Finding Home
1. Harper
Harper
The rusted metal door creaks as I step into the dirty gas station bathroom.
It’s dingy, dark, and looks like something straight out of a horror movie.
I glare around indignantly. I cannot believe Curtis is making me do this here, now.
He’s stressed out and panicking. I get it, I’m freaking the fuck out, too, but this just feels like insult added to injury.
Moving further inside, I see my reflection in the mirror.
My face is red and blotchy, eyes swollen from crying.
Glancing down, I stare at the box in my hand.
The one with a test that could change everything. Shit!
This cannot be happening. I’m not that girl, the one that gets knocked up at nineteen.
I was the highschooler who got straight A’s, on the cheer team, president of the student council, and volunteered like it was a full-time job.
Hell, I got into one of the top colleges in our state.
How the mighty have fallen. Harper Murphy, taking a pregnancy test in a bathroom that might give her hepatitis. Yep, I’m winning in life right now.
My hands shake as I pee on the stick that will determine my future. The second I’m done, I race back to the car where Curtis is waiting for me.
“Well?” he asks before the door even closes.
“What the fuck does it say?” he snaps again when I open my mouth to speak.
I look him in the eye, gone is the smiling, charismatic boy next door I fell in love with.
Now replaced with this angry snapping person I barely recognize.
Literally, it's like he is a different person. His eyes are darker, and his face that before seemed soft and welcoming is sharp and cold. Everything about him has a new edge I’ve never witnessed before.
Forcing myself to speak calmly, and reminding myself that we are both so stressed, I turn. “It takes three minutes,” glancing at my watch, I finish, “still another minute to go.”
“Then why are you here?” His harsh tone makes me lurch back in my seat like he slapped me, and it earns me a hard glare.
“It was cold and dirty in there. There were used condoms on the floor, and I think I saw needles in the trash!” He just throws his hands in the air like I’m being unbelievable.
Looking at him only makes me more anxious, so I stare at my watch. Each tick of the second hand is like another nail being hammered into my coffin. I watch it pass the three-minute mark and debate saying something, but slowly turn the test over instead, wanting—no, needing to see it first.
The test blurs, going in and out of focus, so I squint, forcing my eyes to cooperate. A single drop of water lands on the damning pink lines staring back at me, then another. Silent tears roll down my cheeks. Curtis must finally notice, gripping my wrist and pulling the test to him.
“What does that mean, Harper? What do two pink lines mean?”
“It means that I’m...” My voice falters, this can’t be happening. “It means I’m pregnant.”
“Fuck! How could you let this happen? How could you be so fucking stupid?” Curtis screams, his fists connecting with the steering wheel as expletives fly from his mouth.
But I barely register the sound over the roaring in my ears.
I’m going to have a baby. Just like that, my entire life has changed.
Curtis demanded that I get an abortion, and when I refused, he lost it.
Tires screeching as he sped out of the gas station parking lot, white knuckled, refusing to look at or even speak to me.
He didn’t walk me into my house. Hell, he didn’t even park, just slammed on the brakes and barked for me to get out of the car then sped off.
Standing on the curb in the darkness, a heaviness settles over me, reality crashing down on my head.
I’m too tired and shaky to climb the trellis I used when I snuck out to meet Curtis.
It’s what I always use to sneak out since he said we couldn’t tell anyone we were dating.
His family is rich and influential, and he claimed he wasn’t allowed to get serious with anyone until he finished his master’s this spring.
I trudge through the back door and up the stairs.
I’m so preoccupied that I don’t notice that my bedroom door is open.
When I walk in, my mom is sitting at my vanity, staring into the gilded mirror.
“You have a lot of explaining to do, Harper Grace.” My mom’s words are clipped with barely restrained fury as she stands.
“Oh, Mom,” I sob, frozen in my doorway.
“What is that?” She gasps and the pregnancy test I forgot I was holding is ripped from my hands. She stares down at it, blinking slowly. “Who’s the father?”
“Curtis Jones,” I breathe, praying it’s okay that I tell her.
“Is he going to marry you?” she asks without taking her eyes off the test.
“Uh, we haven’t talked about that. But I told him I’m keeping the baby. We will figure it all out tomorrow.”
“You better, Harper, and if he won’t marry you, you will have a choice to make.
Get rid of this mistake or leave town. I will not have you strutting around the evidence of your promiscuity on display for all to see.
To tarnish our family's name.” She paces away from me, staring out my window.
My body begins to tremble as she continues speaking to my reflection instead of looking at me.
“We are pillars of this community. How would it look for you to have a baby out of wedlock? I will not let you dismantle all that your father and I have built with your reckless behavior. How could you be so careless?”
Her words are like ice coursing through my veins, filling me until I can feel nothing else. I’ve never felt so alone as I walk wordlessly to the shower, sinking onto the floor, and letting the warm water beat down on me as I sob.