r/tragicsluts

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.

it was on that dusty old laptop, the one that was missing the shift key. it sat at the corner where the living room met the kitchen. i know you guys set it up there so the screen would be visible from any angle, no hiding.

but you taught me how to hide anyway- how to delete the browser history, how to open a private tab. you didn’t know much about tech, but you taught me the handful of things you did know. i thought you could do anything back then

anyway. the girl in the video, she looked just like me. she was the daughter. the man in the video didn’t look much like you. he was the father, but who he was mattered less. i sat there, stomach turning, fingers worrying the hem of my nightgown, and wondered if you thought of me when you watched them. i hoped you did. she looked just like me.

i miss the summer we were close. when i could call you and you’d come pick me up and we’d drive for hours, the relentless sun slowly melting away to twilight. you’d park at the end of some cul de sac or dirt road or dark alley and cut the engine, and we’d sit, together, waiting for the fireflies.

i’m sorry i look for you in every man i meet, instead of just calling and asking you to pick me up again. it feels easier to beg them to be my father than to visit your shiny new life. your glass coffee table, your carefully tended lawn.

the summer i had that nasty fall and my tennis shoes filled up with blood, you bandaged my knees so carefully. wrapping and unwrapping me, every day, until the scabs gave way to the tight, puckered flesh beneath. i still have the scars. they make it hard to kneel.

i think, at the end of it all, i didn’t know how to be a daughter in any way except for the pornographic way. the open-mouthed, eyes-shut, nightgown-hiked-up-around-my-waist kind of daughter. you named me for the most famous virgin of all time, the mother who gave birth without ever being sullied by a man. chastity elevated to an astringent. the sting of alcohol in soft tissue. i saw what you wanted and turned my back on you so i could flash the 47 year old man on the screen of our family computer instead.

anyway. it was good porn. she was pretty. glassy-eyed, placid. all the things a girl is supposed to be.