When Sasha was born, I immediately climbed out of my slump and started to rebuild my life. With the help of a good friend I had met at the club, another single mother, I was able to carry on studying. About a month after giving birth, my body was near enough back to normal, so I went back to work at the club, waiting tables and dancing. I needed the money because cleaning just wasn’t enough to support a child.

To this day, my parents have never once seen Sasha; they maintain the act that she doesn’t exist, just like they do to me. Rory, on the other hand, would skip school once a week and would travel two hours on the bus just to spend the day with us.

When Sasha was a year old, Rory asked if he could move in with us. So, just like that, I was seventeen, a single mother, a student, a part-time waitress/lap dancer, and sole guardian of a fourteen-year-old boy. How we managed I really don’t know, but we did. We got through it, and it made me a stronger person. I was incredibly lucky to have such an amazing brother and an incredible friend because without them I surely wouldn’t have made it through.

While I was gone for those six months, apparently Carson had asked about me a lot. Jason told him I had family issues and I didn’t work there anymore. According to Jason, Carson came in once a month and asked about me, but he stopped visiting the club weekly like he used to.

Exactly seven weeks after giving birth, I was working at the club on a Saturday night when the door opened and the love of my life walked in. His eyes had scanned the room, a hopeful, almost-pleading expression on his face I can still see when I close my eyes. His gaze had settled on me and a beautiful, dimpled smile had spread across his face – and just like that, we were back to normal. Except now, we were parents… but he didn’t need to know about that. As long as he, my baby girl, and my little brother were happy, then that made me happy.

I looked up at Sasha who had her arms wrapped around Rory’s neck, probably choking him, while he just laughed and tickled her like crazy. I smiled happily and got up, grabbing the cheese and eggs from the fridge and looking at Rory expectantly. “Omelette or fried eggs?” I asked.

His mouth dropped open. “Really? I thought we were on a strict ‘cereal for breakfast’ diet.”

I shrugged. “Not anymore, kiddo, not anymore.” I smiled at the thought of having it easy for a couple of weeks. Carson’s money would pay for Rory’s trip, so that meant the wages I had slaved for last week would pay the rent and the bills for the next month. I would even have money left over for nice food for a change. Usually, toward the end of the month, Rory and Sasha were eating cheaper things like jacket potatoes and beans or egg on toast. That was about the time of the month I would start to go hungry. I couldn’t afford to feed three of us for the month on my wages alone, so as long as they both ate three times a day, I was fine with once.

Rory set Sasha down in the highchair again and kissed the side of my head. “Emma, how did you get the money then? Did you get paid early?” he asked, eyeing me worriedly. He knew we were tight on money. I didn’t tell him how bad it got sometimes, but he knew we had a budget we stuck to rigidly. I smiled at the concern on his face; he was so old in some ways, yet so young in others. He was my little brother, but there was actually nothing little about him. He was just under six-foot tall and had a muscular build.

I shrugged, not really wanting to lie to him, but I didn’t want him to know what his big sister had to do to look after him and keep him in trainers. He thought I was a waitress at the club and nothing more. “Yep, got paid early for all the extra shifts I did last week. And there was a big party last night so I got a big tip.”

A grin split his face. “Well, in that case, I’ll have the omelette!” he replied, flicking on the kettle to make a cup of tea.

THE WEEK PASSED QUICKLY. I went to university during the day, and Sasha went into the nursery funded by the university, so I got it at a discounted rate. In the evenings, once I had done the whole ‘running a house’ thing, I did my motherly duties before putting Sasha to bed and then either studied or went to work at the club. I never got time to just chill like a normal eighteen-year-old, but I wasn’t sorry about it. As hard as my life was, I wouldn’t change a single thing. Well, apart from maybe making Carson fall madly in love with me, but that was nothing more than a fairy-tale pipe dream.

The following Saturday, I was practically bouncing in my seat waiting for the time to come when Carson’s race would be finished so I could turn on the TV. Rory was just watching me curiously. He knew I knew Carson. I’d told him I met him through the club and we were friends, but I didn’t tell him anything else. The only people who knew the truth were Jason, my friend Lucie, Mr Wilkinson, my boss and me.

“So, how’s this guy gonna work fried chicken into a conversation?” Rory asked, glancing at his watch. “By the way, you so should have gone for something cruel like ‘I wanna kick a puppy’ or something. That would have been so funny.” He laughed and shook his head.

I wrung my hands together nervously. What if he forgot to do it? I would have made myself look like a complete and utter twit sitting here waiting and he was too busy getting it on with one of his little fan girls to remember something he’d said to me a week ago.

“It would’ve finished by now,” I said, ignoring how my voice shook a little as I spoke. What if I turned the TV on and he’d crashed? What if he was seriously hurt and I never got a chance to tell him I loved him? These thoughts went through my head every race day. I couldn’t bring myself to watch, but that didn’t stop me from imagining horrible things though.