Her entire body stopped and her hand hung midair before she swung to look at me. Her eyes were wide and her mouth parted open and closed like a fish out of water.
“Right. Right. Well…”
Her hand went to the cross that hung around her neck, fingering the silver charm.
“I might have one tucked away in the nurse’s kit. Let me check.”
As she rummaged through the cupboards, I was instantly transported to the last time I was in here. I’d been so focused on my physical symptoms that my brain hadn’t allowed me to go there yet, but when I looked around it all came crashing back.
The terror.
The violation.
And now… fuck.
“Ahah! Here we go. You just pee on this end here. There’s a bathroom right behind this door, and I’ll be here when you’re done.”
I followed her directions, closing the door behind me while my brain whirled with anxiety. My heart hammered in my ears as I sat there, trying to aim at the small stick.
For such a small thing it carried an immense weight. It had thepower to change my future, and yet I had to sit here and wait three whole minutes before it was able to let me know the results.Worst magic eight ball ever, I thought as I stared down at the lines.
Wait.
Lines.
Two stark neon pink lines.
That meant…
“Knock, knock!” Nurse Jane said as she knocked right outside the door, sounding way too cheerful for what was happening inside my head right now.
“One second,” I said, my voice shaking.
I took a breath. Then another. Another. Like I needed to remind my body what it was supposed to do.
Then with a strength I didn’t know I had, I stood and opened the door, showing the nurse the positive pregnancy test, knowing that my life would never be the same again.
CHAPTER 15
DELILAH
“There are no other options,Cynthia. The girl is tainted goods. She has to be dealt with, and this Pastor is offering to help. He’ll overlook her situation, and we can’t be sure anyone else will,” my father’s voice carried up the stairs in our home.
“But she’s so young,” my mother protested.
I sat tucked away in the dark on the top step. My hair hadn’t been washed in days, and it clung in greasy clumps around my head. I had no motivation to do anything but breathe. Exist. News traveled fast about my condition, and before I could gather my things, my parents had been called, and I was escorted from the building. Only this time, for good.
It wasn’t long after that Pastor John arrived at our house, the fucking devil himself, offering a solution to my circumstances. Only his solution was to take me as his wife. I’d been in my room crying and hadn’t even heard him arrive.
I couldn’t believe my parents were downstairs entertaining this at all. Planning my future without any input from me as usual. In our house, we always looked to my father’s guidance, no matter how misguided it might be. That’s how it was in the Bible, so that’s how it was in our house. Women were always seen as less than.Put on earth to serve the male species. Our purpose little more than pushing out babies and making meals in the kitchen.
While my mother ran the entirety of our house and held down a full-time job, she still was seen as the lesser gender in the eyes of my father and those in this town. Everyone was expected to fall in line. I was no exception.
Any thoughts I had of escape were dashed the moment those two pink lines appeared.
A shudder ran through my body. The fact that they were even considering the idea of having us marry churned my stomach. I wasn’t even eighteen yet! Not for another month. Was that what my life was to become? Just another subservient wife chained to an abusive husband? Never allowed to dream for herself or do anything without his approval?
I already knew the depths of his cruelty, and that was just as a student. As hiswife?
