Alanna

When I was first introduced to Dunkin Zimmer, we were thirteen and he was dating my close friend, Alyssa Huges. I was immediately drawn to him, seeing as we both came from broken homes. My parents left me to raise my three younger brothers, one those being autistic. His parents were divorced, and his father was hardly in the picture. His mother wasn't the most attentive, and she had five other kids after him and his older sister, Jordyn.

I grew attached to him, too attached. He realized this, everyone realized this. After months of being in an on-and-off relationship with Alyssa, who also had her own personal issues, they finally broke it off completely. Alyssa warned all of her friends that he was like a snake in the bushes, but I disregarded her, and continued to speak to him in secret.

He was suspended from school for sixty days about a month after Alyssa broke it off completely; he had hit this girl named Angelica, and it was all caught on school footage. He was moved to a detention-like school until his suspension was up, but I saw him every weekend when we would sneak out and meet up halfway between our houses and occasionally smoke a cigarette or two together.

After a while, he started dating this recovered cancer patient who was a grade ahead of us. I, of course, was extremely jealous, but foolishly believed him when he assured me that he was only with her because he pitied her. People told her about me, about how we would sneak out every night, (it had escalated from weekends to daily) and there were rumors that we would makeout until the sun came up and we would return through our windows and back into our respectable rooms to get ready for school and see each other later that day as if nothing happened. The rumors were true.

Near the end of his relationship with the recovered cancer patient, for she was growing more and more antsy with him, Dunkin and I gave each other our virginity. Not long after, he broke it off with her, and we hooked up five days later.

Then was I able to proudly flaunt him to the world. I was allowed to show people my Grand Prize- Him. Eventually, summer ended, and we started high school.

We went in pretty strong, and he would sneak to my house everyday after school before my parents got home, when I was supposed to be watching my brothers. Obviously, we would have sex pretty frequently.

We refused to use protection, stupidly, claiming that the pull-out method was just as good. I had missed my period twice in a row, and we panicked, thinking pregnancy, until it came two weeks later.

You know how a female is more fertile when she is on her menstrual cycle? Well, we didn't at the time. We didn't know until, oops, I missed my period again and it didn't come back.

We were fourteen by now. I was getting morning sickness pretty frequently, and he didn't want it. He didn't want our little angel. How could he not want it?

We hid it from our parents, knowing that D Day, the day they would have to be told, was creeping closer, but continued to have sex. I guess if the horse is already out of the barn, why not ride it some more? No pun intended with the whole 'riding' issue.

Eventually, a friend of mine got me a pregnancy test. When the results came back positive, it was a reality check for Dunkin and he said he wanted to keep our little miracle. D Day came early, too early, for us, when I left the pregnancy test in the trash can in my bathroom and my mom found it.

She couldn't believe it. I was now four months pregnant, and I was barely fourteen. My dad wouldn't talk to me. He refused to. He still doesn't talk to me.

I got nothing for Christmas that year. Not even my beloved Dunkin got my anything. My parents still seemed bitter about my being impregnated. I don't blame them too much.

When Dunkin left me for a seventh grader, I was crushed, but I knew that he would come back to me. After all, I held his child inside of me.

Then, on January 8, everything changed. I missed school for a week. My parents forced me to get an abortion. We found out the sex of my baby.

If we could afford my darling baby, she would've been named Alanna.

And that is where my story begins.