“Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate” she told herself quietly, staring at the computer screen. But she was struggling. She knew it was in her bag, sitting there, wrapped in tinfoil, calling to her. She should never have brought it with her. What was she thinking? She knew she couldn’t resist it. This was ridiculous!

Ever since she found out she was pregnant she’d had cravings, sausages, bacon, butter, although it may have just been that she felt she had a good excuse to eat more of them. But these were all things she could explain and get away with. But this? It wasn’t something very social for one thing.

Jay came over to speak to her, “You got that report I asked for 2 hours ago?” he asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He was an expert at being passive aggressive. He had the ability though to make her feel like she disappointed him, like she did when she talked to her mum.

Unsurprisingly, her mum didn’t congratulate her when she excitedly told she was expecting. She was just bombarded with all the reasons why she would fuck it up as she had with everything she had tried in her life.

- She hadn’t been able to finish her degree because she had no motivation (ok she had to give her the first part of this statement, but she’d had serious anxiety and was really struggling and thought if she’d carried on things would just continue to spiral downwards).

- How could she possibly look after a baby, she couldn’t even look after a man enough for them to want to stay. (Not true, all the men she’d been with were bastards and she had told them to go)

- She had no patience to keep a job for more than two minutes, how was she going to put up with the hard work of looking after a child. (She had had only three jobs in ten years and each time she left it was because she had a promotion).

- Her own dad didn’t want to stay (wow, just wow)

And the list went on. She couldn’t really understand why she received so much negativity, for her brother it was the complete opposite. Callum, the first born, the doctor, husband, father of two. She loved her brother and they had a great relationship, but she couldn’t help having twinges of jealousy occasionally.

But her mum was a doting grandmother and she had no doubt this little one will be just as loved and spoilt. And she’d almost accepted how her mum treated her. That had taken a while though and some long-term therapy, picking apart the layers (ironic considering her craving) of hurt and self-loathing. She no longer believed what she was told about herself. She was hard-working, funny, a good friend and kind. And she was going to make a damn good mum (she hoped) (no she absolutely would).

“So, have you?” Jake’s voice brought her back in the room. “Do I have to wait longer, or maybe I should ask someone else to do it for me?”

“No, no, I have it right here for you” she handed him the twenty page report that she had devoted all of yesterday and this morning to, in between trying not to think about what was in her bag.

“‘Bout time” he said snatching from her, “I’ll be back later with the changes you will need to make”.

“Oh fuck off” she shouted at him (not really). “Ok” she smiled sweetly at him. She knew she should stand up to him and shout systemic sexist at the top of her voice, but she wasn’t here for much longer. Not a great excuse, but she hadn’t the energy these days. She felt crap though, she had always made sure she never allowed anyone to make her feel unimportant since growing up. She picked up her bag and made her way to the loos.

She sat on the closed toilet lid and undid the zip on her bag. She took out the tinfoil package slowly and sniffed it. She smiled as she unwrapped the onion and slowly and leisurely, to make sure she savoured every mouthful, she bit into it.