After the non-restful and thoughtful weekend, school sadly came once again. Although this was the same routine I had been through consecutively for half the school year, I'm still not accustomed to dragging myself out of bed. I walked zombie-like to bathroom and began my routine to make myself look somewhat decent. For once, I didn't have the urge to puke all of my insides out. I actually felt like a normal teenage girl.
I made my way to Chemistry where I would always try not to fall asleep. Staying awake used to not be a problem, but ever since I got pregnant, I wasn't able to drink coffee or anything that contained caffeine. It was like living in hell. I walked up to Taylor and sat down.
"Yo, are you alright?"
"Yeah. Well at least for someone who can't have any type of energizing drink in the morning."
"You look like you haven't slept in ages."
"Thanks for not being blatantly obvious at telling me I look like shit," I said sarcastically, "I've just had a lot of things on my mind."
"Girl, talk to me."
"Well, I went to see the baby on Friday with my mom and Troy-"
"OMG how was it? Did your mom completely ignore Troy?" Taylor was quick to interrupt me.
"Well, she didn't totally ignore his presence. There was small talk here and there but other than that, it was incredibly awkward. But as soon as the ultrasound technician brought us into the room, everything seemed to go somewhat uphill. And as for seeing the baby, it was magnificent."
"How did it look like?" Taylor scooched her seat a little closer to mine. She looked like a little kid being told a story of some superhero.
"Honestly, it looked like a little bean. I couldn't tell what was what on the little body until the doctor started pointing things out. But even then, all I saw was a little bean. You should've seen Troy. He was like an excited little puppy. The whole experience was bittersweet."
"Why bittersweet?"
"Well, I've been thinking about whether or not I want to keep it. I mean, it sounds like it'd be kind of enjoyable having a little one round, but at the same time I feel like it's just not my time to be a mother. I don't want this baby to have a screwed up life because I wasn't at the maturity level required to take care of another life."
"If anything, you're way more mature than half the adults out there that have children. But I see your point. Have you told Troy?"
"I haven't mentioned it ever since the last time. He seems so happy about everything and I don't want to ruin that for him."
"Ladies, if you could please stop the yapping and get to doing your work, that'd be great," the teacher obnoxiously said. And with that, the conversation ended.
The rest of the school day went as usual, excruciatingly boring and long. And for some odd reason, Troy wasn't at school. I texted to see if everything was alright. But there was no response, causing me to worry a little. It was unlike him to miss school, and much less not respond to me. I'll call him later, I thought to myself as I walked to my car.
I made my way home and went straight to my room. My brain was exploding of thoughts and questions. I couldn't help but think that maybe adoption was the way to go. One of the many problems with that was that I didn't know how to even begin the process of adoption or how anything worked. Just as I was about to grab my laptop to do some research on it, I heard the door creak open and turned my head to face it. It was unusual for someone to enter my room at this time since my mom was at work and my dad was still upset with me. But, to my surprise, it was my dad.
"Hey Gabriella," he said in a somewhat sweet tone, something I hadn't heard from him in a couple of weeks.
"Hey?" I tried to make it seem as if I wasn't in complete shock from the scenario that was playing out before my eyes, but I failed. He approached my bed slowly and eventually sat down on it. This was strange.
"How you been feeling?"
I cringed in confusion, but proceeded to answer him. "Fine."
"That's good."
Unable to hold in all the questions that were going on inside of my head, I decided to speak up. "I'm sorry, but what exactly are you doing here?"
"What? I can't even talk to my own daughter now?"
"Well, of course you can. But, it's not exactly a secret that you've pretty much ignored my existence for the past couple of weeks. I just found it weird that you're all of a sudden acting as if nothing happened."
"Look, I wanted to apologize for that night. You know, when you told me that you were," he looked down at my belly, but didn't finish the sentence. "Everything got out of control."
"It's fine. I understand that being pregnant is not exactly what you were hoping for me to be at 17."
"That's actually what I wanted to talk about."
I didn't know what to expect to come out of his mouth. There was a little hope in me that maybe it would be something positive.
"Well, I've been reading on, how would you call them? Alternatives?" He continued. Suddenly my slightness of hope was crushed.
"Now, hear me out. Don't go yelling at me like your mother did. But, there are other things you can do besides having the baby."
"Are you saying I should abort it?" I was in pure disbelief at the inhumanity my dad was presenting.
"Gabby, you still have time to abort it. It's not too late," he took out a pamphlet on abortion and pointed at the bullet points. I began feeling sick.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I whispered loudly enough to where he could hear it.
He was becoming irritated. "How do you plan to take care of a child when you're only 17?"
"But, there's adoption! I don't have to just go and kill the baby!"
"What? So you plan to just basically feel it grow inside of you and look at ultrasound pictures and listen to its heart beat for nine months so you can fall in love with it? I know how this works. In the end, you won't even want to give the," he hesitated, "thing up!"
"Thing? How can you speak of it as if it were a piece of trash we want to dispose of? Especially after showing you the ultrasound pictures. And so what if I want to keep it? I'll manage."
"Are you even hearing yourself right now Gabriella? How are you going to manage taking care of another life? You have no means of support other than Troy. And I've seen that boy, he isn't very bright, so how the fuck is he going to manage to have a successful career?" His voice grew louder as he continued to speak, "I don't think his parents are going to cough up the money to pay for your guys' dumbass mistake. I sure as hell am not. You have no job, you're still in high school for fucks sake!"
"I bet Troy will be a better father than you'll ever be!"
At that moment the door flew open and in came a pissed off version of my mom.
"What's going on?"
"Oh, you didn't hear? Dad wants me to get an abortion." I succeeded at holding in the tears, but my voice was still cracky.
My mom looked over at my dad in astonishment. "I told you not to talk about this with her!" She shoved my dad back with her hand. I had never seen her this upset.
"Well, I'm sorry if I'm trying to save our daughter from fucking up her life!"
"How are you doing any of that?! Yelling at her telling her to kill her child is your way of wanting what's best for her?" My mom was on the verge of tears. At this point, I didn't know if it was because she was infuriated or genuinely upset.
"So you just want to see her life go to downhill because she wanted to bring that little shit into this world? I did not make sure that we lived in good neighborhood, make sure that she got the best education, and work my ass off to ensure that she had a guaranteed chance at going to college and making something out of herself for it to all of it to go in the trash! That kid is going to be her destruction!"
"Get out," I managed to say in the middle of the chaos and breakdown.
Both of my parents looked at me. At this point my face was covered in tears. They continued standing there and looking at me.
"JUST GET OUT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, causing my voice to sound scratchy. I had so much anger and hatred built up in me that I couldn't just bottle it up. And with that, my parents made their way out the door. Before it closed, I felt my dad's presence just standing in the doorway, with his hand on the handle of the door.
"You're not my daughter anymore," he said in a voice colder than a winter night, and slammed the door.