Visiting family is exhausting mentally so I wrote this.
He wasn't supposed to find out.
But he comes bursting into her room, her little sanctuary of purple walls and floral bedspread. It was her own little room, with her things.
"How dare you not tell me!" He shouts at her. "How dare you not ask me what I wanted!" Walter storms moodily. "I find out from someone else, someone who is not you! I deserved to know Una."
"Get out," Una struggles to control the situation.
"No, I want to know why, why you couldn't tell me," Walter shakes his head. "Or wouldn't tell me."
"Because I didn't want to? Because it didn't matter I had made up my mind the moment that stick gave me two lines?" Una tells him.
"That wasn't your choice to make I deserved to know!"
"Deserved to know? This isn't that movie Juno, Walter, life isn't like that in real life. You didn't care enough that afternoon. Clearly, the condom broke and you should have noticed but you didn't tell me that. God, I was so naive, did you even try to stop pregnancy at all?"
"Of course I did I'm not an idiot," He spits bitterly.
"Really? Could have fooled me," Una tells him. "I gave you everything, Walter and you know that. You gladly took it, you took everything I gave freely but what did I get in return? Nothing, every single time. I've been waiting for you to wake up and notice that maybe that woman you were so desperate to find was right in front of you. I found out quickly nothing had changed, once again you used me and I'm not sure what is worse than you think that it's all right to come over here and yell at me, or that I let you in the first place!"
"I think you should leave," the voice is forbidding in the doorway. Her father. "She does not want you here so you should go."
"You covered this up, you let her cover this up!"
"She is my daughter and I will do whatever it takes to protect her, even from you. So please leave." John Meredith says to him. 'Before I remove you myself."
"She had an abortion!"
"Which is between herself and the Lord, he will understand her choices and forgiveness is always given when forgiveness is needed. As for myself, I am always a father first, clearly, you are not ready to put others first, so you are not ready to be a father." John tells him. "So please leave my house."
Walter looks at Una. "My family will never forgive you for this." With that, he turns and finally leaves.
"He won't tell his parents," John says. "They would see him in a way that they would not like."
"They are blind to it already, they would just blame me in the long run." Una reminds her father, sitting down on her bed. "What do I do?"
"What do you wish to do?"
"Can I visit Aunt Lydia?" Una asks, Lydia was their mothers' sister who lived out west.
"Call her, if she accepts I will manage the airfare," John tells her running a hand over her dark her. Taking in her dark circles and pale skin
She left the Island sooner than she expected, but not soon enough as it gets back to her faster than she ever believed it would.
It was exactly how she imagined it, Anne Blythe believing her sensitive golden child of a boy could do anything so wrong and careless, and that she was ruthless and uncaring in her decision. They would have kept the child if she hadn't wanted it.
Dr. Blythe was sympathetic as he tried to keep his wife calm. He found her at her hospital stay, something about her mentioning Walter as she was hemorrhaging. He didn't blame her, he never blamed any woman who came into the hospital for what was the most difficult decision of their life. If anything he gave his son a dressing down about the whole situation.
Though soon she was flying high above the clouds she had her life packed away in a suitcase. Ready to leave it all behind, start fresh in the mountain town of her Aunt.
She kept away from the Blythes and stayed off Facebook and social media. She didn't want him or them to know where she went.
She still mourns for the unborn, lighting candles and praying, asking for forgiveness. Though she knows that it was the only decision she could have made.
Her boots click on the cobblestones, grocery bags in her arms, her dark hair flowing some the edge of her cap. Her mother's cross still lays against her sternum, a constant reminder to never allow herself to go to that dark place ever again.
For the first time in her adult life, she felt free.
She had a job at her aunt's small boutique, she could walk around without worry of running into him. Still, it creeps in moments she not expecting. In grocery stores most of the time, mainly because he used to work in one during the summer.
Her sibling's text and call, sworn to secrecy to where she was, though Faith tells her that Jem laid into Walter and Jerry while back with Nan was too polite to ask about or talk about Una in such a way.
She meets guys here and there, never quite allowing herself to allow herself to fall them. It was always easier to be elusive, to be a mystery to them.
It was always too easy to fall into a daydream or to speak of him out of habit, wrapped up in an old sweater that still smelt like him, old patches at the elbows that were worn over, mismatched buttons from falling off over the years.
They had been best friends after all.
She had to become her own person though, and it hurt. How many times had she read Peter Pan as a child? Always wondering what it might have been like if Wendy stayed with Peter, but she understood it now, and Walter was still grasping at the fairytale in a way. Or that is what it felt like to her?
Maybe years down the line, maybe one day she could look back and not shake her head. Not be wracked with anxiety at the thought of him showing up in her life. Maybe one day it will be water under the bridge?
She doubts at these moments, she doesn't think she will ever want to forgive him to that extent. Though she knows she will have to if Faith and Jem get married as they wish to one day they will be connected by family.
She applies for schools near her Aunt's, deciding that she would stay as long as she felt welcome. Needing, wanting to do something with her life that was for herself alone this time around. She hadn't truly thought about her future when she applied out of high school, thinking that he wanted her there with him.
This time she had plans, plans for herself in what she wanted to do with her life. Teaching was always something that interested her, immersing herself in religious studies that were not just her own belief. While music came as a solitude as she found herself playing at the old piano at her Aunts. More than once if she was stumbled upon, they have often mistaken her late mother with her long black hair that shined in the lamplight.
Her phone lights up the dark of her room at 2 am. She doesn't recognize the number but she knows exactly who it is in the wee hours of the morning. She also changed her number, so how he got it was a mystery she wasn't wanting to figure out. She leaves it on reading before she blocks the number with steady, heart-throbbing anxiety.
She curls up tossing her phone aside, grasping the ruby pendant once more for that heavenly support she craved.
A deep breath and a long sigh. She could learn to forgive herself, but she wasn't sure if she could ever forgive him.