Despite growing up together, Catherine Simmons and Mattis Reed were never close.
Cat was inseparable from Mattis' younger sister, Chloé, while he was busy running around on the football field.
But when Cat's new dream drags her across the country du...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It's been four days, or maybe five.
I don't know.
Time seems to move differently in here, in the dark of my room, with the curtains drawn and the door closed.
The only indication of days passing is the sliver of light peeking in through the gaps in the curtains changing from the warm shine of sunlight to the cold glow of the moon and back again.
I don't sleep, yet I wouldn't say I'm awake, either. I drift in and out of consciousness, lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling.
Suffering.
I don't know how to tune out the emotions washing over me; still, I can't allow myself to feel them, either. I only seem capable of holding them at bay so they don't drown me.
I don't feel like I'm entitled to grief.
How do you grieve something that was never yours?
Something that was never real?
Something you never even wanted?
Even here, in the abyss of my sorrow, I don't regret my decision to terminate the pregnancy. I know it was the right thing to do. But even so, my heart still aches for the child we could have had.
It was a piece of Mattis and me that we lost. I think it would've hurt just as much if I'd been allowed to go through with the procedure. An abortion is traumatic enough without an unplanned hospital stay.
That doesn't mean it was the wrong choice.
The whole experience is so gut-wrenching that I can barely think about it. I can't distinguish enough between my feelings to understand what exactly is causing the most pain.
Is it the loss of a different life, however unwanted it was?
Is it getting the choice stolen from me, losing control over the situation?
Is it the implications it might have for my future?
I don't know. And a part of me is terrified to find out. What would it say about me if the worst thing about having a miscarriage was knowing it might happen again? How self-absorbed would that make me?
Mattis and Chloé stopped calling after a few days, or maybe my phone died. I'm unsure; I haven't looked at it in a while.
Twice a day, Ava softly knocks on my door, bringing food with her. At least, I think it's twice a day; it's hard to tell.
Sometimes I eat it. Mostly I don't.
When the light leaking into the room from the outside world is the faintest, and I feel certain most of the building will have blissfully succumbed to unconsciousness, I slip out of the room.
With the loss of the embryo, so went the pregnancy symptoms, including the morning sickness and the excessive peeing, but I still need to relieve myself once a night.
