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And there I sit for God knows how long, feeling like I’m having some kind of out-of-body experience. Like I’ve been transported back in time. Like I’m sixteen and alone andterrifiedagain. Like I’m once again drowning in things I do my best not to think of because of the ugly feelings they stir up.
My last pregnancy was not an easy one, nor were my first few years of motherhood. August wasn’t an easy baby, inside or outside the womb. He wreaked havoc on my small, young body. He was premature. He was colicky. He developed a sleep allergy that lasted well through toddlerhood. He makes up for it now by being an angel but back then… God, I suffered. I loved him so much but Isuffered.
Living at home killed me. Having no privacy, no boundaries, no escape from two people who took every opportunity to criticize yet did nothing to help. It chipped away at me every day until I turned eighteen and I officially, legally, inherited my late grandmother’s cottage—to this day, I have no idea why she left it to me but I like to blame it a little on fate.
That move, that monumental change, was the beginning of the end. The light at the end of the tunnel. It took a while for things to get better but suddenly, I knew they would, and they did. They are. And as horrible as they were, I wouldn’t trade those years for the world because everything turned out okay.
I just don’t know if I could live through them again.
A text tone jolts me from my thoughts.
willy: well???
me: baby on board
willy: whatever you do, i’m here this time. i’ve got your back
Tears sting my eyes. Wasn't that all I wanted last time? Just one person in my corner? Someone to have my back, stick up for me, hold my hands at appointments and be there in the hospital when, during, and after I got torn apart? Those words, simple as they are, should fill me with relief but they don’t. They don’t even make a dent in the dread curdling in my gut.
Because no matter what, it’s the same. No matter how much older, how much wiser, how much more financially stable I am—and God, is there a question mark after that—the fundamentals remain the same.
I’m still living under someone else’s roof. I still have to tell a man who doesn’t love me that I’m pregnant with his child. I still have to convince people I didn’t do it on purpose, that I’m not trying to trap anyone. I more than likely still have to hear those four little words again—get rid of it.
Last time, I was too far along by the time I found out but it’s different now. I have no youthful optimism or childish resentment spurring me—I’m not too proud to admit my first shot at motherhood was partly fueled by petty spite and the teenage urge to do the opposite of what everyone told me to—but I have time. I have a choice. A slim as hell margin of one but a choice all the same. And even if, like last time, I have someone barking orders in my ear and threatening repercussions, that choice is still all mine.
It’s all on me.
It’s a long time before I manage to peel myself off those stairs. On wobbly legs and with bleary eyes, I find my car.
I climb in.
I lock the doors.
And I cry.
* * *
Putting my car in park, I flip down the sun visor. Red, swollen eyes greet me in the mirror. Sighing shakily, I fish my sunglasses out of the glovebox, grateful for the spring sunshine providing an excuse to slide them onto my face.
It took longer than I care to admit to collect myself after my appointment. Honestly, I could’ve stayed hunched over my steering wheel sobbing my eyes out for longer, if I wasn’t already late to pick up August. Willow offered to do it but I’ve got that bone-deep need for my kid and the comfort only he can provide—the cure to every bad day ever.
Not that today was a bad day. Just a weird one. A weird, rattling, slightly unsettling one that I don’t know what to do with, how to feel about, yet.
I’m not forcing myself to figure it out right now. I have enough time that I can let the news sink in at least a little, let myself truly consider things. A week, I’ve given myself. Seven measly days to make the biggest decision of my life—this decade, at least.
And then, I’ll tell who needs to know.
I’ve got grand plans of whisking August away for the rest of the evening, taking advantage of the nice weather. Maybe heading to the local beach, Sun Strand, and enjoying an ice-cream with a side of existential crisis and the niggling reminder that somehow—maybe—I’m going to have to tell my kid I’m pregnant.
I should know by now that nothing ever goes to plan for me.
The second August climbs into the car, the guilt becomes suffocating. It claws at my throat, behind my eyes, at the back of my mind where, apparently, my morals reside. Tells me I’m a terrible mother, an even worse person.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I keep quiet; if my sunglasses disguise and watery smile don’t fool August, I really doubt my raspy voice will.
“What’re you doing?”
