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“I’m pregnant,” I blurted, skirting farther away from him. He stepped towards me.
“That took longer than expected,” he said, those blue eyes fuelled with triumph. I stumbled back, falling onto the couch.
“You can’t be serious,” I choked out, wincing at the pain from my fingernails digging into the palm of my hands.
“I am.” His tone matched his words.
“You deliberately sabotaged my birth control?” My voice rose in panic. Shock and betrayal filtered throughout my body.Who was this boy who used to be one of my best friends?Wasn’t it enough, what he’d already taken from me?
His hands leaned against the couch, as he hovered over me, making me shrink back and look up, and at him. A position of dominance.
“Oh angel, I did indeed.” His voice was a soft caress, all the hairs on my body stood up in warning. “I’m enjoying collecting your firsts. I’ll be the only one taking them.”
I shook my head, refusing to bring an innocent baby into this world who’d one day know how he was conceived. By rape. By sexual coercion. By threats. I wouldn’t do this. No way.
“Yes way,” he announced as my eyes snapped open, not realising I’d shut them. “You shouldn’t let your thoughts be muttered aloud. You will keep this baby, if it’s unviable we’ll try again.” His mouth came to my ear. “Me and you, solidified in another human being. A part of us each, hmm… you think this is avoidable. Have you not learned anything so far? You. Are. Mine.” His hand fell to my flat stomach. “And this baby will be mine too.”
I recalled the first time he forced himself on me, a doctor came, shoving a morning after pill at me and prescribed me an ongoing prescription of birth control, a daily dose to protect against mistakes without an ounce of concern about the situation.
I went to my own doctor after that, throwing away the packet he’d given me, not trusting the medication. Mom took me as I asked for birth control, not batting an eyelid of concern or question why I was asking. Too wrapped up in some themed socialite event she was currently arranging, no doubt. Yet clearly, they’d been messed with anyway. Purposely.
A few weeks later I attended a private facility alongside Adam, where I was promptly scanned and given confirmation; I was around eight weeks’ pregnant. Up until then I pretended it was a nightmare, that I’d wake up at any given moment, that I would find a way out of this tangled mess. But when I heard that heartbeat…
I knew I couldn’t look elsewhere for an abortion, something I had been genuinely considering in the previous weeks. My belief was pro-choice, it always had been. A female had every right to choose the best decision for her. But he knew. God, he knew just how to reel me in and tug those heartstrings.
And when I saw him smile at the screen, a tiny fuzzy black and white blip on the monitor—I knew he’d give me no breathing room, no option but to follow through.
My decision, my body, yet he’d withdrawn the choice, as if it had never been there. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, the hatred for myself was so potent as I wished for a natural miscarriage. For my body to let me down.
Please…
My plea wasn’t heard. It never was.
Shortly after that, I made a decision. Preston, Texas and Hollis’ behaviour made it crystal clear they wanted nothing, or little to do with me. My chest squeezed painfully.
As hard as it would be to leave them behind, in a sense it wasn’t really. They’d distanced themselves from me recently, coming up with excuses not to hang about with me when I needed them the most.What was one more let down?My dad, Lizzie, and Delaney… I’d miss them profoundly. I knew that. But I also knew I needed to leave, for me.
“Dad, can we talk?” I ventured into his home office, sitting down opposite him while he held up his finger in a one-minute gesture and wound down his call. It gave me a few more moments to rack up the courage to go through with this. I had to.
I linked my fingers together sitting them on my lap, glancing down at my flat stomach that still showed no sign of growing but knowing it would soon. I had to be gone before that situation came about.
He threw the phone on the table, giving me his full attention. A furrow in his eyebrows, as if he could read me and what I was going to say. But I’d built up walls over the last few years and managed to keep him at length. I loathed it, but I couldn’t share. Not after what had happened when I’d sought help.That poor policewoman…
I gulped, licking my dry lips before pitching the idea to him. “I know you’re not going to like this but hear me out.”
He hummed, narrowing his eyes. Resolve settled inside as I battled the businessman that was my father.
“I’d like to move away for the new school year. I’ve looked into the programmes Summerville does, and though not many subjects will change, they offer some fantastic extracurricular groups which will look good for my future.” He stared with pursed lips, in shock if his silence was anything to go by.
I carried on. “Please,Dad. I need to do this for me, I’m feeling so suffocated here recently.”
“What prompted this?”
I had to hit him where it hurt a little. “This life. I love you dad, but everything has been laid out before me, easy stepping stones of what I’m supposed to do. Who I’m supposed to be friends with, keep company with, down to what university I’ll attend. I appreciate it but I feel like I’m losing myself.”
My eyes flicked to the side, not wanting to see his face as the guilt pressed down on my chest knowing I’d use any excuse possible to get out of East Bay. For everybody’s safety.
“Milla…” I turned back to stare at my dad. “You need to do this, for real?”
