A/N: This chapter deals with a very sensitive and controversial topic. If you're very conservative and/or religious, it might be best if you skipped it.
"Oh, no!" Jamie moaned. "What a jerk!"
"I always knew he was a sleazeball," Taylor replied. "Sh, here she comes!"
Both girls watched as a red-eyed Alexis approached them. "Are you all right?" Taylor put her arm around the other girl, and they went and sat down.
"I guess so."
"So have you decided what you're going to do yet?" Taylor asked Alexis when the three girls were seated.
"Well, I'll just have to get an abortion, I guess," Alexis replied. "I have no idea where I'll get the money. That's the problem. I sure can't tell my Mom I'm pregnant. She'd kill me."
"Why don't you have the baby?" asked Jamie. "My priest says abortion's murder."
"Well, I'm not Catholic, and I don't want to mess up the rest of my life while I'm still in high school."
"You could put it up for adoption," Jamie suggested. "Let me talk to some people at my church. I'm sure I could find someone willing to take it in."
"I'd still have to go through the pregnancy and delivery," Alexis pointed out. "Can you just see me with my belly out to here?"
"But if you have an abortion, you might end up regretting it later." Jamie glanced at Taylor, wondering why her friend wasn't contributing to the conversation.
"If I can't get the money, I can't have it, anyway." Alexis put her elbows on the table and hid her face in her hands.
Taylor touched her arm. "I'll help you," she promised. "I've got some stuff I could sell, and I might can borrow the rest from my folks. I'll just have to come up with some story about why I need the money."
"You'd really do that for me?" Alexis sounded hopeful for the first time.
Jamie was silent for the rest of the day. When she got home, she went straight to her room and got started on her homework. A couple of hours later, she heard a knock on her door.
"Come in," she called.
Jo entered the room. "Jamie, please tell me what's wrong! I'm worried sick about you!"
Jamie looked up, surprised. "Nothing's wrong with me, Mom. Honest! I - I've got an important assignment due soon, and I still have a lot of work to do on it."
Jamie went to sleep that night thinking of what she'd always been taught about sin, confession, repentance, atonement, and the afterlife. Did a legal abortion truly equate with the murder of someone already born? If Alexis somehow obtained the money and had the abortion, would it mean she'd have to stay in purgatory for a very long time after she died?
To Jamie's surprise, Alexis was almost cheerful when she met Taylor and Jamie for lunch on Wednesday. "I finally got up the nerve to tell my brother Connor," she told her friends. "He offered to drive me to the clinic and loan me the money for the procedure. He's the best!"
"Great!" Taylor exclaimed. "So when are you having it done?"
"Friday morning. That's the only time the clinic does abortions. He's picking me up after homeroom, so I'll have already been marked present."
"I'll come with you!" Taylor exclaimed, glancing at Jamie.
"Me too!" Jamie added.
Instead of going to second period Friday morning, Jamie and Taylor met up with Alexis in the parking lot. Within moments, a blue Honda Accord pulled up in front of them, and Alexis got into the front seat while Taylor and Jamie got into the back.
"Connor, these are my friends Taylor and Jamie," Alexis told her brother. Connor was tall and slender, with short auburn hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
"Nice to meet you," he said to Taylor and Jamie. As he drove into the parking lot, Jamie saw that a group of protesters stood in front of it holding signs and enlarged photographs of gory fetus parts. Connor found a parking space, and they got out and walked toward the clinic's entrance. On the way, Jamie saw that her friend from church, Regina, was holding a sign that said 'Babies Murdered Here.' Her eyes met Jamie's, and she gasped in shock. Jamie felt her cheeks burning.
A couple of security guards stood outside the clinic's front door. Once they were inside, Jamie saw that the interior was brightly lit by a large window at one end and contained rows of comfortable-looking chairs. Alexis signed in at the front, and they sat down to wait.
"I sure hope those signs out there didn't upset you too much," Connor said to his sister.
"I'm so nervous I hardly even noticed them," Alexis replied.
Connor patted her knee. "It'll all be over with real soon."
A few minutes later, Alexis was called to the front. She returned a moment later with a clipboard containing a form. With Connor's help, she filled the form out and turned it in. A little while after that, she was called back to have her vitals taken, then sent back to the waiting room.
"I just wish they'd hurry up and get it over with before I lose my nerve and run out of here!" she moaned.
About thirty minutes later, she was finally called back for the actual procedure.
"Alexis is sure lucky to have a brother like you," Taylor said to Connor.
"Somebody has to step in and take the responsibility that piece of shit Brock weaseled out of," Connor replied. "If I ever get my hands on him, I'll rip his balls off."
Jamie couldn't help but wonder what Alexis was experiencing. Could she feel what they were doing to her? Was it painful?
At last a nurse came out to talk to Connor.
"The procedure went well," she told him. "She's resting comfortably in recovery. You can see her in about thirty minutes."
Connor let out the breath he'd been holding. "Thank God!"