Shattered Illusions
Wyn
When it came to Rico, I didn’t ask any questions. I figured I knew enough.
Set was a drug dealer, and Rico ran with him, so I knew he was a drug dealer, too.
Set and Turkey were from the Birch Babies, and wore green. So did Rico, and all the other boys they hung with, so I knew Rico was a gang member.
Naturally, that took up a lot of his time. I wasn’t nosy enough to want to know everything he was up to. In fact, I liked plausible deniability. Besides, when we were together, it was like our own little bubble. For over a year, he’d been my boyfriend. We told each other we loved each other.
I’d given him my virginity.
We’d made plans. I knew he wanted to go to the Armed Forces. He knew I was basically signed to Get Money Records.
Now, I wasn’t stupid. Rico was fine. Even without being biased, he was objectively one of the finest dudes in the city, and he was rumored to like older women.
In fact, every girl I’d heard about was at least five years older than us.
I’d never heard of him being with someone his age until me, and I was a year younger than him.
But we had plans. We said I love you. And the deeper he got into the Birch Babies and then Foe Dub, the more Rico, or Luney, was known for how ruthless he was, not how many girls he had on his jock.
I was secure in my place as Lady Luney. I had no reason not to be. Even with my fucked up parents, Dad only cheated on Mom with Roulette or Blackjack. Not another woman.
How fucking stupid I was.
Porscha had a pregnancy scare. She begged me to go with her to the clinic, and in solidarity, I got a pregnancy and STD test with her.
Well, that, and my period was late, as well.
That’s how I found out I was pregnant.
A week later, that’s when the clinic called me back and told me I got the clap.
Pregnant and burned.
Everything I thought I knew about Rico was a lie.
Or maybe, I just saw the truth.
I knew a girl who got pregnant in our ninth grade year. She kept it, and now she had another kid, and worked at the grocery store. Both her baby daddies were still on the basketball team, and acted like they didn’t have kids running around.
Her life was over, and they were probably going to a D1 school.
Making that abortion appointment was the easiest thing I ever had to do. Getting that shot in my ass?
Not so much.
It was late when the front door opened. I hadn’t even made it to my room, opting to lay on my side in the living room, staring at the Hennessy on the coffee table.
Nana had requested our parents’ presence, so they were out of town. We were sixteen, so we could be left alone, Nana said.
No one knew that’d been the case for years by then.
Auty rounded the couch and sat on the loveseat. We’d been getting along since Labor Day weekend, spending lunches on the bleachers at school. I knew that was why Porscha asked me to come with her to the clinic. She hated when me and Auty were good.
Her face bunched up as she took me in. “What’s wrong, Wynnie?”
Wynnie. I hadn’t heard that in so long. My eyes stung immediately as I sat up, turning so my back was to the arm of the couch and I was facing her.
As far as I could be. I would have broken down if she comforted me physically.
“I’m…” I cleared my throat. “I’m pregnant.”
“Pregnant?!” she reared back like I slapped her. “Who’s the dad? Is it… is it someone from East Kenton?”
“No, Auty, God! It doesn’t matter who the dad is, I’m not keeping it.”
She pulled her legs up under her and folded her arms. “You’re not?”
“No! Why the fuck would I bring a baby into this house?! God, you can be so dumb sometimes.” I knew I shouldn’t have been snapping at her, but between the hormones, sore ass, and acknowledging my boyfriend was lying, cheating, scum between my toes, I was at my wit’s end.
Sighing, I grabbed the Hennessy off the table.
“No! You’re pregnant, Wyn!” She was up in a flash, snatching the bottle from me.
I let her, wrapping my arms around my shins. “Not for long,” I chuckled. “Turns out, my weak ass baby’s daddy gave me the clap, too. So my abortion appointment is a week from now.”
Auty sat next to me then, pity swimming in those colored eyes of hers.
It was hot as hell outside, still, and she had on a big ass hoodie and track pants.
One day, when she was mad at me, she told me she’d rather be overlooked in big clothes and called a dyke than be known as a slut.
I’d told her she couldn’t fit half the shit I wore anyway, shutting my door and locking it before she could try to put her hands on me.
But I saw what she was really saying, so I bought her a whole new wardrobe, ready for her to wear when she was ready to show the world how beautiful she really was.
“It’s next Thursday. Could you come with me? It’s in the morning, and then we can just come home and I dunno… hang out? And I tell you how I got mixed up in this hot mess.”
She looked hesitant, of course. If I wasn’t already reduced to pieces of myself, it would have hurt. There was never any hesitance when it came to my sister. If she asked me to die for her, I’d snap my own neck before she was even done asking.
“Yeah, okay. Next Thursday.”
There were a couple of protesters outside the clinic, but we bypassed them easily. I signed in, avoiding the eyes of the receptionist and then sat in the back, away from the windows, with Auty.
It wasn’t hard to stick by my decision. I don’t know if it was the clap, the shot, or who my baby daddy was, but I was sick every day leading up the appointment. I couldn’t even keep water down.
When I wasn’t barfing, I was crying. Rico hadn’t even attempted to talk to me the entire time, and I didn’t reach out to him either. It was fuck him, but damn. Two whole weeks without even asking if I’m alive?
Lying in my bed in the fetal position, I forced myself to look at the past few years. How many times had it been weeks I hadn’t heard from him before I said something? Was he with other girls?
Was it Kisha? I always thought he had left her alone, but clearly, someone gave him the clap to give it to me.
I was in way over my head. I’d always been way over my head, but this was too much, even for me.
“Shit.”
I glanced at Auty’s phone before meeting her gaze, and braced myself.
“Turkey said there’s a pop quiz in biology. I can’t miss it, Wyn. I’m barely passing as it is.”
“What do you mean barely passing, Auty?” I struggled to keep my voice low and leveled. “I thought you had a B.”
Auty bit the corner of her lip before averting her eyes. “I’m trying. Mr. Hartman puts most of his grades on these quizzes and I get stuck.”
“But he doesn’t change the quizzes. I gave you all of mine from last year. What the hell are you doing if you’re not studying–”
“I hate when you act like my mom. You’re not,” she hissed, standing up and shouldering her canvas bag. “Turkey’s picking me up from around the corner. I’m sorry I can’t stay. Maybe you can call the dad–”
“Bye, Auty.”
The nurse called my name, thankfully, and I shouldered past my sister to the back. My eyes stung, but I didn’t let them fall, not from this. I was surprised Auty didn’t flake before.
After taking a piss to make sure I was all clear down there, we did a blood test to make sure I was actually pregnant. When it was confirmed, against my better judgement, I got an ultrasound, too.
Hearing the heartbeat broke the dams. Tears poured out of my eyes as I tried to convince the doctor I still wanted an abortion, and that I wasn’t here against my will, and that I wasn’t being abused at home.
But she didn’t budge when I said I was alone. Since I was getting the procedure, I needed someone to make sure I was okay after.
I had to call someone.
I bit my lips instead of revealing the embarrassing truth, and she left me alone for five minutes to make a call I didn’t have to.
My womb mate couldn’t be here. My parents were in the wind. And if I called Fredo, who knew what would happen next?
My phone chimed in my pocket, and all the breath rushed from me. If that wasn’t a sign, I didn’t know what was.
Trippy
Freckles cuz ! I kno u in skool rn but hit my line when u out . Made this fyre beat that wuld b perf 4 u .
I called him immediately. He answered on the second ring, laughing.
“Aint you–”
“Trippy,” I sobbed, cupping my mouth to get it together.
“Where you at?” he asked, all humor gone.
“Family Clinic in South East. They won’t let me do it without someone here. Please, don’t tell–”
“I’m on the way.”
He clicked in my face, but I knew he was coming. The doctor smiled when she came back, and began to prep me for the procedure after I told her someone was coming for me.
The recovery room was small, with a bed and a chair. I lay on my side, tears still in a steady stream onto the pillow.
Trippy looked as if he’d break the small chair next to me. Brooding and intense, but not angry.
Disappointment covered his face. That was worse.
There was saran wrap on his neck from a fresh tattoo. He was covered in them, adding more and more since I met him. His hairline was receding, and he told me he thought about getting head tatts when he finally went bald.
I wanted to ask him about it now. Anything to lighten the mood, so he could smile at me instead of glare, like he’d been doing since I was brought into the recovery room.
But I couldn’t open my mouth. I could only lay there, slightly shaking from the pain coming from between my legs.
“You remind me so much of my sister. Mindblowing,” he said, leaning forward.
My eyebrows twitched, and thankfully, he kept going.
“On my daddy’s side. He couldn’t convince my mom to stop working for the Nabahis, so he left her, got married, and had two more kids, including Trinity. She liked dumb ass niggas, too. Only, they ain’t have her in clinics; they had her in cars she had no business being in.
Some slobs sprayed her boyfriend’s car, and she died last year.”
He took out his phone and pressed the screen a few times, before turning it over to show me.