The Winter Project

37. Stephanie

Maybe she truly was psychotic, Stephanie thought, as she walked home from a stranger's house in the middle of the night. Her glowing friend Laura, only four months pregnant but with an already visible bump due to her slim frame, had earlier that evening sat and gushed for hours as she caught up with Stephanie about how happy she was and how Hitoshi had agreed to be a stable part of their child's life. She had her own little two bedroom flat, with a spare bedroom for the baby already kitted out. She had originally insisted that the spare bedroom was for Hitoshi, but each time he came to visit he would end up in bed with Laura. They were becoming a family without even trying, without even being in love.

Stephanie had spent the entire time imagining that she was in Laura's position, and that Laura was the pathetic loser who had recently returned from a trip abroad to stalk her ex partner. She had then gone out to the first bar she could find, let the first man she could find buy her whatever drink he chose and then followed him back to his mother's house to have quiet and miserable sex. The entire time that she lay there, she had remembered how different it felt when it was with Minoru. Feeling more dejected than she had ever thought possible, she was now walking home alone through the dark and quiet streets to her own mother's house, wondering how her life had played out and ended up in this one sorrowful moment.

She knew that she was falling back into her old ways, finding temporary ego boosts from strangers and letting them use her body for their own enjoyment, for they never attempted to make sure that she was having a good time. She only enjoyed the parts leading up to the sex, when the men would not take their eyes off of her and shower her with compliments. Deep down she knew that they were only doing it to get her into bed, but this fact only came to the surface of her conscience after the deed was done. It had been so long since she had been with Minoru that she had forgotten what it felt like to be loved and respected, and this was the only way she could make herself feel attractive. During the walk home, she had never felt more unattractive in her life.

It only took her eight whole days to feel concerned. Concerned that she had not used protection and could have contracted some form of STI. Concerned that she had become impregnated by a man who she could not remember the name or face of, or even where he lived. Concerned that she had finally hit rock bottom and that there was no way to pull herself back into being a functional member of society.

The true lowest point of Stephanie's life was sitting in her mother's en-suite bathroom, clutching a positive pregnancy test whilst slicing a broken plastic razorblade into her thighs, ensuring that the exposed corner of the blade was firmly pressed into her flesh. She could see herself from a third person perspective, from above, and felt that no mother would ever behave in such a way. It was this image that made her sure she had to make sure she did not carry the baby, and yet every time she thought of abortion she felt sick with herself for getting herself into such a situation.

She thought about lying to Minoru and telling him she was pregnant with his child, that it was already five months gone. She thought about how he would support her and she could lie to him and tell him the baby was just late, very late. She even thought about having the baby, and only showing Minoru when the baby was a year old and lying about it's age. Then she thought about how kind Minoru had been to her when she turned up outside his hotel in Tokyo, and she thought about what Minoru would do.

She tried to be Minoru, in his mindset, to see life from his perspective. Knowing that he would never do something so heinous to another person, she was able to stop herself from doing the same. Yet she still needed his guidance. This time, she didn't want to be with Minoru. She wanted to be like Minoru.

She looked around at the bathroom she had spent the last hour or so inside, and decided that it was time to change her ways. She stopped digging the razor into her skin and wrapped it up in tissue, throwing it into the bin alongside the pregnancy test. She wiped the blood from her hands and from the cold white tiles on the floor. She cleared the tears from her eyes and the make-up from her cheeks.She told herself that she would not punish her body for her own choices ever again. She told herself that she would love and respect herself. She promised herself not to sleep with strangers and let them use her as an object, for she was too good for that.

She had spent over half of a year broken, only feeling like half of a person as she wallowed in self pity and mourned a relationship that wasn't perfect. She knew now, on reflection, that she had chosen to ignore the arguments and focus on the good times even though they were far outweighed by the bad. She wondered if she had ever loved Minoru, or simply admired his personality and wanted to be more like him. As she began to see her relationship in a new light, she felt lighter. She knew she was coming to the end of her grief and now she could focus wholly on herself.