39. Johnnie
johnnie
THEN
Five weeks.
Five weeks I’ve been at my parents’ house. San Antonio is where I reside now, apparently.
This isn’t where I wanted to end up. Back with Mom and Dad, after I finally separated myself from that life, this life.
But where the hell else was I going to go? Laken wasn’t an option.
Not anymore.
Every single day since I left, I wake up and go about my day on autopilot.
I’m not living anymore, just surviving. Barely.
Honestly, I don’t want to be here anymore.
Everything good in my life this past summer all withered away the night Lee climbed through my window. The night everything split open and never stitched itself back together.
I haven’t told anyone. Not Nan, not Bea, not my parents.
No one.
That’s how I intend to keep it, too—tucked deep inside, where it belongs. That’s the way I see it, anyway. Those memories don’t deserve to breathe. So, I’m choosing to suffocate them, pressing them down until they stop clawing their way back up.
Nan knows that Collins and I aren’t together anymore. I’m not sure if he knows that, although I’m sure it’s obvious by now. I made Nan promise not to ask questions, not to bring him up at all. I asked her to please never speak of him again.
She obliged, reluctantly. But she’s honored my wishes.
My mother isn’t quite as understanding. She badgers me nearly every day about the details, about why I called and begged her to book a flight in the middle of the night on that August evening.
I know she means well. I know she cares. I just wish she’d let it rest—
I want it to die.
Getting ready this morning, my parents gone, I have one goal in mind. I need to walk to the pharmacy a few blocks away and get back before they return home.
I would have zero money to my name had Nan not snuck a few hundred dollars into my bags before I left.
I make quick work of throwing on some shorts, a black Weezer T-shirt, and flopping my hair up in a bun—no ribbon, no bow.
That girl—the one with a “decoration” in her hair—she doesn’t exist anymore. This version of her is far too dead inside for something so bright and cheery, any sense of virtue has no place anymore.
I slip on my Vans and throw on my fringed crossbody, heading out the door, the security alarm beeping as I leave.
The Texas heat attacks me the second I step onto the cement porch, thick and suffocating, wrapping around me like a vise. Birds chirp all around, fluttering from tree to tree above my head as I make my way down the sidewalk, and their happy energy is completely at odds with my own.
When my checkered feet hit the black pavement of the parking lot, my pulse begins to quicken, a nervous rhythm I can’t seem to slow. Automatic doors slide open and air conditioning kisses my face as I walk in, a brief reprieve.
The aisle I’m looking for isn’t hard to find in this little drugstore.
I pluck a box off the shelf and make my way to the checkout, fingers tightening around the edges.
One judgmental glare from the old hag working behind the counter, and a heatstroke later, the annoying alarm beeps go off again as I walk back into the house.
I know what it’s going to say. I don’t even know why I’m wasting my time, dragging this out as though there’s still a chance for a different ending.
Regardless, I walk up the steps and toward the bathroom, throwing my purse into my room as I pass by.
Just wanting to get this over with, I rip the box open and throw the empty remnants onto the vanity. I peel the plastic away from the stick, slide my shorts down, and sit on the toilet, heart pounding in my throat as I pray. I hope desperately, uselessly, that my gut feeling is wrong.
I’m not sure how long I lie on the floor, cool tile at my back, staring up at nothing, feeling nothing, when I finally force myself to sit up and look at the results teetering on the side of the tub.
And my prayers…are most certainly not answered.
Something inside me caves in, quiet and final.
I die a little bit more inside.
Everything is numb.
I’m numb, my mind is numb. Everything within me that used to be good, alive and thriving—it’s just…still. Paralyzed. It has to be, or I wouldn’t be here, sitting in this disgusting waiting room.
The blinds are closed, trying to shut out the world.
On the other side, the booming voices of protesters with homemade signs.
The ones I had to walk though, shame and disgust swirling within me are still audible, even through the sputters of the window air conditioner, grating on my nerves.
The fish tank in the corner is a few weeks past the point of needing to be cleaned, cloudy water and possibly a floating fish.
I’m not getting close enough to find out for sure.
Flickering fluorescent lights give me a headache, amplifying the nausea surging through me.
The lack of human interaction is making me empty—hollowing my soul, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left but this pathetic shell.
I’ve shut everyone out. No phone calls, no conversations with my parents. Just lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling, praying my life will end. Begging for something, anything, to take me out. Because I’m too spineless to end it myself.
The door creaking cuts through the room like a knife.
“Ms. Hardin. Come on back.”
I step on a scale, answer all her questions, go through the motions. Then, check out mentally.
Tears drop onto the paper blanket draped over my lap just as a man in blue scrubs enters the room. He brings the smell of coffee with him, and my stomach turns.
He says words, not many, but he’s definitely speaking as I stare at the poster on the wall directly over his left shoulder.
“You don’t always get to choose what happens to you, but you always choose who you become because of it.”
Those words bounce around my head as I sign the papers in front of me, my hand moving on its own, detached. I endure all the words filling this small space from the mouth of the white-haired man in blue scrubs, not retaining any of it, each sentence slipping through me like I’m not even there.
Words like counseling, aspiration, and ultrasound echo around me as I stare into dark eyes, but see nothing.
Cold leather bites at the sliver of skin exposed through the back of my gown as I lie back on the table. Rough paper crinkles at my thighs when my feet are guided into the stirrups.
He’s still speaking. And though they’re quiet words, they’re so loud.
Too loud.
The wand is inserted. My body tenses against the intrusion. It’s unwanted and unwelcome. It drags me back to that night, the last time anything touched me there, pulling the memory to the surface no matter how hard I try to bury it.
I hate it.
I don’t want to remember.
I try to shut it all down, to slip somewhere quieter, somewhere kinder—anywhere but here. But no matter how tightly I close myself off, how far I try to drift…I can’t escape it.
It’s happening anyway.
“Ms. Hardin.”
My head slowly rocks to the side, eyes falling on the man at my feet.
“Did you hear me?”
No, I haven’t heard a damn word you’ve muttered since you entered the room.
“The pregnancy is no longer developing.”
He waits for a reaction but comes up empty.
“Our plans for today need to be altered.”
My brain scrambles. This baby is already gone? Before I even got here?
I can’t make sense of what I’m hearing, the words not settling, not sticking. They’re just circling, sharp and unreal.
“Ms. Hardin, I’m going to let you get dressed, and the nurse will be back in to discuss where you go from here.”
Tears.
There they are again.
So many tears.
Then something else. Something heavier and much darker.
Guilt.
Shame.
Disgust.
Because they aren’t tears of sadness.
They’re relief.
I’m relieved.