slick in my sweaty palm and I’m leaning on the bricks outside of the house. It’s starting to rain and my top’s gonna get ruined.
“There’s gonna be some hell raised over this.”
His rough, Manchester accent, raises hairs on the back of my neck. I haven’t brought a coat out with me. It’s cold.
“Cos you know I’m gonna get blamed for this.” There’s nothing to say. “What’s Helena gonna think?”
I know Helena. She’s a nice, good girl, just got into uni. He’s right – she’s going to be devastated. She deserves more than the truth, but then again, she probably deserves more than him, too. Problem is, she doesn’t want anything but him. Can’t help wondering if she’ll want him when he’s supporting a kid. My kid.
“But… look. I thought you were on the pill?”
I’d told him I wasn’t. I had told him.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Look, I…”
Listening to him swear at me. Wondering if it was my fault. My ankles are in pain, from crouching against this wall for so long. I have to go. Am running out of credit, but Alex pays for that for me anyway.
“Can I go?”
He cares for me. He even loves me and I am ruining his life.
“Course you can, I never stopped you. It’s what you want, Amy. But look, I still love you, whatever happens. And I won’t blame you.”
I never want to talk to him again. But he loves me.
“Can I ring you tomorrow?”
No. This has been enough. Everything has been said, that needed to be said. I’ve hardly spoken.
He’ll ring tomorrow anyway.