Unforgivable
AYRIANNA SWANSON
I’ve never had a kid, but once before, I was pregnant. It was quite dark in that place where I was, enclosed between sheet rock safe walls and plain wooden structures that doubly served as convenient storage and junk warehouses. I tried to make my mind think about a million things at once, like those salty, clean-cut golden delights that I somehow had not managed to eat earlier, or how the sun was peeking through the backyard tree around sundown and the wind was making the shadows dance around all funny-like, but unfortunately, just one thought took precedence. I used to make a mental list of all the reasons why that epitomizing thought could have never been a reality: nothing really happened, these types of pills have side effects, and I’m probably finally hitting that last stint of puberty, but after having recited the list like a sinner in church reciting the Lord’s prayer, I moved my hand slowly down my abdomen and pushed down on the lowest part. I kept it there, then came the tears.
I would even tell myself while laughing that it must be an ulcer, or perhaps even a stomach bug. ‘Constant dull abdominal pain’, I typed vigorously into the Google search bar. Over five million hits resulted. I opened each link starting from the top, desperately searching for any hope to solidify my theories. My eyes moved about the screen, back and forth at record speeds, decoding the words. I came across a link that read, “Ten Facts Mothers-to-be Should Know”. Mother? Never before then, did such an entitled address send aches and chills over my whole existence. I had remembered when my mom and I were riding in the car, we’d had this same conversation before, so I proceeded to watch the cars turn into swift blurs that I had imagined the bullets of paintball guns would look like in slow motion. She’d said, “You’re too smart to get complacent and make the wrong decisions. I won’t be anyone’s grandma this young, and not anytime soon.” I had turned away from the nonsense scenery to look at her face. I felt the seriousness of her words through her eyes and I saw the fear of what she thought could happen if I’d chosen not to heed her wisdom. I’d made a silent promise to never let her face that fear. I kept reading the article title over and over again, thinking that maybe it would mean something different to me, then I had to keep reminding myself that this article couldn’t actually have any relevance to me. I was a stellar student, all A’s, no nonsense. I didn’t really fool around with people who didn’t have any real goals and I didn’t talk to anyone who didn’t have an overly extensive vocabulary. Too many of those kids were too busy trying to conform to the latest trendy shit and I just didn’t have time for it.
Each day, I began to move a little more sluggishly than the day before. Pulsating uncomfortableness of sorts would emerge in different parts of my body. I completely neglected eating, I just couldn’t. My appetite was lost, carried away into a sea of mystery and it seemed as if I never had one. This is one hell of a stomach bug. At times when I was home alone, I would try a sip of bleach to kill off all that bad bacteria or maybe even a few punches to beat the crap out those hell-causing pests. My mom would occasionally ask how I was doing and tried to make me eat crackers. She offered to make me doctor’s appointments, but I refused them, remembering the article titles about mothers and my stomach would cringe, almost as if such tension were second nature. I thought about confessing myself even though nothing happened but when I tried to think about the situation in a critical aspect, my mind would retreat to a black hole. In the black hole, all I could think of was what a disgusting filth I was, a disappointment, a stereotype, and above all things a supercilious bitch for thinking I was an exception to nature’s non-discriminatory wrath. Then, I would think of my mom and how the love I received from her was the only real love I would ever get. Silly me.
I passed out one day. I literally slapped the concrete with my backside; I guess just to say hello because the only thing I remember before then was that the pain in my stomach felt like my small intestines were being ironed out by an iron that wasn’t quite hot enough to do the job. When I woke, I saw my mom, sitting there across from me with no real facial expression. We were in a pediatric hospital and I was laying on one of those stiff beds that had a long sheet of light blue paper towel covering it. A few blood samples and urine tests later, the nurse asked my mom to step out for a moment. A part of me knew what was coming, but none of me was mentally or emotionally prepared for it, but I couldn’t even think about myself. I only thought of my mother. I thought of her tears, the knots in her stomach, the weight of her body feeling a bit too heavy because her whole life was off-kilter now. I was supposed to be her apple but now I’m just some half-eaten piece of moldy fruit that didn’t make it into the garbage. When the nurse told me I was pregnant, my last morsel of sanity was drowned by tears. My mother came back in the room, but I couldn’t look at her. She sat at the edge of the bed and grabbed my hand. Her touch sent another flood of tears and she squeezed my hand tighter and spoke with a sort of calmness that I’d never heard before, “So, what are we going to do now?”. I raised my eyes to her, a beautiful hero in an imaginary red cape slashing all my demons before they could grab me. I would never know exactly what she felt or what she thought, but I knew that she loved me and that I absolutely loved her with everything within me.
AYRIANNA SWANSON
I’ve never had a kid, but once before, I was pregnant. It was quite dark in that place where I was, enclosed between sheet rock safe walls and plain wooden structures that doubly served as convenient storage and junk warehouses. I tried to make my mind think about a million things at once, like those salty, clean-cut golden delights that I somehow had not managed to eat earlier, or how the sun was peeking through the backyard tree around sundown and the wind was making the shadows dance around all funny-like, but unfortunately, just one thought took precedence. I used to make a mental list of all the reasons why that epitomizing thought could have never been a reality: nothing really happened, these types of pills have side effects, and I’m probably finally hitting that last stint of puberty, but after having recited the list like a sinner in church reciting the Lord’s prayer, I moved my hand slowly down my abdomen and pushed down on the lowest part. I kept it there, then came the tears.
I would even tell myself while laughing that it must be an ulcer, or perhaps even a stomach bug. ‘Constant dull abdominal pain’, I typed vigorously into the Google search bar. Over five million hits resulted. I opened each link starting from the top, desperately searching for any hope to solidify my theories. My eyes moved about the screen, back and forth at record speeds, decoding the words. I came across a link that read, “Ten Facts Mothers-to-be Should Know”. Mother? Never before then, did such an entitled address send aches and chills over my whole existence. I had remembered when my mom and I were riding in the car, we’d had this same conversation before, so I proceeded to watch the cars turn into swift blurs that I had imagined the bullets of paintball guns would look like in slow motion. She’d said, “You’re too smart to get complacent and make the wrong decisions. I won’t be anyone’s grandma this young, and not anytime soon.” I had turned away from the nonsense scenery to look at her face. I felt the seriousness of her words through her eyes and I saw the fear of what she thought could happen if I’d chosen not to heed her wisdom. I’d made a silent promise to never let her face that fear. I kept reading the article title over and over again, thinking that maybe it would mean something different to me, then I had to keep reminding myself that this article couldn’t actually have any relevance to me. I was a stellar student, all A’s, no nonsense. I didn’t really fool around with people who didn’t have any real goals and I didn’t talk to anyone who didn’t have an overly extensive vocabulary. Too many of those kids were too busy trying to conform to the latest trendy shit and I just didn’t have time for it.
Each day, I began to move a little more sluggishly than the day before. Pulsating uncomfortableness of sorts would emerge in different parts of my body. I completely neglected eating, I just couldn’t. My appetite was lost, carried away into a sea of mystery and it seemed as if I never had one. This is one hell of a stomach bug. At times when I was home alone, I would try a sip of bleach to kill off all that bad bacteria or maybe even a few punches to beat the crap out those hell-causing pests. My mom would occasionally ask how I was doing and tried to make me eat crackers. She offered to make me doctor’s appointments, but I refused them, remembering the article titles about mothers and my stomach would cringe, almost as if such tension were second nature. I thought about confessing myself even though nothing happened but when I tried to think about the situation in a critical aspect, my mind would retreat to a black hole. In the black hole, all I could think of was what a disgusting filth I was, a disappointment, a stereotype, and above all things a supercilious bitch for thinking I was an exception to nature’s non-discriminatory wrath. Then, I would think of my mom and how the love I received from her was the only real love I would ever get. Silly me.
I passed out one day. I literally slapped the concrete with my backside; I guess just to say hello because the only thing I remember before then was that the pain in my stomach felt like my small intestines were being ironed out by an iron that wasn’t quite hot enough to do the job. When I woke, I saw my mom, sitting there across from me with no real facial expression. We were in a pediatric hospital and I was laying on one of those stiff beds that had a long sheet of light blue paper towel covering it. A few blood samples and urine tests later, the nurse asked my mom to step out for a moment. A part of me knew what was coming, but none of me was mentally or emotionally prepared for it, but I couldn’t even think about myself. I only thought of my mother. I thought of her tears, the knots in her stomach, the weight of her body feeling a bit too heavy because her whole life was off-kilter now. I was supposed to be her apple but now I’m just some half-eaten piece of moldy fruit that didn’t make it into the garbage. When the nurse told me I was pregnant, my last morsel of sanity was drowned by tears. My mother came back in the room, but I couldn’t look at her. She sat at the edge of the bed and grabbed my hand. Her touch sent another flood of tears and she squeezed my hand tighter and spoke with a sort of calmness that I’d never heard before, “So, what are we going to do now?”. I raised my eyes to her, a beautiful hero in an imaginary red cape slashing all my demons before they could grab me. I would never know exactly what she felt or what she thought, but I knew that she loved me and that I absolutely loved her with everything within me.