17-year-old Anna is worried she might be pregnant and feels her body is no longer her own.
Image generated with OpenAIIt smells like sulfur.
I toss and turn in my bed. The smell engulfs me. I pull the blanket over my head, hoping to wall off the putrid smell to no avail. Bubbles of bile billow in my stomach, threatening to charge up my throat. I swallow to keep the bile down, but I feel the surge.
I jump out of bed and run to the hallway bathroom. I slam the door shut and kneel over the toilet. I opened the lid right in time before the bubbling bile streams from my mouth. It splashes into the toilet water, splattering liquid on my face and around the bowl. I heave to expel another splash of stomach acid into the toilet. I manage to reach up and grab the paper towel roll sitting on the sink’s counter, and I take off a piece of towel to wipe off my face.
My mother bangs on the bathroom door. “ANNA! There is NO need to slam ANY doors in this household!” she yells.
“Sorry,” I say, my voice rough and scratchy.
“What was that? Speak up!”
“SORRY!”
“Don’t you DARE yell at me!”
I stifle a groan. “Yes, ma’am.” I continue to clean the drops of puke off from the toilet seat, as I had only managed to lift the lid, and plop the soiled paper towel into the toilet. I flush the toilet, and it clogs. Shit, I think to myself. Paper towels go in the trash.
I look in the toilet in dismay. The paper towel had disappeared into the water-puke concoction. I check the cabinets under the sink to see if I could find any gloves. Nothing. There is nothing in the cabinets. No toilet paper, no paper towels, no cleaning supplies, nothing.
Knowing what I need to do, I sigh and pull my right sleeve back. I reach into the toilet to grab the paper towel, but it is deep. I reach deeper into the toilet, wrist well below the chunky surface, when my sleeve falls down my arm and into the toxic sludge.
I grab the paper towel and pull it out. I squeeze it to get as little of the gross liquid into the trash as possible, and gag again as I watch the bile ooze and drip back into the toilet. I put the paper towel in the trash.
I take off my soiled shirt and put it in the trash as well.
I go downstairs with a new outfit on. “Good morning,” I say to my mother. She is cooking scrambled eggs on the stove. I walk by the trash can, which has a faint sulfur smell. Mother must have cracked open some rotten eggs.
“What were you doing in the bathroom, anyway?” she asks.
“I was feeling sick,” I answer. “I think my period is coming.”
My mother scoffs. “It fucking better be. I don’t need any grandchildren yet.”
“Mom,” I protest.
“I swear if that boyfriend of yours impregnates you -”
“My girlfriend, mom,” I say.
Mother gives me The Look. “He has the tools to make you pregnant, he is your boyfriend. I’m not playing your silly little woke games, Anna.”
I roll my eyes but stay silent. I started dating my girlfriend a month ago. She is trans and has been on hormones for three months now. When my mom met her, she knew she was transgender immediately. She refuses to call her anything other than a boy, which breaks me every time.
“It’s not like we even have sex,” I lie.
“You better keep it that way,” Mother says. “You’re not even eighteen yet.”
“I’m eighteen in two weeks,” I say.
“And you graduate in two months. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a child until you get your diploma. Then, you can do whatever the hell you want in life. Get pregnant, have three boyfriends, I don’t care. Just don’t come crying to me when you can’t afford diapers,” Mother says.
I try to think of some sort of response, but there is no reasoning with her. I know she only talks about me being pregnant from her being pregnant herself at sixteen. I have no intention of continuing the cycle of teenage pregnancy, but Hallie – my girlfriend – and I haven’t been the most cautious lately. My period is supposed to come soon, and I am hoping it comes.
“I think we should wait.”
“Why do you say that?” Hallie asks me. We are sitting in the back of her truck in the middle of a field. The bugs sing their songs and fireflies dot the landscape. There is nobody else around.
“It’s just,” I say, “I’m a little worried. My period is supposed to have started by now, but it hasn’t. What if I’m…”
“Pregnant?” Hallie asks. I nod. “I mean, I’m on HRT. That means it’s less likely for you to be pregnant.”
“Sure, less likely, but it’s not impossible,” I say. “I’m not on birth control. My mom would kill me if she found me with birth control.”
“But that would mean you’re having safe sex.”
“And that would mean I’m having sex. She would go berserk on me!” I sigh and lay back in Hallie’s truck. She adorned it with blankets and pillows, making a cozy nest in the truck bed. Hallie leans back with me and pulls me in for a hug.
Hallie hesitates, then asks, “do you want children?”
I think for a moment. “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think so.”
Hallie frowns. “Not ever?”
“I don’t know… Maybe.”
“Oh…” We breathe together. “I want children someday. Maybe not now, but if you do happen to be pregnant, I would stay with you,” Hallie says.
“My mom would kick me out.”
“Then you could come live with me,” Hallie says. She sits up and looks down at me. “My parents wouldn’t mind. Not at first, at least. We graduate soon. I have a job. I’ve been saving up money. We could get through high school, find an apartment together. I could work full-time to support you and the baby; you wouldn’t even have to work! I’ll provide for you. I love you.”
“But Hallie,” I say, “we’ve only been with each other for a month.”
“But we’ve known each other for years,” she says. “I know you, and I know I want to be with you. You’re so smart and creative, and you know me so well too,” Hallie says, but it feels as though I’m looking at a stranger.
“I don’t know what I want out of life. I know I want to be an artist,” I say.
“And I can help you! We can live together, you don’t need to work, and I’ll support you. We could both be living our dreams!”
“What is your dream?” I ask.
“I want a family with the love of my life,” Hallie smiles at me. “I know it’s got to be with you.”
I feign a smile in return. “That’s so sweet,” I say.
Hallie lays down next to me, facing me while wearing that genuine smile on her face. “What is your dream?” she asks.
I maintain my crocodile smile. “I want to be an artist.”
Hallie’s smile widens. “I’ll support you through that.” She leans in and kisses me. Her kisses become passionate. First, I feel her kisses, then her hands, then her body. Hallie mistakes my silence for permission as we both moan among the bugs in the field.
I come home at two o’clock in the morning. Mother is always asleep by midnight, watching crime shows on the television until she can no longer keep her eyes open. The blaring noise of her shows mask any noise I make when coming into the house. I go to my bedroom and lock the door behind me.
I lay in bed. The night’s activities had made my lower region sore. I had started bleeding during intercourse. Hallie believes that my period had started during sex, but I know very well that that is not the case. I am cleaned up now, but I realize the need for a shower. I sigh and get out of bed.
The shower sings as I turn the faucet. I remove my clothes and look in the mirror. There is a body I hardly recognize as my own anymore. It belongs to my mother, my girlfriend, anyone else other than myself. I run a finger along the skin, feeling rebellious as I am trespassing another person’s property. A pain begins to grow in my abdomen, but I ignore it.
I step into the shower, the water hot on the skin. I lather the hair in product, run a loofah over the skin, scrub soap into the feet and in between the toes.
A pain shoots through the gut, and I hold back my screams.
I collapse onto the hands and knees as I feel contractions. Adrenaline rushes through the brain as the pain becomes all I know. The pain comes in surges as something escapes from me. It’s not my period, no, but something else…
The pain seemed to last for hours until it suddenly stops, as soon as I pass an object through my vaginal lips. I look down. There is blood, so much blood, covering a glossy round object, washed by the running water. I pick up the object and hold it under the shower’s current.
It is an egg.
I start crying. The egg is about the size of a chicken’s. It is brown, like me, with dark freckles, like Hallie’s, and it is outside of me. My cries grow to sobs. I can’t do this… I stand up and open the shower curtain. I take one last look of the beautiful egg before I launch it at the bathroom door. It splatters against the wood, dripping yellow and clear juices.
I wash the rest of the blood off the body with the shower water, which has since gone cold. I step out of the shower and take a closer look at the egg remains. On the floor at the base of a door lies a squirming figure. A fetus. No… a tiny baby. It squirms and opens its mouth to cry, but no sound escapes it. I begin to cry again. I pick up the baby and go to the toilet. I take some toilet paper and wrap the baby in it before placing the wrapped baby into the toilet.
I flush the toilet and go to bed.
