Hope you enjoy!!
Decisions
In my car I had to decide what to do. I could take care of it, couldn’t I? We could be a little happy family. I could rent a shabby one room apartment and work three jobs. We wouldn't have that much money but we could survive. My parents probably wouldn't let me still live at my house, so we'd be crammed in the small apartment until the kid went to college.
I sighed. My house would be the perfect place for us. It was too big for just my parents and I; so my baby and I could have our own wing of the house. My parents and I didn’t have to socialize, either. So I could just tell my baby we were renting out part of the house; it wouldn't have to know we were related to the other people that lived here.
Or I could give it up for adoption. This option was probably the best. I knew I would be a sucky mother, I'm self centered and don't get along with kids very well. I would be struggling to make enough money to put food on our table. The kid would be miserable.
If it never knew me, it could live a happy life and never be sad. That's better. The kid would live thinking the adoptive parents were its real parents and it would never have to know I existed. It could come and find me at some point in its life. But I would hope the parents wouldn’t tell their kid until it was older.
Even though the circumstances of my pregnancy were horrible, I still wanted my baby to be happy, even if it was just for a little while. And it could be that way if it had a sturdy, functional life. If it lived with me, life would be hectic. It deserved better than that.
Yes, I had to give it up for adoption.
I told my parents a week later.
They were sitting on the couch watching the evening news, when I sat on the steps, leading to the bed rooms, to the right of them. I sat in silence, looking at my home, knowing very well what may happen when I told them. The only light was from the television. The colored light danced around the room, soaking into the beige couches, burgundy walls, and dark wood furniture.
"Mom, Dad, can I talk to you?" I asked in a quiet voice.
"Sure, honey," my mom said with a smile. My mom is the perfect example of the politician’s wife. Her blonde hair was always perfectly in place, being held up by hairspray, and her face was hidden under an inch of foundation, eye shadow and other beauty essentials. Her long legs were covered in sheer pantyhose and she always wore skirt suits, no matter where she was.
"Okay, this is hard," I whispered, staring at my hands. I was knotting my fingers together. I could feel my mother’s eyes burning holes into my skull. She was going to hate me after this. I took a deep breath before I started up again. "I'm pregnant."
My dad, who had been focusing on the television screen jumped up and stared at me.
"What?" he asked. His nostrils were flared and his fists were clenched. His lips were turned in a horrifying grimace, showing his perfectly whitened teeth. The light from the television screen was shining green and his teeth were the same shade, his spray tanned skin was green also. He looked like a male version of the Wicked Witch of the West. "When did this happen?"
"About a month ago," I peeped.
"Who's the father, Isabelle?" my mother asked, with the same intensity as my father. I didn't know what to say. In the short second of their silence I formed three plans. I could've gone and said 'Carl, my cousin, is the father', then they'd punish me for lying too, that plan was dropped. The second, I could name some random guy at school, but that wouldn't be fair to him, so that too, was dropped. And the third, I could say I didn't know. Then they'd call me a slut or filthy whore and I'd get lectured. I chose the third, I would be the only one affected.
"I'm not exactly sure..." I let my voice trail as I tried to hold back the tears.
"You're not sure?" my dad spat at me.
"N-No," I stuttered. I decided to let the tears fall, sensing that my father was extremely angry. Whenever I cried he wouldn’t get mad at me, I was Daddy’s Little Girl.
"Were you raped?" my mom said, anger draining from her face and being replaced by worry and fear. That caught me off guard. I was raped but was I willing to tell them that?
"No," I heard myself saying.
"Then who did this?" she asked.
"I don't know," I repeated.
"What the hell, Isabelle! You don't know who you had sex with?" my dad yelled. Apparently my tears didn’t work. "I thought you were smarter than that, I thought you would at least know to use protection. I can't believe you, you're no better than those filthy whores on the street." Each of his words stung like acid on my skin.
"Seriously, Isabelle. I've taught you better than that," my mom chimed in. "Are you sure you don't know who did this?"
"Yes," I whispered.
"Okay," my mom said, trying to become calm. "What are you going to do with it?" I knew I couldn't tell her I had tried to get an abortion; she would've called me worse things than the people on the street had. So I just made up a story.
"Well, I was thinking I could maybe just have it and take care of it. I could drop out of school, and work at a convenient store, we could get by. Eventually, I would have to send it to school and daycare, but I'm sure I could make friends and they could take care of it. Then when it got older I could go back to high school and get my diploma, then go to the community college." I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. I knew what my real decision was; I couldn’t take care of this baby.
Neither of them responded. They just glared at me, in disbelief. I had always been the star child who followed the rules, was a cheerleader and received high honors in school. They didn’t know about my secret party life. They didn’t know that even before Carl, I wasn’t a virgin (sleep away camps really pay off for that milestone in your life) or that I had ever drank any other alcohol besides Champaign at some governmental functions. And now I was seventeen-years-old and pregnant.
My parents stared at me with the blatant look of disbelief. I was still sitting on the stairs, cowering behind the banisters. The only sound was from the reporter from the local news station. He was debating whether my dad could win the next election for governor of Veneta. I could almost hear the new headlines that would be produced because of me.
Local Governor’s Daughter Pregnant!
How can we trust a man who can’t even take care of his daughter to manage our town?
I shuddered. Their stare never stopped. They looked like they were frozen in time. My dad’s grimace was undying. All those years of holding poses for photographers finally had a meaning. My mother was slowly inching her hand into my father’s. When her hand was finally into his, I apologized again and went upstairs to my room.
After that day my mom only talked to me when absolutely necessary and my dad never spoke to me. I could leave the house whenever I pleased, but I rarely went out. My friends now looked down on me and refused to have anything to do with me outside of school. The only time I went out was with Peter, and that was just to cheer him on at a football game.
When I had been pregnant for one and a half months, my dad finally talked to me. I was curled up on the couch in my room, surfing the Internet, when he came into my room without knocking.
"Isabelle," he said. "Pack your bags." He threw two pamphlets onto my bed and walked away.
I closed my laptop and walked to my bed. The pamphlets were for Veneta's Teenage Motherhood Group Home. In the pamphlet there were dozens of stupid slogans and pictures of teenagers with bulging stomachs. They all looked so happy to be there, it made me scowl. How could they be happy when they were pregnant? They were playing games, sitting in classes, watching T.V, they were completely normal, minus the large stomachs.
I flipped to the page that explained what they did to the baby after they were born. The mother had two options. They could keep it, or give it up for adoption. The pamphlet actually said that a larger percentage of the girls kept their babies. I really wanted to know what happened to those mothers and children after they left the security of Veneta’s Young Mothers Shelter. How many of these kids were happy? Were the mothers content with their lives? I perused the other pages but, of course, they didn’t answer these questions.
I grabbed my designer suitcases from my closet and started packing. At first I didn’t think at all about what I was doing, I was just a robot. Then I got angry. Why should I allow them to make me go? They didn’t want to help me take care of this child? They would have rather seen me on the streets, selling my body, rather than take me and the kid in. They were ashamed. My parents didn’t want me to be seen with a pregnant stomach. I had become a failure at being their daughter. They were afraid of what their little country club friends would think of me.
My parents are probably the most superficial people I know. They won’t talk to anyone who doesn’t own a mansion in the suburbs, or who doesn’t go to Europe every winter. They don’t give to charities or do anything to help others. All they care about is having everyone kiss the ground at their feet. That’s why I’m the way I am.
I hate it, but I’m their little clone. I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m the popular cheerleader, with the hundred thousand dollar car, and the house with a beach side view. And I’d probably die if I didn’t have these things. I need my weekly beauty appointment, my shopping sprees, diamond rings, and expensive purses. I’m not a total snob, like my parents, although a lot of girls at my school thought so. It’s not my fault that nerds want to sit at my lunch table, if I let them sat there I would ruin my reputation forever, and I’m not willing to chance that.
So I guess I’ll fast forward the story to the time I actually got to the shelter. I had said good bye to my friends and they, of course, told everyone in the whole school I was leaving. Thankfully, my friends are smart enough to keep the reason I was leaving to them selves. Aside from my group of friends I told one other person the true reason I was leaving, Peter. I caught him alone after one of the football games and I pulled him from his group of friends.
He was still in his football uniform when I spoke to him. His forehead was glistening with sweat. We stood behind the gymnasium, under the light of a street lamp in the distance. I had quit the cheerleading squad a couple days back so I was in jeans and a tight fitting sweatshirt.
“Isabelle, I heard you were leaving. Where are you going?” he asked.
“Okay, so you remember Mike O’Connell’s party?” I asked. He nodded. “Well something happened that night and I have to go to Veneta’s Young Mothers Shelter.”
“You’re pregnant?” he yelled from shock.
“Shh!” I whisper-shouted back, covering his mouth with my hand. “If you don’t mind, I would rather you kept that little fact to yourself; I don’t want everyone to know.” Everyone else in the school was under the impression that I was going to Italy to study abroad for nine months, with the Italian Club, how convenient.
He removed my hand from his mouth, but still held onto it, keeping it in front of his face.
“Who’s the father?” His question was more like a demand. In the dim light I could see he looked hurt. Ever since the party we had been hanging out a lot and had grown very close. And we were very close to becoming a couple.
“Um, next question?” I asked biting my lip. I didn’t want him to know Carl did this to me; Peter would definitely go after him and expose him as the little creep he was.
“Why won’t you tell me?” he furiously asked, squeezing my hand harder.
“I have to go,” I quickly said, trying to take my hand out of his grip; “Will you come visit me sometime?” tears were starting to form in the corners of my eyes.
“Please tell me, Isabelle,” he whispered, loosening his grip, to that of a helpless child.
“I really can’t,” I said, my voice breaking. I stood on my toes and kissed the bottom of his chin, I was too short even on my toes to reach his lips. The small hairs pricked my lips. “I’m sorry.”
P.S sorry about the length!!
~Dommy
