Remnants of Shattered Innocence (Unedited First Draft)

Chapter 5 (September 25 2004)

She had finally told her parents about the pregnancy, and they reacted just as badly as she was expecting.  Her dad stopped yelling at her and was now trying to calm her mom down.

Skylar got up from her parents' bed and went back to her bedroom. Skylar lay down in her own bed and stuffed her face into the pillow. The tears were streaming out of her eyes now. She rolled over and held the pillow over her face until she couldn't breathe. She wanted to suffocate herself. Her lungs were screaming for air and she didn't want to give them any.

She heard someone come into the room, but she ignored it. They sat on the edge of the bed and took the pillow out of her hands. It was her mom. The front door slammed shut followed by the roaring of a car's engine. Samantha wiped the last evidence of tears from her face before speaking.

"So what are you going to do?" She asked gently, trying not to sniffle.

"I don't know." Skylar answered.

"Well, I don't want to tell you to get an abortion because I don't want you to feel like the baby wouldn't be welcome here if you ever decided to keep it." Her mom said calmly.

"So don't." Skylar said without looking at her mom.

Samantha sat there for a moment, staring at Skylar. Skylar heard her take a breath as if she were trying not to cry. Her mom got up and walked briskly out of the room. Skylar put in her ear phones and listened to her Linkin Park CD until she fell asleep.

Skylar woke up and it wasn't even dinner time yet. She looked at her phone and it was only four in the afternoon. Her mom came in and tossed the cordless phone onto the bed.

"Start calling clinics to make an appointment for an abortion." Her mom said before walking out. She slammed the door behind her.

Skylar's stomach felt like it was being tied in knots. She had been blindsided by the one person she thought could have been on her side.

Samantha was always the more supportive one of their parents. The girls would run to their mother when their father was angry because they knew she would protect them.

And she always did.

Skylar thought back to when she had painted all over her bedroom walls when she was ten. As soon as she heard her dad call her name, she sprinted across the apartment. Just as she jumped into her mother's lap, her father came stalking into the room behind her, ready to unleash his wrath.

"Oh, Steve," Samantha had said with a wave of her hand as she kept Skylar pulled in tight, "maybe she'll be the next Picasso! We can't stifle that creativity."

Skylar didn't know what to do. She stared at the phone trying not to cry again. Her mom came back in ten minutes later.

"Have you called anyone?" Samantha asked flatly.

"I don't know any numbers." Skylar sniffled.

"Here." Her mom said handing her a list of local clinics.

Skylar tried calling the first one, but they were already closed for the day.

"I think they're all going to be closed at this time." Skylar tried not to sound too happy.

"Try again Monday, after school, then." Her mom said snatching the phone out of her hand. "Go eat. Dinner's on the table."

Dinner was awkward, to say the least.

"So," Gwen tried to break the silence, "this lasagna is great mom."

She brushed her short dyed-black hair out of her face as she took another bite. It fell right back into position as a chin-length inverted bob.