I was lost, everything blurred around me and panic seized every particle of my body. I’d called Wyatt as I stood in front of the clinic and asked if he could come pick me up. He’d sounded worried, as I only lived two blocks from the clinic, and he was fifteen minutes away. It had made no sense for him to pick me up, but he didn’t ask questions.
“I’ll be there in fifteen, Boo Bear. Just stay on the line.”
I didn’t hear anything he’d said. To this day, I couldn’t tell you what words he was stringing together to calm the silence that met him from the other end of the phone. I remember the wind blew my hair in every direction, I felt everything. It felt like each singular strand of hair whipped and clawed at my face. The sun felt like it was burning my retinas to the point of blindness, and sound dissipated until all I could hear was the thunk thunk of my heart as my lungs screamed for air.
Eventually, I’d felt warm arms wrap around me, Wyatt smoothing my hair as he walked me to his car. Charlie had stood, holding the passenger door open, concern dragging her pretty lips into a frown. I remember thinking that Charlie shouldn’t frown. Frowning didn’t suit such pretty lips. Are my lips that pretty?
Everything had fallen to pieces as I hit the smooth leather interior of the back seat, my body relaxed into shock as I sobbed. Charlie had driven as Wyatt held me. That was the day I’d dragged Wyatt into a lie I unfairly asked him to keep. I refused to give him another secret to hold. So, I never told him about the rape, I had to play it off as a teenage mistake. It was best for everyone.
Until that day, I’d never thought I’d ever have to learn about state abortion laws. I’d never even kissed a boy. Why would I need to know that Pennsylvania required parental or guardian consent to take a memory from my womb and turn it into further guilt and shame? I never thought I’d be Google searching prochoiceamerica.org.
After long discussions, tears, and one hole in Wyatt’s kitchen wall, we’d found that in Connecticut you didn’t need parental or guardian consent. I’d begged Wyatt to help me. I’d screamed at him in desperation.
“Daddy can’t know. You know it will kill him, Wye. Not after Mama, not after everything. Please!”
Charlie's sister, Avery, lived in Connecticut, so we’d made a phone call to planned parenthood and found a clinic in New Haven, which wasn’t far from Avery’s home.
Explaining to Dad that I needed to get away for the week was easy enough. He’d known for a while by then about the years of bullying. He’d overheard a conversation with Lucy and confronted me. The next day, he went to talk to the school principal, nothing more was discussed after that. He never told me what happened, but he’d decided once the year was up, I was to move in with Gamma in Georgia and try to finish high school with some semblance of peace.
Dad always loved how me and Wyatt were as close as we were and had told me to enjoy myself, reassuring me that I only had eight weeks left of school. I could leave Adalita High in the past where it belonged. Wyatt had explained to Dad that Avery needed Charlie and me to go dress shopping for Avery’s wedding that was just over a year away.
I’ll never forget how Dad smiled at me and told me I deserved to go and enjoy myself. “Go and ask your teachers for any assignments that you’ll need to cover while you’re gone and enjoy yourself, Boo Bear. You deserve a piece of happy, baby girl.”
I’d wished I was going wedding dress shopping. Even I could have withstood the cheesiness of white tulle and lace over the decision I’d felt I had no choice in making.
Charlie had called planned parenthood, New Haven, on my behalf and made an appointment. I’d found out I was pregnant on a Thursday and would be ingesting an abortion pill on the following Tuesday. There were six days that existed between finding out I would be a mother and permanently making sure that I wouldn’t. Life was stitched together with life-altering moments. You never saw them coming until they were laid out before you, screaming for a decision you never thought you'd have to make.
Before any type of intervention, I would receive counseling and have all my options explained. I’d be given a day to think about it and if I still wanted to carry through, they would take away one of the secrets I kept by replacing it with a new one. I would kill a baby that was fifty percent me. I couldn’t face the other fifty percent that wasn’t.
Connecticut was about a five hour drive. We’d left on Saturday morning. Six days turned into four, the guilt and shame weighing like cinder blocks as each day hurled me closer to ground zero. The sky was blue and the mid-morning sun had turned into a golden haze. As we pulled away, I watched the neighborhood kids playing on the sidewalk, their shrill laughter filling my ears. All I wanted was to sit and watch them. I wanted to remember what it felt like to have the delicious freedom of a child's innocence. I’d do anything to be free from the constraints that forced me to be an adult.
I cried silently as we drove. I thought of everything that I’d lost and the things that were still being taken; the choices that had to be made to give me a chance to survive it all. It was almost impossible not to feel bitter; to see the light at the end of all this.
On that Monday, I’d met with a nurse called Bethany. She had a heart-shaped face, a button nose with a dusting of beautiful freckles that complimented her porcelain skin, and blue eyes that reminded me of my mama's sapphire wedding ring. Her auburn hair shone; the thick waves pulled together in a casual ponytail that cascaded like flickering flames of fire.
As she’d listed my options and discussed each one thoroughly, I kept focus on her sapphire eyes, imagining Mama’s wedding ring, remembering the soft cadence of her voice and every I love you she ever spoke to me. I’ll never forget Bethany’s non-judgmental face. Not one facial movement made me feel less than, not one word held the venom of an opinion. She was impartial and rode the fence of I’m here to help, not condemn.
She went through the details of the abortion pill. I was about six weeks pregnant and wouldn’t need an in-clinic abortion. After the mandatory exam and lab test confirmed how far along I was, the decision was left to me.
On that Tuesday, I’d showered and dressed. Wyatt and Charlie drove me to the clinic. Wyatt went to the front desk to let reception know that I had arrived while Charlie held me as I quietly wept my fears and shame into the crook of her elbow. I was broken. My body shook all of its pain and half-truths, complete and blatant lies, raw and unwavering into that waiting room. By the time Bethany called my name, I had composed myself.
As I rose from the waiting room chair, I closed my eyes and lifted my head begging God to forgive me, because I knew I’d never forgive myself. Bethany asked me if I was positive that I would like to proceed with the termination. I simply nodded and whispered, “Yes.”
She gave me four pills. Two to stop the growth of the pregnancy, followed by another two which would cause the cramping and bleeding that would empty my uterus, therefore flushing my body of the fetus. Washing away the evidence.
I was instructed that the cramping and bleeding could last for several hours and I was to go directly home and rest. The whole process was usually over in five hours, but could last for as long as twenty-four. I was given written instructions and a number to call if I had any questions.
As I turned to go, Bethany gently grabbed my shoulder and I turned to face her. She smiled the most beautiful smile as she told me what I needed to hear.
“Our misfortunes don’t define us. Our willingness to forgive ourselves and move forward without shame is what strengthens and redefines the beauty of our character, shaping us into the kind of people who will one day be able to help heal another. Nothing is for nothing, sweet girl.”
I’d noticed a twinge of pain in her sapphire eyes as she spoke, because pain recognizes pain, and I was positive that her words were the beginning of my healing. I just prayed that one day I could be to someone else what she was to me at that moment.
Charlie had already purchased some ibuprofen and a heating pad from the drugstore the night before. She sa
t with me watching Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma; a Jane Austen coma to carry me through the pain and tangible reality of the blood that sat in the toilet bowl, staining the edge of my boy shorts, and soaking through the pad I wore.
Five days later, I had a follow-up appointment and final tests to make sure the abortion was successful, and I was fit and healthy enough to move forward and go home.
Successful is such a funny word. I think it’s strange how we don’t notice the impact of a word until it’s spoken to us in a sentence we never wanted to hear.
Yes, it was successful. Yes, my baby was successfully dead.
We drove home that night, and about an hour after I'd arrived home, Dad and I sat in front of the TV watching Teen Wolf after I successfully wrangled the remote. We ate take-out pizza and I was drinking myself into a Mountain Dew sugar high when he decided to mention that I didn’t look so good. I inwardly flinched. Just Breathe Radley.
“Just a long drive back, Daddy. Only seven weeks left of school. How could that be anything other than good right?” He smiled and tapped my nose. “Everything’s gonna be fine, Boo Bear. I promise.”
Thinking back over the last two years, the last few months, I knew the decision I’d made was the right one. I might not disappoint dad, but I knew it would hurt him in the deepest way.
“Yeti, Daddy’s suffered enough and telling him won’t change the situation. It would just force me to relive it, along with having to watch him struggle with blaming himself. I mean, you blamed yourself and you’re not my father. A doting cousin, yes. A mountain of muscle that I’m confident was influenced through the abuse of steroidal intervention, yes. Two words, Wye. ‘Roid rage.”
He laughed at my stupidity but continued to listen.
“You’re not my father, yet I still remember how you put a hole through your kitchen wall. Could you imagine what that would do to Dad? You know I’m right, Wye. What’s done is done, and I need a fresh start. Maybe I’ll even make a friend. Plus, I’ll finally be in the same state as Becca.”
He shook his head and a slow smile crept up his face.
“With a mouth like yours, you, make friends?” His body began to shake as laughter spilled out in a sound that I could only describe as drunken pig snorts. “Bec’s probably your best bet, Rads,” he choked out, a spray of saliva landing in my eye.
“Fuck, Wyatt! You just got ‘roid juice in my eye!” More laughter.
Oh, how I loved that asshole. He was a large part of my small world, and leaving him and Dad behind would test me more than I think I could ever truly fathom.
After a solid ten minutes of hysterically crying in his arms, Wyatt delicately pried me off him before pushing me in the direction of Betty. She was already running, and Dad was waiting behind the wheel, hesitation written across the creases in his forehead.
“Come on, Rads. Help your ‘roid-raging cousin out and stop crying.”
I couldn’t help it, for the first time since agreeing to move, I was saddled with a paralyzing fear. What if they hated me at my new school, too? What if I was the problem? I mean, Lucy was thoroughly into herself, but at least I had someone to call a friend no matter how loosely she fit the description.
“You’re only referring to yourself as a ‘roid-rager because you feel sorry for me. You only call yourself that when you know something bad is gonna happen.” I sobbed. I couldn’t stop the hysterics; the overwhelming sensation of loss hitting me all at once.
Before I’d walked out the front door and closed it behind me for the last time, I stood silently in the entrance hallway, eyes closed, inhaling the lingering floral notes of Mama’s perfume. The sound of Harold Roger’s mower had started next door and interrupted my thoughts as I tried desperately to remember every smell, conversation, and the way the light hit the stained-glass window of the front door, always making me feel safe and happy as rainbows of color reflected like a kaleidoscope over the cream-colored walls.
I knew it wouldn’t be easy leaving, but now I felt like I was betraying Mama and Daddy by actually going through with it. Mama, because we were selling the house she so painstakingly made a home, and Dad because I was leaving, just like Mama, except I had a choice.
I heard Betty’s engine come to a halt and the driver's side door moan as it swung open. I listened to the crunch of the gravel driveway as Dad made his way around the front of Betty and pulled me from Wyatt’s hold, encasing me in his arms and drowning me with his familiar scent of wood and leather. His scent made me cry even harder as I remembered helping him polish his Triumph motorcycle in the workshop, his man cave, every Saturday from the age of six to fourteen.
At fourteen, I’d turned to locking myself in my bedroom, reading books that gave me friends I’d never had, and experiences I’d never felt. I wished I hadn’t dumped Saturdays with Dad in place of books that would always be there. Now, I knew better. I knew that tomorrow wasn’t promised, and as I thought through every laugh, fight, birthday, and endless amount of burnt sugar cookies that Mama made every Christmas, regret consumed me.
I ached. I wanted Mama. I wanted time back. I wanted a chance to be a better daughter, one that made them proud. I just wanted to be happy.
“Come on, baby girl. It’s time we got going. I think we’re going to have to stop at a motel as it is. It’s getting late. I know this home is everything you’ve ever known, but really, they were just four walls made of wood and stone that contained the three people who made it home. Home is here.”
He drew back and tapped his hand over my heart and moved to the side of my head, gently tapping it with a single finger.
“Home will always live in our hearts and breathe life in our memories. Me, you, and Mama, we’ll always be home because home is the life we live, not the wood beams that hold the drywall, or the tin that covers the roof that held in that God awful smell your Mama made every Christmas with those sugar cookies.”
I giggled a wet mess into his shirt and looked up into his glistening eyes, emotion consuming him just as much as it was drowning me. “She really sucked at making those sugar cookies. I think I only ate one in fifteen years of her trying.”
We both laughed when Wyatt cut in, “I kinda liked Aunt Caroline’s sugar cookies. When she over iced them with Betty Crocker frosting and covered them in those bumpy things, they tasted awesome.”
Brows furrowed, I looked to Wyatt as a smirk crept over my lips.
“They’re called sprinkles, Yeti. Not bumpy things. Now I’m one hundred on the steroid front. You do realize that you build a case against yourself every time you open your mouth, right?”
Dad tapped my nose and winked at me. “Let’s not focus on the alleged copious amounts of steroids that your cousin may or may not ingest up to three times a day.” We busted out laughing again, let go of one another, and started golf clapping at Wyatt as loud as we could.
“You’re both assholes! I can’t believe we share DNA,” he protested.
These were the moments. Dad was right, home were the memories, not a tangible place. I’d be taking this one and filing it away under “Fucking with Wyatt.”
Ten minutes later, we were on the road. As the miles turned into hours, and the scenery changed from one town to another county and a different state, I began tapping into my files, sifting through seventeen years of love, hate, and trauma.
This year was mine, and I was determined to never play the victim, never give an opportunity to become the prey, and open myself up to becoming more than the person that Adalita had determined me to be.
Next stop: Everlee Falls, Georgia.
3
Radley
“We’re about an hour out, baby girl.”
As he kept his eyes steady on the road, I knew Dad would keep whatever he had to say to the last minute. If there was one thing he knew about me, it was the fact that I dodged any sort of confrontation unless provoked. Trapped inside the confines of Betty as we ate up the highway, we were close enough to the final desti
nation that he felt safe approaching all the things he needed to say before he let me go.
“The last two years have been hard, Radley. If I’m going to be honest, it’s been harder knowing how long you were suffering before your Mama passed. I just can’t believe neither of us saw it. It holds me completely negligent as a father an–” I stopped him, holding a hand up in frustration.
“Stop right there, Dad. As negligent as you believe to be as a father, you’ll have to hold me to the same standard and blame me for keeping the truth from you. I was embarrassed and didn’t want you to know.”
I let out a big huff, fidgeting in my seat. “Adults really hold their children under the thumb of dumb sometimes. It makes me wonder if you forget how easily you manipulated adults when you were my age.” I looked over to him and shrugged my shoulders. “I didn’t want you to know, so you didn’t.”
He shook his head and stayed silent, measuring his words in a silent battle before he spoke again. “I know there’s more to this, Radley. I know there’s a whole lot I’m missing, but in all honesty, I just have to believe that maybe I’m wrong, because I’d hate to think I completely fucked up as your father. I can’t lose you.”
My heart dropped, and my skin prickled with an uneasy feeling that generally came with being a bold-faced liar. Part of me wanted to scream and tell him to pull over so I could tell him everything. So maybe I could free myself.
I imagined the car turning in to a dramatic skid, stones kicking up from the side of the road, dirt circling me as I exited the car before it came to a complete stop. I wanted to scream and rant the truth into the atmosphere, my words ricocheting off the wind, imploding as they settled into reality. I saw my father brought to his knees by the dirty truth as I stood blank and breathless, dissolving into nothing as I disappeared into a place where I didn’t think I could ever be absolved of my sins.
But instead of speaking the truth and doing what my imagination perversely encouraged, I went where I always did when I felt I needed to protect him; deflection. Ignorance seamlessly sidestepped the fact that he knew I was keeping something from him, and instead of admitting it, I went to the safer side of difficult and spoke about what I could. That way, I didn't feel like the liar I knew I was.
Thirteen Hours To You Page 4
