Face Down

Carry the Blame

Each day I carry the blame,

Cover the cost,

Of those children whose names,

Forever are lost.

Alex

When Mitchie and I broke the news of her second pregnancy to my parents it was terrible. My mom cried, my dad punched a pillow relentlessly and Mitchie cowered in fear of my dad's rage. It wasn't directed at her at all rather the man that had done it to her. But she was scarred and she now feared all acts of violence. My mom had to have my dad removed from the ward until he had calmed down so she could speak with Mitchie about the situation.

"What do you want to do about it, honey?" My mom knew about Mitchie's previous pregnancy because she had been in the room with her during her police interview. It wasn't information that Mitchie could keep from them but my mom stayed calm when she learned of the first pregnancy and after a while she calmed down about the second one. My parents loved Mitchie as if she was their own child and seeing her hurt at the hands of someone else hurt them almost as much as it hurt me.

"I don't want it, Theresa, I'm sorry," Mitchie knew about my parents' struggle to have children of their own. She'd heard the story of my miraculous conception many times and she knew how terrible it must have been for them to know that they would never be able to have children. Telling a woman that was incapable of having children that she didn't want the one that she was carrying could only have been heart breaking for my girlfriend who couldn't look my mother in the eye as she told her.

My mom glared at Mitchie. "Don't you ever apologise for any of this, Mitchie. This wasn't caused by you being an idiot that didn't bother to use contraception and wanting to take the easy way out. This decision can't be easy for you and Jerry and I will never look down on you because of it. You were raped, Mitchie, and you have every right to terminate this pregnancy." My mom was so sincere and I knew that it must have been hurting her to tell Mitchie that it was okay to get rid of the baby growing inside her but she knew that it wasn't her place to try and change Mitchie's mind. Nobody had that right except for Mitchie. "We'll get you booked in to a clinic as soon as possible if you're sure that it's what you want. I'll sign the consent forms for you and be there for you throughout the entire process. You won't ever be alone again, I promise you." My mom walked shakily to Mitchie's hospital bed and wrapped her arms lovingly around my secret girlfriend. My heart swelled at the sight and I wondered if she would hold her like that when she knew about the true nature of our relationship.

When my mom put it so bluntly that Mitchie had been raped, multiple times, I saw red and almost hit the same level of rage that my dad had done previously. I wanted to take a pair of tweezers to Eddie's body and pluck every single hair from it and then sauté his dick right in front of him. He was getting off lightly with jail. Everyone knew what happened to child abusers and paedophiles in prisons and he was the only person that I would ever wish that on. Because when I walked into the room that night and saw him violating my crying girlfriend, I wanted him dead.
Mitchie spent the next hour or so sobbing into my mom's shoulder and crying for the shit situation that she was stuck in.

Everything that happened after that was a complete blur until we were moved to a different room with an ultrasound technician rubbing goo onto Mitchie's flat stomach and bringing an image of her womb onto a computer screen. Seeing it made it so real.

I hadn't known before that state law demanded that women have an ultrasound before they're allowed to go through with an abortion and I wondered how Mitchie had dealt with that on her own before. She cried during the ultrasound and the technicians words about how developed the baby was seemed to go in one ear and out of the other for Mitchie who looked everywhere she could that wasn't the screen in front of her. But eventually we both had to look.

"There's your baby," The woman told Mitchie who glanced at the screen for a split second with tears in her eyes. Having always loved kids I couldn't imagine what it was doing to her to have to look at the baby that would soon no longer be there. "Are you absolutely certain that an abortion is your only option?" The woman asked. I knew that these people had a tendency to try and talk the patients out of abortion but surely given Mitchie's circumstances they shouldn't have been allowed to do that. She was just a seventeen year old girl that was dealing with a rape-induced pregnancy.

"Yes." Her answer was quick and firm; she knew what she had to do.

"Okay, I'll book you in for your first appointment; do you need to know a little about how the procedure works?" The woman asked, picking up a phone to call and book Mitchie in.

"No, it isn't my first one." She seemed ashamed when she said that and I wanted to finish her sentence for her and inform the woman that the first pregnancy was also a result of rape but it simply wasn't my place to do such a thing.

When we left the ultrasound, Mitchie was shaking and clutching at her stomach. I knew deep down that she didn't really want to get rid of the baby but as I have said many times before, Mitchie was smart and she knew what was best for her. She knew that keeping it would have been possible but it wouldn't have been practical. By keeping the baby she would have a constant reminder of what had happened to her and I wouldn't have wished that on her or anyone else, ever.

She was released from the hospital a few days later and she was honestly a shell of herself. When we got back to my house she headed straight to my bedroom and dove under the covers to hide from the world without saying a single word to my parents or any of the kids in the house. When Charlotte tried to get Mitchie to color with her she walked straight past her and my parents had to explain to the six year old that Mitchie was just a little upset right now because some bad things had happened to her and because of that she needed to be alone.

"Do you want something to eat?" I offered timidly. I knew that she had been living off the bare minimum whilst she had been in hospital and it was worrying me but I supposed that given the circumstances, I couldn't really expect her to have much of an appetite. She shook her head to decline and I mustered the most condescending look I could manage. "You have to eat, baby, especially whilst you're still pregnant." I reminded her, glancing down at her stomach. She wasn't far along enough to be showing but I knew that it was there and so did she.

"Please stop saying that; I know that I'm pregnant, Alex, I don't need you constantly reminding me. I feel terrible enough as it is." Her words cut me like a knife and I felt awful because I was making her feel worse than she already was and that was never my intention. I was just concerned about my girlfriend, shoot me. I sighed and pulled her in to me, resting my hands on her stomach unintentionally. "Stop fucking touching my belly, you're not going to change my mind." She snapped and I think that was the first time she had ever truly snapped at me. She'd told me off a few times before whenever I had brought up the subject of what was going on whilst I still hadn't known but she'd never actually snapped at me.

"I'm sorry." I put my hands up in defeat then rested them on the small of her back instead. "I'm not trying to change your mind, I already said that you should do what is best for you and I know that this is what's best for you. This time next week this will all be over with and we can start to fix things."

"This isn't something that can be fixed, Lex."

So it's been, like, what? 5 years? Anyway, I found my old files and thought I'd get them uploaded (gradually) - if anyone is still interested in reading this.