The Love Of My Life

Chapter 19

* flashback chapter*

Maya's POV

I was seventeen when my world stopped turning for what felt like the first time. It was supposed to be just another ordinary week. I juggled school, cheerleading practice, and my part-time job at the Law firm on weekends. Life was busy and overwhelming, but I was managing. Until I wasn't, it started with me feeling off. At first, it was easy to brush it off. I thought I had caught a bug going around school. I'd get queasy at the sight of food and barely managed to keep my breakfast down most mornings. I'd feel dizzy during classes, my head pounding, and my energy completely zapped. "You're probably just stressed," my sister Kamala said one day while I was sitting in her room. "You never slow down, Maya. It's catching up to you," she said. 

I nodded along because it was easier to believe that than to let the creeping thought in the back of my mind settle. The thought I was too afraid to name, let alone face. But as the days turned into weeks, I couldn't ignore it anymore. My body felt foreign, like it didn't belong to me. My emotions were all over the place. I cried when I forgot my history homework at home. I snapped at my mom when she asked if I was okay. I could feel myself unraveling, and I didn't know how to stop it. The final straw came during cheer practice. We were running through routines for an upcoming game, and as I went to lift one of the flyers, the room spun. My stomach lurched, and I barely made it to the bathroom before I threw up. My coach sent me home, and as I sat on the bus, staring out the window, I felt like I was watching my life from the outside, disconnected and scared.

That night, I locked myself in the bathroom, the walls closing in around me as I pulled my phone out and searched for the symptoms that had been haunting me. Nausea. Fatigue. Mood swings. The results stared back at me like a slap to the face: pregnancy symptoms. "No," I whispered to myself, shaking my head as tears filled my eyes. "It's not possible. It can't be." But deep down, I already knew. I had been careful. We'd both been careful. But nothing is ever foolproof. The realization hit me like a tidal wave, and I sat there on the cold bathroom floor, hugging my knees to my chest as the tears came.

The next day after school, I stopped at the pharmacy. My heart was pounding as I walked in, my stomach twisting with anxiety. I avoided making eye contact with anyone, grabbing a pregnancy test and paying as quickly as I could. I stuffed it into my backpack and practically ran out of the store. When I got home, I went straight to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. My hands shook as I opened the box and read the instructions, even though I didn't need to. I knew how it worked. I sat there for what felt like hours, the test in my hand, unable to move.

Finally, I worked up the courage to take it. I placed it on the counter and stared at it, watching as the seconds ticked by. My heart felt like it might burst out of my chest. And then, there it was. Two lines. Positive. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I just stared at it, my entire world crumbling around me. I was pregnant. The tears came fast and heavy, sobs wracking my body as I sank to the floor. I was seventeen. I wasn't ready for this. How could I be a mom? How could I tell my mom, the woman who worked so hard to give me a good life, that I had made such a big mistake? I thought about the baby's father. We weren't even together anymore. He had moved on, and I was just trying to focus on school. How was I supposed to tell him? Would he even care? The weight of it all was crushing. I felt so alone like no one could understand what I was going through. My dreams of college, my plans for the future—they all seemed to slip through my fingers like sand.

I stayed in the bathroom for what felt like hours, my thoughts spinning in a hundred different directions. When I finally came out, my mom was home, and she called out to me from the kitchen. "How was school, Maya?" she asked, her voice light and cheerful. I froze, my chest tightening. I wanted to tell her right then to fall into her arms and let her tell me it was going to be okay. But I couldn't. I wasn't ready for the disappointment in her eyes, the hurt that I knew my news would cause. "It was fine," I said, my voice barely above a whisper as I hurried past her to my room. I spent the rest of the night lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what to do. My mind kept circling back to the same terrifying truth: I couldn't do this alone. I needed help. The next morning, I told my sister. She sat with me in my room as I cried, her arms wrapped around me as she whispered, "It's going to be okay, Maya. We'll figure this out." But even as she said the words, I wasn't sure if I believed her. I didn't know if anything would ever be okay again.