Trying to be a family.
The first time I got pregnant I was 13 and terrified. There was only one person who could have gotten me pregnant, the only person I had ever had sex with, and I knew perfectly well that if anyone ever found out the baby was his he would be arrested and tortured by prison vigilantes and I would probably never see him again. I was certain that if anyone ever took him away from me, it would destroy me.
I still wanted to keep the baby.
It wasn't because I wanted to be a mother. The thought of being a mother scared the shit out of me. But in my thirteen-year-old mind, having his baby would have made us a real family. See, he didn't really like me. He tolerated me. He did the things parents are supposed to do even though he wasn't my real dad. He drove me to school when I missed the bus, he bought my clothes and food, he picked me up from softball practice. But he never loved me like a father loves a daughter. I was a chore. The only time I wasn't was when he was using me to make himself feel good.
If I had his baby I was sure that would all change. He would love the baby. He would love me. I knew we'd have to keep the father a secret, but that was fine. I was good at keeping secrets.
I brought it up to him the night before I took the mifepristone. I put on a cute dress and sat him on the couch and read my "list of reasons we should keep the baby" out of my journal. I don't remember what they all were, but I remember I wrote them in mint green gel pen because if he had to think about it I was going to rip the list out to give to him, and I had read that green is a soothing color.
I knew before I even brought it up to him that the answer would be no. That it should be no. That it had to be no. But I still had to ask because I loved him more than I had ever loved anyone before or have ever loved anyone since, and even though I was pretty sure he didn't love me the same way there was a little, tiny spark inside that hoped that I was wrong. That I was silly to think he didn't feel it too. And that that this moment would prove it.
He didn't just say no. He *exploded.* He yelled at me. He hit me. He told me that if I didn't take the pills myself he would force them down my throat. I had seen him angry before. I knew he was scary when he was angry, but he had never been scary like that. I was furious with myself for being so stupid, for making him so mad.
I took the mifepristone the next morning and the misoprostol two days after that. I stayed home from school. I laid in bed cramping and bleeding and crying. I could hear him watching TV in the livingroom. It never came up again.