by Alice Carina
I tried to get up and fell back to the floor twice until I placed my hand on the box my back had met and slowly lifted my weight up. When Seth saw me standing, weakly, bending, and quivering, but still standing, he began walking towards me again.
"Seth," I sobbed, "please, just stop." I begged him as I backed further away towards the wall. But he was dazed, he wasn't himself and the delusional monster seemed unstoppable.
I stumbled against something and nearly fell, but caught myself before fully going down. It was a broken mug, just lying there waiting for me. I almost couldn't believe it, but, then again, I couldn't believe anything that was happening that night, or anything that had happened since the day before I agreed to go to that cursed party.
I grabbed it by its handle and tried to hide it behind me as I straightened.
"Please, Seth," I tried again when my back hit the wall and there was no way out. "Think about Teresa."
He paused for half a second, his eyes clearing slightly into those of the Seth that I knew and cared about before the monster pushed him back in.
He closed in on me with a sinister smirk on his face, "Resa didn't mind me touching her at all. That's how she got in trouble." He dropped his lips on mine.
He smelled awful, or maybe that was just me, and the smell almost made me sick again, but I forced myself to remain standing. I didn't do anything to fight him, just so that he wouldn't fight me, and when I felt him relaxing into his victory, I squeezed the mug tightly in my hand and punched it into his face.
His head tilted to the side, but I'd missed, I'd only gotten his cheek. He seemed dazed and confused, but he quietly shook his head and made to turn it back towards me. Before he'd fully rotated it, I threw my mugged hand at the side of his head. It was almost comical, actually – how I had to hit him twice, the second time while he was trying to look at me and figure out what had caused the first pain, and how he slowly sank to his knees before dropping to his side.
I quickly dropped the mug when he fell and it shattered, the glass jumping onto his sweat-drenched skin. I carefully shuffled around him. I didn't even think to touch him and search him for the keys, fearing that he would have the time to recover before I could figure out which keys fit into the right doors. I was running on instinct, moving without thinking, somehow convincing myself that if I just stayed conscious and didn't give into the darkness for a few more seconds, everything in my life would be alright, like I'd never messed up, and when I did finally give in to sleep, I would wake up safe and sound in my home, surrounded by people who loved me, and my whole pregnancy and the past months would be nothing but a nightmare.
I bent down, leaning against one of the closed boxes, took a deep breath, then pushed at it with all that was still conscious of me. I felt the strain in my shoulders, my lower back, and the back of my thighs, but I kept pushing until I moved it a few feet and it was right under the window. There was no time for me to breathe when I heard Seth's breathing growing louder and louder in pain, and I knew that he could wake up any moment and I would be done for.
I crawled to the top of the box and I felt the soft material of the lid nearly collapsing under my weight. I quickly opened the window fully and the rain poured in from the street. I blinked rapidly as the rain got into my eyes. I kept trying to open them but they would instantly close with the pain of what had gotten into them. With my eyes fully squeezed, I put my hands on the window frame and tried to pull myself up, but kept slipping back onto the box.
I stood on the tips of my toes and pushed my arms into the wet street, the harsh cement scratching my elbows and forearms, but keeping them in place. I pushed myself up, walking my feet against the wall, but the window was too small. It had looked bigger from the ground, or maybe I'd compared it to my previous small size, the one my pregnancy easily doubled, but I couldn't go back. I kept pushing my body up as if in a jump and my squeezed stomach kept bumping the tiny frame, and scratched my arms until they bled as stretched them into the street under the cold rain. I was about to give up when I heard Seth grunting, there was no way I was going to let myself slip back inside.
With the last bit of energy in my body, I tried to jump outside. My stomach collided with the metal frame and I cried out in pain, but kept pulling myself through, my screams somehow hardening my muscles until I crawled out on my hands and knees.
I was at the back of the café, and I wanted – I needed – to be as far away from it as possible. I swayed as I got up to my feet and desperately tried to put one foot after the other. Every muscle in my body ached, every inch of exposed skin felt electrified under the cold rain, but I kept walking – weakly, dizzily, slowly, barely, but walking.
My phone was in my back pocket, but I couldn't move my hands to reach it. I couldn't think of pushing my hand back and pulling it out, holding it, turning it on, unlocking it, and dialing. It was too much, so I just focused on walking, one step after the other. One, two, one, two, one... two. I leaned against the glass of the café and slid against it until I put the café behind me. I saw the bus stop a few feet ahead. It was on that spot that I got into this town and Seth took me in. I was so scared and helpless then, but I didn't know real fear and helplessness until tonight.
My body was drenched in cold water, and it kept sliding through me into the most unlikely places. I wobbled to the stop, knowing that there were no buses or people at that time, but not being able to shift my body into a new direction. It was only when I got to the small shelter above the bench and the rain stopped pouring down on me that I felt myself able to breath dry air. My body seemed to fall at the hips and my hands dropped to my knees to support me. I took a few deep breaths before opening my eyes again and it was there, in the light of the bus stop, that I saw it. My arms were covered in blood, but that wasn't what shocked me. My pants which I'd thought had gotten soaked from the rain, were a bright red between my thighs and down to my shins, and I knew that the blood hadn't slid down them from my arms.
The sight was too much for me to take. I fell to the ground.
I was still conscious of the sound of therain, the coldness of the air, the pain of my body, the taste of vomit in mymouth, the blood trickling out of me, but I couldn't move or open my eyes.Slowly, very slowly, I grew numb.
Words
"You will be okay." My ears slipped in and out of consciousness. "You will be okay."
"We will be okay." Seth's voice corrected. And I passed out again, from fear, or exhaustion, or pain.
He turned the lights on from the top of the stairs. I couldn't look, it was too bright, but I felt him moving around me. I heard him lock the door, I heard him trapping me, I heard him getting closer and closer to me, but I couldn't move and I couldn't see.
"I think she's coming around." A voice spoke, too close to me making me gasp.
"I'll page the doctor." Another responded.
"And I'll go get Patricia, she said to tell her as soon as..." the voice disappeared.
I didn't know what was happening around me, but my body wanted to shut it all out, and I let it. I let the noise go away, I let the light go away, I let the fear and pain go away, I let myself go away.
"Stay with me Katelyn, it's okay."
A cold hand enclosed around my wrist, as cold and as tight as his that my eyes snapped open with terror.
Everything was too bright; the light above my head forcing me to look down at the light that seemed to be coming off the white sheet covering me.
"Katelyn?" The hand was still on me, but it wasn't harsh and calloused and wet with rain, it, too, was too bright. "It's alright, you're safe here."
I was safe where? I looked around me at the white walls, white bed, white sheets, white tubes, white machines, and the woman in white scrubs.
"Hello, Katelyn," a man spoke authoritatively as he walked into the room, "I'm doctor Forman." Before I could even respond, he was already holding my head and blinking a small flashlight into my eyes. He quickly turned to the machines by the bed, reading number
s on them that made no sense to me. "Everything seems to be fine. How are you feeling?"
I blinked at him. How was I supposed to feel? I didn't feel anything. Nothing hurt, nothing didn't hurt, I felt nothing.
"Do you know where you are?"
I was at a hospital. I didn't know which hospital, or how I got there, or why I was there.
"You're on a lot of medication, so it's normal to feel a bit confused." Was I confused? "Let's start with something simpler. Can you tell me your name?"
"Uh..." My jaw hurt when I tried to part my lips like it hadn't been opened in a long time and lost the flexibility to. "Ka-Katie."
"Would you like some water?" The nurse asked me. I quickly nodded. "Here you go," she held a glass of water near my face, only the straw extended from it close enough to my lips. I wanted to take the glass from her hand and throw away the straw and open my mouth wide and just throw the water all in at once, but I couldn't move my hands, so I used all the energy I had to suck on the straw that could only carry so little. "Easy now," she smiled at me, like it was possible to be drinking too much from a straw or from that tiny cup. I felt like not even a lake could quench my thirst and I would go on my entire life with that dryness and pain in my mouth and lungs.
"Alright, Katelyn," Doctor Forman started, signaling for the nurse that I'd had enough water and she took the still full glass away from me.
"Katie," I mumbled, testing the word out, it didn't hurt as much.
"Katie," he nodded. "What is the last thing you remember?"
The last thing I remembered of what? And, suddenly, it all fell on me. Seth, the rain, his broken toe, family, locked café, falling down the stairs, throwing up, the broken mug, the tiny window, the cold, the bus station, the blood...
A loud beeping sound flooded my ears and doctor Forman quickly jumped to my side.
"Katelyn? It's alright, now. Everything is okay. I-" I couldn't hear him any more when I saw Patty running into the room.
"Katie," she ran to my side. "It's okay, Katie, just breathe, come on now, take my hand." She put her hand in mine and I squeezed it like it was the only thing keeping me alive, "take a deep breath," I did, "let it out, slowly," I did. "You're safe now." I believed her because she was there, and I was always safe in her hands, she'd kept me safe from every other illness my entire life, she would make it okay now.
Patty and Doctor Forman explained to me that somebody had found me at the bus stop while going for an early morning run and instantly called for an ambulance. I was taken to the nearest hospital until my parents and Patty found out about me and had me transferred to the hospital back home. They said that I lost a lot of blood and had a fractured elbow, but, by some miracle, they were able to save both me and my baby, but I had to take extra care of myself, eat more proteins, take vitamins, and stay away from stress if I didn't want any relapses.
My scene had gotten the police involved. I was a missing girl who was found bleeding on a bus stop at five-thirty in the morning and they wouldn't let me see my parents before talking to them.
They asked why I'd run away from home, if I'd felt in danger at home, and where I went to. I was honest and told them that I just didn't want to disappoint my parents by what I'd done and had decided to take my chances on the streets, but I couldn't persist in my honesty when they asked about Seth.
They didn't say his name, they just asked where exactly I'd been and how I ended up injured at the bus stop. I couldn't tell them. It had been a terrible night, but he'd done so many things to me on so many other nights before, and he was drunk. No matter how hard I tried, when I found out that my baby was safe, I couldn't hate him and wish to hurt him, he hadn't meant to do any of what he did. It had been partly my fault; I was always hanging around him and becoming closer to him when he frequently mentioned how much I reminded him of the love of his life. If I'd just kept it on a shallow level and accepted his kindness without trying to return it with my friendship and attachment and just went to bed and slept that night instead of being the first thing he saw when he came back home, depressed and drunk and missing her on the anniversary of her death, he probably wouldn't have even remembered me and went straight to bed himself then started healing himself the next day like he'd promised to do.
Even if it wasn't for all of that, I just never wanted to think about him again. Not that night and not any other night. I felt betrayed and stupid and reckless and weak and childish, and I just wanted to put it all behind me like it had never happened because, unlike my pregnancy, this didn't have an everlasting proof on me.
I told them that I'd stayed on the streets all that time, using the money I had with me for food and just sleeping on the streets. But that night was too cold and the rain was too heavy I just kept slipping as I tried to leave the flooded street. And that when I saw myself bleeding, I headed to the bus stop to take a bus to the hospital because I was too tired and stupid to think of calling for an ambulance, but I fainted before I got the chance to.
Even though the officers were professional in their questions and their concerns for my safety, I could see the judgment in their eyes at seeing a little girl pregnant and getting herself into even more trouble. I could almost hear the words when they looked at each other silently; 'If she got pregnant this young, she's definitely stupid enough for everything she said to be true. Even if it isn't, she's okay now, she probably deserves whatever happened to her.'
I missed my parents more than anything. I just wanted my parents to hold me, the parents I'd run away from and thought I would never see again who had been so concerned for me they'd searched everywhere and hadn't left the hospital since I was brought in.
Doctor Forman was against my having any other visitors for the night, but Patty snuck my family in as soon as he was gone.
I was ready to see and face my parents, not as many people as Patty let in, thinking the more the merrier.
My mom and dad walked in, followed by Chelsea and Josslyn, and right behind Josslyn stood Kyle.
Josslyn and Chelsea quickly ran towards me, squeezing me as if to make sure I was really there and squealing too many questions and apologies at once.
"I'm so sorry, Katie, I should've let you talk and listened to-"
"How could you run away? Who in her right mind runs away? How di-?"
"Where did you go?"
"We looked everywhere..."
"I was so worried..."
"You scared me..."
"We kept calling and searching and..."
"I thought you were kidnapped or dead or..."
"Oh, God, I can't believe you're really here and..."
"I can't believe you ran away and are still okay..."
"Alright, alright, girls," Patty tried to pull them away, "make some room for Kareen."
Josslyn and Chelsea quickly looked behind them at my mother. She'd lost a lot of weight in such little time; she was wearing one of her shirts that usually clung to her curves but was now drooping over shoulders. Her eyes were puffy and teary, and her usually soft and clean hair was a greasy mess.
Her eyes were going between my face and my stomach which nothing could hide anymore. I tried to meet Josslyn's eyes but she quickly dropped them, and I knew that my parents had already known before coming in.
"My baby," my mom finally breathed and fell on me in a hug and I broke into tears. My mother was always there for me, I couldn't remember a time when she yelled at me or embarrassed me or reprimanded me; she always talked to us calmly and softly, offering advice like a friend and trusting us to make the right choices and backing us up no matter what they were. I couldn't believe I'd let her down like that, I couldn't believe I took advantage of her trust and love and disappointed her expectation of me by getting pregnant and then put her through even more pain by running away without any contact and coming back to her unconscious on a stretcher.
I didn't know anything about my baby, and yet the thought of losing it had been enough for me to pass out and never want to wake up again
. I couldn't imagine what my mom had gone through in my absence.
Even now, with everything that I'd done, she wasn't yelling at me or demanding anything from me, she just breathed me in and out, awkwardly pretending that my hard stomach wasn't in the way as we held each other for a long time and just cried.
"Kareen, you have to calm down," Patty patted my mother's back. "She needs rest, emotional rest more than anything."
"Okay, okay," my mother sobbed as she slowly pulled away, her fingers already trying to wipe the evidence of the pain I'd put her through away.
I missed her warmth as soon as she pulled away; I'd been left too long in the cold and the rain I didn't think I would ever have enough of her warmth ever again.
When I finally cleared my eyes and managed to look up, Chelsea was standing next to her mother who had an arm around mine, Josslyn was crying against Kyle's shoulder and even he looked teary, but my dad was standing alone.
He'd grown a beard in my absence and his eyes were just as black and tired as mom's and his hair just as neglected. There was a slight hunch in his shoulders that hadn't been there before, that I'd caused.
He took slow steps towards me, hesitant, as if I might disappear if he got too close. He finally reached the side of the bed and placed his hand on the sheet next to mine, but never touched me. He was looking at my stomach, and I couldn't look at him.
There wasn't a sound in the room except for my beeping machines and everyone's heavy breathing, but no one interrupted as my father just stared at my stomach for seconds after seconds.
"I-I'm sorry," I finally whispered.
The weak sound that came out of me snapped him out of his daze, and his hand near mine clenched into a fist.
"Who's the father, Katelyn?" My father only called me by my full name when he was angry with me, when he was about to start yelling and scolding.
I couldn't look at him, and I felt sicker the longer I looked at my own stomach and wished it would just explode into nothingness.
