Nothing Is Impossible By Anna Hadland

What was I thinking? Going to this club on my own. Claire said yesterday she would come with me. Then she said she couldn’t come. The cheek! That’s why I decided to come on my own. You see we had both just split up with our boyfriends. She said she had broke up with Mark because they hardly saw each other. I don’t believe her. I know she really loves him still. I know he still really loves her. Me and Nicky just had a big argument before he went on holiday with his parents. They went back to Dublin where they used to live for two weeks. They moved to England two years ago and we’ve been together since. Mark lives in Sligo but he comes to visit Nicky at least one weekend a fortnight. That’s how Claire got to know Mark. Nicky was due back this morning and I know he would come to my house this evening. That’s why I’m at this club now. I don’t want to see him just yet. He can see our son Jai. My mum’s got him right now. It’s his 1st birthday tomorrow. My mum organised a big party for his friends in the hall around the corner. He’s been at nursery since he was six months old.

I walked over to the bar and sat down. “Archers and lemonade for the lady please” came a voice next to me. I turned round to see Nicky sat next to me. “Anna I’m so sorry.”
“What was that argument about anyway?”
“I have no idea. Whatever it was do you forgive me?”
“Yeah I do. Are you still coming over tomorrow morning?”
“What? And miss my baby waking up on his first birthday? I’ll never miss that for anything.”
As you can tell we both still live with our parents. We were both still 19 years old. I had Jai when I was 18. He’s the perfect image of his father Nicholas Byrne. Blond hair and the brightest blue eyes you’ve ever seen.
“What are you doing here anyway?” Asked Nicky.
“It’s Saturday night. Jai is in bed so mum told me to go out. Claire was going to come but backed out at the last minute.”
“So you came on your own?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what I was thinking though. Haven’t you got work in the morning?”
“Nah. Louis says he won’t bother us for two weeks so I can do whatever I want.” He said pulling me to him. He smelt of Dolce and Gabbana. He loves that stuff. He’s a singer in a band called Westlife and loves it. I do get worried sometimes but that’s what he wants to do. I don’t want to stop him doing something he loves. But me? I was a Full time college student studying law before I had Jai. I gave that up and now I work full time as a Nursery Assistant and go to college one day a week. It works for both of us.

The next day was Jai’s birthday. Nicky and his family came over just after 8am. I had just gotten up but Jai was still asleep. It was pretty unusual for him as he’s always up at 5am demanding to play with his toys.
At 8.30 I went to wake him up and brought him downstairs. “Ma! Dada!” I put him on the carpet and he sat down. My mum got the camcorder out and started filming him. He stood up and stared at the camera for a while then he took his first couple of steps before falling over. Nicky picked him up. I couldn’t have felt happier right then.
“Who’s a clever boy?” said Nicky’s dad.
“You’re so clever!” said my mum. Wasn’t that clever thing getting old now?
“Did you get that?” I asked my mum.
“I sure did” she replied.

Later that afternoon we all went to the hall to set up. I had fun trying to keep Jai from crawling outside. He was so adamant to go out there so I took him out for a little while. Nicky came outside with us. It was a bright afternoon for the middle of October. There was a light breeze so it wasn’t hot. Just warm enough to bear. The garden of the hall over looked the lake. There was a fence around it to stop drunken people from falling into the lake I suppose. On the opposite side was a little stretch of sand and then there was the open sea beyond which glistened like sequins. “It’s really beautiful from here” I said. Then Nicky said the sweetest thing “not as beautiful as you.” I felt like I was going to melt. I turned around and kissed him.
“I love you.”
“I love you too. Too much sometimes. Anna I need to ask you some-…”
“Anna mum wants you!” Great! I thought. My brother interrupted us. He always butts in at the wrong time. Nicky took Jai and I went back inside.
“Do you want the balloons on the walls or on the floor?” Is that it? Why couldn’t she have decided herself? It wasn’t that hard.
“What about some of both?” I suggested.
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Nicky’s mum. By this time Nicky had come back inside. Why do mothers bug you at the wrong time? It’s like when your really engrossed in a film and someone interrupts you at the really good bit. It’s really annoying. Me and Nicky never got a chance to really talk for the rest of that day. As long as Jai had a good time then I’m not that bothered although I would have loved to have had a minute alone with him. I haven’t seen him in two weeks.

First thing next morning Nicky came over and finally asked me his question. The setting? My bedroom. Which wasn’t exactly a good place but otherwise my whole family would have heard and I didn’t think I’d want them to.
“Anna?”
“Yeah?”
“I was thinking. Do you want to move in with me?”
“What?”
“I mean me and you. In our own house.”
“I’d love to! At least then we won’t have my brothers and sisters around all the time.”
“We can start looking tomorrow if you like.”
“It’s Tuesday tomorrow isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m in college on Tuesdays. I’ll be back late. I have the day off on Wednesday.”
“I can get Wednesday off.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. We’ll start looking Wednesday.” And that was it! I couldn’t wait. At that point I would have moved into a garden shed. As long as I was with Nicky I didn’t care. We both told our own parents without the other. Mum’s reaction wasn’t as bad as I’d thought.
“Are you sure you want to do it?”
“Mum I’m sure. If there was one doubt I wouldn’t go through with it.” Then she got a bit emotional and started crying.
“I’m going to miss having you and Jai around. Jayne is leaving as well.” Jayne is one of my sisters. I have 3 sisters and 5 brothers. A huge family I know. The youngest is Kyra. She’s only 10. Then there’s Chris who’s 14, Jason who’s 15, Michael who’s 17, Claire who’s 19, Jayne who’s 21, Sean who’s 24 and Daniel who’s 25. Daniel and Sean both moved in with their girlfriends a couple of years ago and both are supposed to be getting married soon. We’re still waiting for the dates. Now me and Jayne are leaving. Jayne’s moving in with her best friend Kate in two weeks. I guess my mum feels like she’s being abandoned.

On Wednesday we found a really nice house in North London. It had four bedrooms, a huge living room, kitchen and dining room. The back garden was huge. There was a fence around a little play area with a swing, slide and a small roundabout. We both liked it so we decided to buy that one.

Jai started at his new Nursery the next Monday. Both Nicky and I went to take him. He didn’t seem too bothered at first. We left for five minutes to talk to the manager and came back and he was screaming his little heart out. He’ll get used to it. We left him then for the day and we went down to the park where we first met. It was a lovely day.
“There was something else I wanted to ask you that day I asked you to move in with me,” said Nicky.
“What’s that?” I asked.
It was so sweet the way he asked me the question. “Well, me and Jai both have the same surname and I was wondering if you wanted to share it with us.” At first I was a bit confused then he asked me the real question. “Will you marry me?” That was it. He just came out and said it.
We were just sat there facing each other and he asked it. None of this I love you stuff. Of course I said yes then we went back home.

After Christmas Nicky had to go to America with the group to promote their first single over there. I went over to see my friends Cherie and Hollie. Cherie was going out with Kian and Hollie had just recently got married to Shane who were both in the band. We went to the cinema. We met Claire there and went inside to watch Jurassic Park III. Claire kept jumping out of her skin at every little moment. At every squeamish part we all just laughed. Coming out of the screens we laughed at every little thing (like a bin lid moving on it’s own). People would have thought we were taking drugs or something but we weren’t. I’ve met weirder people in my time believe me. I turned my mobile phone on and got a message from my mum.
“Anna, you have to come to the infirmary now. Something has happened. I’ll explain when you get here. Bring the others with you.”
“What’s wrong Anna?” asked Hollie. I felt confused. What could be wrong? Can’t be Jai, why else would she want us all to go?
“We have to go to the hospital. All of us,” I replied.
“Why?” asked Claire.
“I don’t know. Mum just told us to go.” We got on the bus out of town. It took us half an hour to get to the hospital. We ran inside the accident and emergency department. My mum was waiting for us in the waiting area, so was Nicky’s, Shane’s, Mark’s, Kian’s and Bryan’s parents.
“What happened?” Cried Cherie as we stopped short in front of them.
“Girls there had been an accident,” said Shane’s mum. My heart caught in my throat. I could sense the other girls felt the same way. My legs turned to jelly. “They never made it out of Heathrow,” she continued. “The plane tried taking off but couldn’t. It went straight into a wall. A lot of the passengers got crushed to death. The ones that were at the back of the plane are fine. They were near the front and they are quite badly hurt.”
“Where’s Mark I want to see him!” yelled Claire.
“We can’t see them yet,” said Marie, Mark’s mum.

A couple of hours later a doctor came out into the waiting room and asked us all to go into his office. “I’m afraid Shane’s the only lucky one at the minute. He has a few cuts and bruises but he will be fine. We’ll keep him in over night just to make sure he hasn’t got a concussion.”
“Thank God!” said Hollie, starting to cry with relief.
“The others are still unconscious and it’s hard to tell if they have got any head injuries. We will need to give them all CAT scans. Nicholas so far has a broken leg and a big cut on his upper left arm. Mark has broken his right arm. Kian and Bryan have no major physical injuries that we can see. After the scans we’ll move them up to intensive care. I’ll let you know when you can see them. In the meantime, why don’t you all go and get something to eat.” The doctor left the room.

A few more hours later, we were allowed to go and see them. Hollie went to see Shane on the ward a floor above us. I walked into Nicky’s room and started crying. He didn’t look like Nicky at all. His face was covered in cuts and bruises. There were tubes coming out of his nose, mouth and arms, with wires attached everywhere. I couldn’t look so I hid behind his mum. Yvonne started crying. “My baby!” I walked over to him and picked up his hand. It felt so limp.
“Honey, please be ok. I love you so much.” I looked at Yvonne. She squeezed his hand. Somebody started shouting outside. It was coming from the room opposite Nicky’s.
“That’s Mark’s room,” I said to Yvonne. I went to investigate. Claire was calling Mark’s name but his mum wouldn’t let her in the room.
“He doesn’t need the stress of seeing you,” she was saying to Claire. She never did like Claire and nobody knew why. I looked over to Mark. His eyes were open in surprise.
“Claire?” he called. Claire and his mum turned to him.
“Mark?!” they said together. They both ran over to him and hugged him.
“I’m so sorry Claire. I never wanted to break up.”
“Don’t worry about it, Mark. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” And they kissed.
“I’m so glad your ok.” Claire looked at me and I tried to smile at her. I was happy for them, but I wished that it was Nicky awake instead of Mark. I turned and went back into Nicky’s room.

The next day Bryan woke from his coma but it was two months before Nicky and Kian woke up. It was a rather tense day. The clouds were dark grey and it had been thundering for the last half hour. His mum had gone home for some sleep. It was just me and Nicky in the room. All of a sudden rain started pelting against the thin hospital windows. It started to get dark in the room and all the light there was, was coming from the little window of the door from the corridor. The light shined directly onto Nicky’s face. He looked like an angel. His blond hair shined in this only light. I was holding his hand when he squeezed mine. I looked at his face but there was no sign in it to tell me he was awake. I felt like he knew what was going on. Nicky had a picture of Jai on the dresser next to him. The wind blew and somehow it managed to get in through a tiny crack at the side of the window and blew the picture onto his bed. I watched as he picked it up and held it in his hand. I looked back at his face. Nothing. “You’re awake. Why don’t you open your eyes?” I whispered. I got no response. Not even in movement. It was as if he had slipped back. Hollie came in. “Kian’s just woken up. He’s having a good old joke about Cherie crying cos he woke up. I couldn’t blame her really.
"How’s he doing?” I told her what had just happened.
“For God’s sake Nicky!” she said to him. “Just get up. If you don’t then I’ll come and make you wake up!” We both started laughing. “That’s the first time I’ve seen you laugh in weeks,” she said to me.

For the next week I sat by his side. He refused to move again. He still had Jai’s picture clutched in his hand. My throat felt dry so I got up and headed for the door. “Don’t go.” Came a voice behind me. I turned round and started crying. Nicky was looking at me. I walked over and threw my arms around him.

Two weeks later, Nicky was allowed to come home. I think Jai understood where his dad had been because he wouldn’t let Nicky put him down. That summer we got married. Cherie married Kian, Mark and Claire got engaged and moved in together. Westlife never became successful in America so they concentrated on the rest of the world where they became huge. They have had eleven number 1 singles and a number 2. They have sold over twenty one million copies of their third album worldwide and are now in the middle of rehearsals to get ready for their second world tour.