Seasonal Love

There's a reason and a season

First there was April. She thought she was in love. Don't all women think so? When you decide to have a baby with a man you have been with for three years, some would assume you were both in love. At the very least some would assume you are mature adults. No one assumes a man would take one look at his daughter's jet black hair after birth and completely deny paternity of her.

There was a long fight in the hospital room, but no matter how much the doctors and nurses tried to talk sense into John, he refused to acknowledge the quirks of biology. He was blonde and his fiance was a redhead. He didn't have a gene for black hair and neither did she. April had to have cheated on him, and he would be damned before he raised another man's child. He even suggested that April get a paternity test.

April was, of course, offended at the lack of trust that a paternity test implied. This to John was evidence that she'd cheated on him and didn't want to get caught. However, when she changed her mind, willing to do whatever she could if it meant she wasn't left alone, John's true feelings were finally exposed.

"Why can't you miscarry this one like you did the last one?" He said. He never wanted to be a father. He was relieved when April miscarried their first baby when they were still only 15. Some wouldn't blame him for that. He was a kid having a kid after all. He barely started his life, and here they have created another. They couldn't even afford an abortion, so how could they afford to take care of a baby. But after April had a healthy baby with no complications just four years later, he left the hospital without signing the birth certificate.

April was guilty, but not of cheating. She was guilty of being in love with a man and yet being sexually attracted to women. She never acted on these impulses or desires. She didn't want to. She never wanted to feel the way that she does, but couldn't deny it. She had known since she was a child that this was who she was, but saw how the people around her treated those people, scorned them with gossip, and turned off years of love and affection in an instant upon learning about their loved one's preferences. She wanted badly not to be the person undeserving of love.

She thought in her child-like mind that's why she was orphaned. She thought that her mother somehow knew that the child in her womb was going to be dirty and broken and needed to be discarded as soon as she was born. Her subsequent abuse and neglect in the foster care system, treated as the literal redheaded step child she was, only confirmed what she believed to be true. During her teenage years she pushed herself towards boys to maybe spark something. She thought maybe a kiss, or losing her virginity would help ignite the feelings she was actually supposed to have. Instead it left her as a single mother at 19.

She didn't blame John, honestly. She told him she loved him, and she thought she did. He treated her nicely enough, was there for her during both pregnancies, and was supportive of her dream to be a nurse. But like everyone else, he knew without her having to say it. He knew that she was somehow unworthy of being loved and that her love for him wasn't real, just an illusion that even she believed for her own benefit. Regardless, she still wished he would have at least loved their baby...she did no wrong and didn't deserve to be rejected.