In Your Veins [SLOW UPDATES]

Chapter 9

(Approximately seven weeks prior)

It's been a week. One week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. Six hundred and four thousand, eight hundred seconds. One week since I lost my baby. I wonder about the use of that word "lost" when referring to an ill-fated pregnancy. Like I'd somehow misplaced my child; that he could be found laughing & smiling someplace else if all of us just started looking. Like he's a set of keys somebody can't find right when they're about to leave the house. Like he was nothing but an inanimate object. Lifeless, devoid of any capacity to feel, dream, aspire, breathe. Well, he wasn't. He was obviously too young to do any of those things but he had all the promise to do great things. Who am I kidding? Of course he didn't. He'd forever be a child of rape, originating from an impoverished teenage punching bag & a gambling, alcoholic rapist. My baby would have had no chance.

Perhaps Manny would have thrown me out for being pregnant. Perhaps even my mother. Maybe I would have miscarried. Maybe I would have been oblivious to the pregnancy until I went into labour over my bathroom floor like those poor women on I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant. Maybe I would have had to drop out of school & volleyball. Maybe I would have given him up for adoption. Maybe he would have wound up doing okay.

His story, my story, could have each gone a thousand different ways but Manny exists & now I don't have a child anymore.

∞

I haven't seen nor spoken to Sandra (my mother) or Manny since the abortion. I've gone to school by exiting through my bedroom window. My door has been dead-bolted ever since Monday. I got a locksmith to come through and secure my room as best as possible.

I have an en-suite bathroom in here as well as some money saved for groceries & other expenses. I've been scavenging for coupons and food stamps as well as eating whatever I can get from my acquaintances. It's like I'm living on my own, minus the electricity & water bills. Manny comes banging up here fairly often but I ignore him. It'll be impossible for him to penetrate my fortress.

∞

I arrive home from school in my newly-adopted stealth-mode. I creep around the back of the house & wait for about fifteen minutes. I listen intently for signs of life before creeping to my window. There is a particular way one is required to shimmy the window & knock the frame before being able to open the window. I do this as quietly as possible while keeping one eye over my shoulder. When I prise the window open I slide my schoolbag in first before hoisting myself through. I land softly on the balls of my feet & perform a quick scan of my bedroom to see if anything has recently been tampered with. Once I am satisfied that my room has been left undisturbed I silently shut the window. Time to breathe.

I find some comfortable clothes and proceed to my shower. The hot water cascading down my skin still stings the carvings Manny made into my skin over a whole month ago. Those has better as fuck not become infected at any point. After the hallway & volleyball grime has been cleansed from my skin I settle at my desk to begin my homework. This has become a rather peaceful routine for me. After working for about twenty minutes I realise I am ravenous. I scrounge around the room for some snacks & am delighted to discover an apple, a cold chicken pie & some almonds. I'll ration these between now & dinner & go grocery shopping tomorrow. I am somewhat concerned about my money running out after just buying food & I know that this setup cannot last. This self-marooning of my bedroom may be working for me now but won't when my elders begin to question & debate my actions. Manny has surely not finished sexually assaulting me; that would be too good a thing to hope for. They'll probably haul me back into their lives soon enough or force me to leave permanently. Again, the latter is too good a proposition to hope for.