We walked along the wash and smoked cigarettes as we made our way toward Ben’s huge fucking house. When we got there, Ben’s mom called from her bedroom, “I’m in here, Ben. You and Busy come in here now. And close the door behind you, please.”
Ben gave me a look and we headed back. She motioned for us to sit on the bed and she settled into a chair across from us, looking right at me.
“Well,” she said, “you’ve gotten yourself into quite a situation, haven’t you?”
I was actually dumbfounded. I had done this by myself?
Ben shifted uncomfortably. “Mom—”
“Enough, Benjamin. You have nothing to do with this. I’m sorry, Busy. But you cannot kill this child. I won’t let you murder a baby. When I think about Billy and what would have happened if his mother had been like you . . .”
And here she got choked up and started to cry. Of course. They had adopted their older son, Billy. Right. Well, fuck. FUCK.
“Ummm. I know. I just . . . I’m not going to have this baby. I can’t—”
“YOU CAN. You’re being selfish is what you’re doing. You’re going to MURDER A BABY because you didn’t prevent this. We are a good Catholic family and there is no way that I can let this happen in good conscience. Ben’s father agrees with me.”
Then I started to cry. “Please. Mrs. Miller. I don’t have the money and—”
“And you’re not going to get it from us. Or Ben. You need to tell your parents. I was going to call your mother today, but I wanted to talk to you first. You clearly have no idea what you’re doing. The ramifications of this act. You will go to hell. I will not stand by while you kill a baby! I’m sure your mother will agree.”
“She can’t—I—please. Let me tell them!” All I could think was my mom hearing I was pregnant from this horrible woman. I had to tell her. I just had no idea how I was going to do that.
“Fine. When? I need to speak with her and make sure we’re on the same page.”
“I don’t know—I’ll tell them this weekend. My dad is home this weekend.”
“You have until Monday. I’m calling her first thing Monday morning. I know you’ll make the right decision. I know you don’t want to go to hell. I know you don’t want Ben to go to hell, either. You can give the baby up for adoption. And give this child a wonderful life.”
I collected my things and headed for the door, Ben following me like a puppy with his tail between his legs. We sat outside and waited for my mom to show up. I asked if maybe he could get the money from Melanie or Alex, who both had jobs and then maybe he could convince his parents over the weekend not to tell my parents. He thought maybe he could do that. When the car pulled up, I hugged Ben goodbye and got in, barely looking at my mom.
That night, I went out to the movies with Bailey and Tasha and I told the girls what had happened. Both of my friends were horrified. I mean, it was actually insane, when you think about it. But also, in my gut, I knew there was some truth to it. I knew it was a baby. Or rather, that she would become a baby, if I didn’t put an end to her. Somehow I also knew it was a girl. I could feel it.
By the end of the night, when Bailey dropped me off, I’d decided I wasn’t going to tell my parents. I would take my chances that Ben could somehow talk some sense into his mom and I’d be able to handle this on my own. When I went into the house, my parents were already in their room with the door closed and the light off, so I just got into bed and called Ben. He didn’t answer his line. I fell asleep crying.
Sometime in the night, I heard someone whispering my name. “Busy. Busy. Wake up, sweetie. I need you to wake up now.”
I half opened my eyes. “What?! Mom! What time is it??”
“Honey. It’s three. I need you to promise you won’t be mad. Okay?”
“What?!”
“Promise me you won’t be mad.”
I sat up, looking at my mom silhouetted by my hall light. “Mad about what?”
“Honey, your dad read your diary. Tonight while you were out. We need to know if it’s true.”
My heart sank. I wrote everything in there. The drugs. Sex. And of course, that I was pregnant. I lay back down and turned away from her and curled into a ball.
“Yes,” I said, meekly.
“Oh, honey.”
I started crying. My mom pulled me up and held me to her and let me cry, like how you hold a little kid when she’s skinned her knee.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“I know, honey. I know. Okay. You have to go tell your dad.”
“What? Can’t you???”
“No. Come on. Neither one of us has slept tonight. Let’s go.”
My mom and I walked across our house to my parents’ bedroom. My dad was curled up in bed. As soon as I hugged him, he started sobbing. My parents sandwiched me between them like they used to do when I was really little and I would sneak into their bed. I told them about Ben’s mom and what had happened. I told them that I had scheduled an abortion at a clinic.
“Busy. No. That is not happening. I’ll call Dr. Fisher in the morning and we’ll find someone good and private.”
I gave her a hug, weak with relief.
We stayed in bed talking until the sun came up and decided that we should go eat breakfast at the Good Egg. I slid into the booth and made my mom sit next to me, cuddling into her, and for the first time in a year felt like I could breathe. At one point, my dad said something about “other options” and my mother literally almost jumped across the booth to strangle him.
“There are no other options for Busy. Not another word about this.”
I looked at my dad, who shook his head and lowered his eyes. I knew he thought I was murdering a baby, too. And that I was probably going to hell. But he was willing to go along with it for my mom. And for me.
That night, my mom went into her home office to call Ben’s mother. I listened through the door as she started off in hushed tones. Then as her voice got louder and louder until she was yelling at the top of her lungs:
“MY DAUGHTER DID THIS? WHAT ABOUT YOUR SON?! DO YOU KNOW HE GAVE HER DRUGS?!”
and
“YOU HAVE NO PART IN THIS DECISION. THIS IS ABOUT MY FAMILY. AND WE WILL DO WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR FAMILY AND MY DAUGHTER.”
and
“QUITE FRANKLY, I DON’T THINK INTIMIDATING A SCARED FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD BY TELLING HER SHE’S GOING TO HELL IS A VERY CHRISTIAN THING TO DO!”
and
“DON’T YOU EVER SPEAK TO HER THAT WAY AGAIN OR YOU WILL HAVE SOME SERIOUS PROBLEMS ON YOUR HANDS. HOW DARE YOU!”
She hung up the phone, muttering to herself, and came out of the office.
“It’s fine,” she said. “That woman is crazy. I’m sorry she was so awful to you.”
The truth is, my mother is who you want in your corner when shit goes down. The way she put aside any of her own feelings about what was happening and just supported and loved me was staggering. I wish I had trusted that she would have taken care of me the year before, but there was no point in bringing up Trey now. One trauma at a time.
My mom was referred to an ob-gyn who performed private abortions. We went to his office and I had an internal ultrasound. I saw the little bean I would be getting rid of, her little heart fluttering. Mine fluttered too.
“I take it this was a rape situation?” the doctor said as my mom and I sat across from him afterward. I looked at my mother, aghast. What had she told them?
But she just reached over and grabbed my hand and said, “No. No. What we have here is a case of two very young people letting their emotions get the better of them and making a bad choice.”
If this abortion didn’t kill me, my mother’s description of me becoming sexually active certainly might.
The doctor explained the procedure so I would know exactly what was happening. He said I could be put under, in a twilight sleep, if I wanted. I did. A series of rods would then be used to open the cervix enough to get the tools needed into the uterus to remove the fetus.
Before you leave, they make sure they’ve gotten it all. All of the baby fetus. That’s also why you have to wait a bit for a traditional abortion; they need it to be big enough that they can make sure it’s all out. It’s still super tiny, by the way, like only an inch and a half, maybe. Then there might be some cramping and bleeding for a week or so after. Maybe not. You can’t use tampons or have sex for four weeks.
Mine was scheduled for the following Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, Ben brought me a flower to school, which was nice but also, like. . . what the fuck am I supposed to do with this? Plus, then people at school kept asking me if it was my birthday. Nope! Just getting an abortion tomorrow!
My mom took me in early the next morning. I was already crying. The nurse petted my head softly while I got the IV. I went to sleep and woke up to some juice and the nurse telling me that my mom was waiting outside and that it was over.
“It’s okay, baby,” my mom said in the waiting room. “Let me help you put on your shoes.”
I nodded gratefully to her.
We went home and I slept the rest of the day. Ben didn’t call me that day or the next. I lay in bed all day Friday crying. My mom had to fly to Omaha, where Leigh Ann was in college, because she was in a play that weekend. I begged her not to go. I didn’t want her to leave me with my dad. I needed her to take care of me.
“I’m sorry, Busy. I have to go.”
My parents told me that Leigh Ann didn’t need to know about my abortion, because it would just upset her. We should just move forward like it never happened, and since I was now on the pill, it wouldn’t happen again. My dad tried to check in on me, but I didn’t want to see him. He couldn’t comfort me; he didn’t know how. He sort of just lingered by my door, asking if I wanted anything.
“No. Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded and headed off. Ben finally called Saturday morning before he went to work. He wanted me to come out that night with him to his sister’s high school theater production.
“It’s just like people reciting poetry and monologues they’ve written, I think.”
I asked my dad if I could go out and he looked at me sternly and said, “You know, I’d rather you not, Elizabeth.”
“Well, it’s like a school thing,” I told him. “So I’ll be fine.”
The truth was, I wasn’t fine. But I wanted to see my boyfriend and make sure he still loved me and what was I going to do at home all weekend with my dad? Sit in my room and cry? I was still bleeding and cramping, but it was just a school thing.
Ben and Melanie picked me up in her car, which smelled like menthol cigarettes. Ben pulled his seat forward so I could squeeze in the back. I hadn’t realized she was coming, or, I guess I should say, that we were going with her.
“What time is the thing?” I asked as I got in.
“Oh . . .” Ben said as he lit up a cigarette, “. . . we’re not going. That seems so lame. We’re gonna go to Melanie’s friend’s party.”
“Oh.” I tried my best not to cry. We pulled up to a dingy house in Phoenix that was decorated cheaply for Halloween. As soon as we walked in, Ben took off to see if he could find Grant, and I lingered by the door.
“How do you feel?” Ben’s friend Alex was suddenly next to me. “You want a rum and coke or something?”
“Oh. No. I’m okay. Thanks for asking, though.”
“Yeah. It’s rough. My friend Kelly had an abortion last year—do you know Kelly? She said it was fine and everything, but it still sucked. So . . .”
In retrospect, this conversation was fairly evolved for a sixteen-year-old boy to even strike up. I mean, he could’ve just ignored it all together, but I really think he was doing his best to try to make me feel better. I waited a while and then went to find Ben, who was in the back of the house with Grant and Melanie, getting high.
“Can we go? I don’t feel great and you’re not even hanging out with me so—”
He jumped up and put his arm around my neck and kissed me on the forehead. “Yeah. Of course. Maybe in like a half an hour?”
“I guess. Sure. I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”
I found the gross dirty bathroom with its ugly chipped Spanish tile and sat on the toilet and bled into it and cried. For myself. For my unborn baby. For the fact that I was pretty sure that my boyfriend might be a drug addict. What the fuck? Why was I here in this house with these people? I got up and went out front and found Alex again.
“Hey. Can you drive me home? I feel like shit.”
“Yeah, dude. This party sucks anyway.”
I bummed a cigarette off him and got in his car as Ben was coming out the front. He looked annoyed. “What the fuck, Busy?”
“Alex is gonna take me home. I couldn’t find you and I don’t feel well.” My eyes welled with tears.
“Well, okay. Why didn’t you just say that?” He hugged me. “Is it cool if I stay?”
I nodded yes. What else could I say?
Here’s the thing. I should have broken up with Ben that night. Or the next week or the week after. But much like the Trey thing, I had made the decision that the only way all of this would be okay was if Ben and I stayed together and I don’t know what . . . got married? Had babies? And then we could tell the story of how we met when I was fifteen and we just knew we were meant to be together??
I hung on wishing, willing it to be different or better. Ben was disappearing more and more with his friends, and I was left waiting for phone calls that inevitably never came. Finally, one cold January night, I called and broke up with him. I’m sure it wasn’t a surprise, but he was still so mean on the phone. Afterward, I hung up and walked into the hallway and called out for my mom. I didn’t know what else to do. She came running from her room in her robe.
“Busy! Honey! What is it? Are you okay??”
I folded into her, sobbing. When I told her, she started to cry too.
“Oh, honey. If I could take it away, you know I would. You know I would take it all away if I could.” Then she put me in bed and got a cold washcloth for my head and scratched my back until I fell asleep.
As the school year wore on, I had a reminder every day in geometry class of my abortion. I watched—our whole school did, really—as Tasha got bigger and bigger. She was keeping her baby, not giving it up for adoption. Her family was being supportive, and her boyfriend, for his part, was sticking around. She would bring in sonograms and show them to me before class, and the day she told me she was having a girl, I congratulated her and told her how excited I was for her, and then I went to the bathroom and sobbed in the stall. Bailey and I threw her a baby shower. I made a little peach cake with baby booties on top of it; my mom helped me to get the icing right.
Ben’s friends would yell stupid shit to me as I walked through the quad. (They liked to say, “Watch out! There goes Jizzy Philipps!” Cool, dudes.) And occasionally they would toss gum wrappers or balled-up notebook paper in my direction. Even Alex, who I had thought was pretty cool. But I guess I was wrong. It became clear that Ben was dating another girl. A friend of Melanie, I think. But I didn’t see them much around campus. Our school wasn’t small, and it was fairly easy to avoid people you didn’t want to see.
One day, though, I walked into my science class and saw Mrs. Miller standing there. She was our substitute teacher. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I took my seat and started to panic, but I wouldn’t allow myself to cry in front of her. Do I really have to sit here for the next forty-five minutes with this woman who told me I’m going to hell?? I grabbed my bag and started to run out. When I heard her call after me, I spun around and looked at her. “I’m going to the counselor’s office and I’m going to call my mom.” And then I did just that.
When I was done telling my mom, she said, “Put your guidance counselor on the phone.”
Then I watched as she nodded, listening to my mom. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, Barbara. Yes, thank you.”
She hung up the phone and looked at me. “S
o listen. You can stay in here or go to the theater building. Whatever you want. You’re excused from that class, and any time Mrs. Miller is subbing, you just come right in here, okay??”
I still have no idea what my mom said. But I was so glad she said it.
Soon after that, Kate and her boyfriend James decided they wanted to set me up with a senior named Shawn Harris. I knew him a little because he was in a play I’d done that spring and we had hung out a bit backstage. I thought he was super cute. He was dating one of Kate’s friends Becca for a while, but they were broken up.
Shawn and I started hanging out, and before long, we were going out. Becca was pissed at me, especially since she thought maybe she and Shawn would get back together at some point. In order to keep the peace of our friend group, Kendra suggested a dinner at the Village Inn to smooth things over. All of us girls went. Becca showed up with Kelly Yi, Samantha’s best friend, whom she had become good friends with in art class. As the conversation began to get heated about who was allowed to date who, I started to tear up.
“Becca, I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you loved him, but you guys are broken up and . . . Look, I’ve had a really shitty year. After my abortion I felt like I would never recov—”
Kelly Yi cut me off. “Wait. You had an abortion, too?? When?”
We all looked at her, confused.
“What do you mean, too??”
“No—I mean. Wait. With Ben Miller?”
“Yeah. Who else?”
She looked at us, with wide eyes. “Samantha had an abortion in June. When you and Ben started dating. He knew. He gave her some money.”
My face fell. We all just sat there in stunned silence. Then I jumped up and ran to the pay phone and dialed his number. He picked up on the second ring. “Did Samantha have an abortion? Like when we started dating?? Like four months before I had one???”
“What the fuck, Busy? YEAH. I guess. So what?”
“So what?! So you got me pregnant like three months later???” I tried to compose my thoughts, but I was just so disgusted by him it was hard to get anything out.
This Will Only Hurt a Little Page 8
