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Chapter 16
August 19th the day of my abortion. The appointment Nadine had scheduled soon after the doctor had confirmed my pregnancy. I couldn’t deny the fact that I looked and felt different. It was something about me that I couldn’t point out, I was just different. I hadn’t felt extremely nauseous in all of August and I was getting used to peeing a lot. I couldn’t tell if anyone knew, no one showed it but Nadine. I don’t think anyone in my family cared enough to notice any changes in my body or personality. This would’ve angered me under any other circumstances, but not this one. I was an outcast, happy to be unacknowledged by the insiders.
“We’re leaving in 15, okay?” Nadine asked me while walking by my bedroom.
“Okay,” I shrugged.
Bobbi was grabbing a beer and stared at me oddly from the kitchen. I stared back at her with one eyebrow raised. She could be so weird sometimes. But heck, that was part of her crazy grandma charm. She waved her fingers at me, motioning for me to come to her. I was confused and stood still. She mouthed the words, “Follow me” and then departed to the garage. I openly rolled my eyes at her and reluctantly followed her into her makeshift bedroom.
Bobbi sat down on the couch and opened the beer can. She was frowning. All right, now I was nervous. I stood in front of her with my hands in pockets rocking back and forth. She took a long wet sip of her beer and swallowed loudly. Then she licked her lips and spoke to me.
“What are you and Nadine leaving for?”
“Um.” What the hell was she talking about? “I’m going to the dentist, why are you being so weird?”
“Dentist?” She questioned me.
“Yes, dentist,” I stammered.
“Now, is this to have your teeth cleaned, or the baby’s teeth cleaned?”
My heart dropped. How did she know?
“What the hell are you talking about?” My voice squeaked.
“Oh don’t play dumb with me, I know that you’re pregnant Lillian.” She crossed her arms.
“Sshhh!” I whispered loudly, “don’t broadcast it to the whole house!”
“So you aren’t going to deny it?”
“God Dammit Bobbi, how did you find out?”
“I have my ways.” Bobbi smiled, keenly.
“Oh God, who else knows?” I panicked.
“No one, calm down.”
“Then how did you find out?” I waved my arms.
“Look Lily, I’m the only one here who actually takes time to look at you, and to tell you the truth you’ve been gaining weight, your boobs are huge, you are always throwing up and plus I overheard Nadine telling Tyrone about it on the phone.”
“I’m gonna fucking kill her!”
“Leave her be, look Lily, no one else knows, I promise you,” she said, softly.
“Well you don’t have to lecture me; I’m going to get rid of it.”
“Yes that’s what I guessed the appointment was for.”
“Well good for you.”
“Your hormones are raging like an untamed bull.”
“Shut up,” I rolled my eyes, “I gotta leave, Nadine’s waiting.”
I left Bobbi by herself and peeked into Nadine’s room. She was sitting on her bed talking on her cell phone. She was so damn selfish.
“Are you ready to go?” I asked her in disgust.
“Yeah,” she covered the phone with her hand, “just get in the car and wait for me.”
“For how long?”
“Will ya hold your horses its not like the baby is going anywhere.”
“Shhh!” I hissed, “just hurry up, okay?”
“Yeah.” She nodded and returned to her conversation.
I flicked Nadine off on my way out of her room.
On the way to the clinic, Nadine was acting anxious. She was driving rather slow and examining the surroundings as if she was looking for a penny in the street.
“Um, what is going on, why are you acting so weird?” I asked her, cautiously.
“I’m not,” she said.
She continued to drive in her odd style and pulled over next to a curb. She stopped the car and gazed out the window, biting her chapped bottom lip. We were parked next to a large gray building with barely any windows, functioning windows that is. The air smelled of gasoline and I watched a hooker walk by covered in cheetah print stretch pants. Funny, my mother owned the same pair.
“Nadine would you like to tell me why the hell we are stopped in the middle of a lowlife death hole?” I asked my sister, loudly.
“Will you calm down? This is none of your business,” Nadine snipped.
“Um, I think that it just might be my business, seeing as that you are supposed to be driving me to my abortion!”
Nadine’s eyes shifted to a rather large black man dressed from head to toe in black sweats. He had reflective sunglasses on and ran towards us.
“Nadine, who is that?” I yelled at her.
She ignored me and got out of the car to meet up with the mystery man.
“Nadine!” I yelled through the car window.
“Chill out!” She yelled back at me.
“Yeah it’s not good for the baby” The man said to me. Tyrone! I recognized the man by his raspy deep voice. Why in God’s name were we stopping to meet Tyrone? Once again, Nadine’s selfish true colors had been revealed.
I watched them whisper to each other in agony. I was scared and anxious. I was going to be late for my appointment and most likely Tyrone would be accompanying us to the clinic. He was such a cockroach; he always popped up at the worst times possible.
Tyrone walked over to the driver’s side and sat down in the seat as Nadine remained outside the car. My eyes widened and my stomach dropped. I would not accept the possibility of Tyrone driving me anywhere. I rolled down the car window and yelled out to Nadine.
“Nadine, get in the car!” I screeched.
“I’m sorry Lily, but I have to go, you’ll be fine with Tyrone,” she offered me a smile.
I was so livid that I could not even form words. My breathing was heavy. I grabbed at my hair and tried to fathom what was happening. I was incredibly unsuccessful at doing so.
“I’m sorry!” She cried out.
I turned to face Tyrone. “It’ll be fun,” he smiled and put his hand on my knee.
I yanked his hand away and screamed, “like Hell it will!”
I stuck my head out the window and looked out to Nadine who was moving farther and farther away. Its then that I realized the car was moving and Tyrone was the cause of it. I let out a blood curdling scream as the electric window started to shut.
“God Dammit, shut up!” Tyrone shouted at me as I pulled my face back into the car.
“Get me the fuck out of here!” I wriggled the door handle only to discover it was child proof locked.
“Yo, calm down, we fucking going to your damn abortion, what more do you want girl?”
“To get out of this car!” I hollered back at him.
“Well that’s too damn bad, you’re stuck here with me and you will like it!” He reached for the radio knob and suddenly intense hip-hop music blared, causing the car to vibrate with the bass.
“Tyrone!” I raised my voice over the rap, “where did Nadine go anyways?”
He turned down the music, “she testified as my alibi last week now she needs to go talk to the judge about some stupid shit.”
I was disgusted. Nadine must be the most ignorant human on planet earth; wait no, there was still Tyrone to take that title. I was sure he was caught drug dealing again or robbing a grocery store.
“What the fuck did you do this time?” I crossed my arms.
“None of your business, you’re mad nosey,” Tyrone said with annoyance in his voice.
“None of my business? Um lets see I am in the car with a wanted felon!”
“You make it sound so bad.”
“Well yes that is the idea.”
“I may or may not have whooped some ungrateful brother’s ass,” Tyrone said to the steering wheel.
“Oh my God you killed him?!”
“Nah man, I mean almost, but no,” he defended.
“This is just perfect.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“Bitch, you need to shut the hell up!” Tyrone looked over at me.
“What? You gonna beat me just like that man you almost killed?”
“You don’t know anything about who you messin’ with.”
“Yeah, I think I do, you’re the big loser who my sister, for some odd reason, feels attached to. Even though you are a felon and probably cheat on her whenever she’s away.”
“Fuck you bitch, shoot, I don’t even have to be giving you this damn ride.”
“Good! I’d rather walk then be stuck in this death trap anyways.”
Tyrone slowed the car down and parked it at a curb. I wriggled the door handle but it was still locked.
“Are you going to let me out or do you want to basically rape me, again?” I stammered.
Tyrone ignored the remark. He started the car up again. I was confused.
“What are you doing, let me out!” I yelled.
“No, I can’t,” he said, quietly.
“Why not!?”
“Look, I made a promise to your sister and I can’t go back on it now.”
“Oh, don’t even try to act like a good boyfriend now.” I didn’t believe his charade.
“I don’t give a fuck what you think, girl, but I do love your sister and she damn well knows that”
“Okay, whatever, can we just get there already?”
Tyrone rolled his eyes and turned up the music. He smelled like cheap pot.
We pulled into the parking lot of the Clinic. There were a group of hippies rallying outside the door yelling, “Let them live!” and “Abortion is murder!” They screamed as if I would hear them and say, yes you are right, protesters, and I am going to go home now and read the bible. Amen.
Yeah Right. Tyrone didn’t look like he was going to move so I reached over and unlocked the door myself, slipping out of the car.
Who was going to pick me up? No one would come. I would have to call Bobbi on a greasy pay phone and ask her to drive out here and she would grunt and snort but then show up an hour later in my father’s green mini van.
The rallying hippies yelled and spit on me. I flipped my hood up and plugged my ears. I opened the door of the clinic and was surprised by the silence. I walked up to the receptionist with wrinkles under her eyes and told her my name, not Nadine’s name, but my own. She told me to take a seat. I looked around, everyone seemed sweaty and anxious. There was a faint smell of rubber in the air; I shuttered to think it was the smell of burning fetus. I shook away the words ‘burning fetus’ and stuck my freezing hands in the pocket of my hooded jacket.
“So, getting an abortion?” A mysterious voice questioned me.
I turned around to meet a little drugged out Puerto-Rican man dressed in a giant black fur winter coat. He was sweating and twitching, probably overheated from the combination of the jacket and mid-August heat.
“Um, yes,” I made it obvious that I was creped out by the man.
“My girls’ had 3 of ‘em,” the man stated.
“Oh.”
“She can’t have kids anymore, though.” His left eye wandered away while his right eye stayed locked on me.
“Why?” I wasn’t really interested but I thought the little man might get really angry if I didn’t pay attention to his abortion story.
“You know how when they do abortions they put a little vacuum inside of your coochie coo coo and suck out all of the baby?”
“Yeah,” I lied, I actually had no idea what happened when you get an abortion. The procedure seemed less enticing now. And uh.. coochie coo coo?
“Well,” he shivered, “they accidentally sucked all her girl stuff out and then they sent her to the hospital and they had to take all the remains out of her cause they were too fucked up to even bother with.” He laughed, “now she’s basically a man with boobs.”
My heart was beating out of control. That couldn’t really happen, could it? My hands were shaking and I was nauseous.
“That wouldn’t really happen though, right?” I asked the man, nervously.
“You can never be so sure, those doctors aren’t very trained if you know what I mean,” he licked his lips, smiling.
The Puerto-Rican guy slowly inched his hand up my thigh. His nails were long and yellow. I gulped hard and abruptly thrust myself out of the chair. I proceeded to run as fast as I could out the clinic. There was no way in Hell I was dealing with being raped by a dirty Puerto-Rican mignon and getting a hysterectomy all in one day.
I sat down on the bench outside the clinic and covered my face with my hands. I felt like the world was rushing by me and for some reason I was sitting still. I rocked my aching body back and forth; I must have looked like a mental case to the on-lookers. Well I basically was. I was stranded here, no ride, and no friends. Stranded in the deep city, my fetus and me. No! I couldn’t call it mine. It wasn’t mine, it wasn’t even there. I would have to get an abortion sooner or later. The clinic was unbearable; I wouldn’t allow myself to go back there. Maybe the doctor could surgically remove the fetus. No, then I would have to have my parents sign some damned release form. Why couldn’t I be eighteen? Why couldn’t I be un-pregnant? Why was I sitting outside the clinic? Why didn’t I get rid of my problem? I couldn’t breathe. I felt like a train was running over my chest. Everything around me was so blurry, my mind was racing, and my heart was ready to explode.
I felt like someone was picking me up, strong, rough hands held my body as I shook and struggled to breathe. This was a dream, I could tell. Nothing was real. The angelic being smelled familiar. It set me down on something firm, and stroked my hair. My eyes were shut tight, there was no way I could open them and see my dream alive and in motion. There was a loud slam and a rumble. My surroundings were vibrating and smelled of cigarette smoke. The air was dense and heavy. I dreamt that an angel set me down in my bed and covered me with blankets. This was a dream wasn’t it?
I awoke in my bed. I poked around my face with my fingertips, it was all in tact. I was no longer in a dream. This was real life and this was my real bed. I had a pounding headache. I pulled my upper-body out of my bed and propped myself up with my elbows. Pitch Dark.
“Hey,” I heard a soft voice address me. It was Nadine.
“Hey.” My throat was dry. “What happened?”
Nadine sat next to me on my bed. I couldn’t see her; I could only feel my bed slightly tilt as she took a seat beside me.
“You got an abortion and left the clinic, then Tyrone saw you freaking out on a bench outside the clinic and drove you back here,” she squeezed my hand. It felt cold and clammy.
“Nadine?”
“It’s okay Lillian; abortions are really scary I mean when I got my first one I had a nervous breakdown too.”
“Nadine, I—.” She wouldn’t let me talk.
“It’s like your chest is being crushed and you can’t breathe and no one can help you.”
“Nadine,” I said her name once again.
“Shh, you need your rest, I know, just close your eyes and sleep now.” She got up off the bed and grazed my arm with her dead hand. I grabbed it firmly and tugged for her to stay.
“Nadine!” She needed to listen to me.
“Lily, don’t worry, it’s all over now, there is no more baby,” Nadine spoke.
She would never understand. Her mind wasn’t capable of hearing the truth. I took a long pause and breathed deep and full.
“Lily, what?” Her voice was impatient and confused.
“Nothing,” I lied, “you’re right.”
Jesus, help them to understand.
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Come Again? 13
