Baby Fever

Crushed Flowers

The day after Homecoming - Therapy

"Did you do what I asked of you?" Dr. Onya asked. 

"Yep, in this journal, you'll find every single time people around me unintentionally and intentionally made me feel like nothing." I handed her the journal. She took it and placed it on the table beside her. 

"So, how would you summarize the feelings you wrote?"

"Well, if I'm being honest with myself, I don't even know. Ya'know, at first it was really bad. Then it got really good when I got to go shopping with the cheerleaders. They made me feel like one of them, and it was like Julian was on the top of the world, and I was the pretty little flower in her hand."

"But then?"

"Then homecoming night came, and she showed the entire school a PowerPoint of me taking my prescription medicine. She took the crown for herself and crushed that little flower in her hand. She crushed me, and I thought-and still think-that I'll never fully recover from that." I fidgeted with my hands.

"There's more."

"Yeah, there's Jeremiah." I smiled as I thought about last night with just him and I. "If Julian crushed the flower, then he was there to catch it. The damage is still there but-I don't know how to explain it."

"Jeremiah is plucking away the petals and using them to create something even more amazing." She smiled at me. 

I nodded and wiped away a tear that had escaped. "I'm still insecure, and I still care too much about what other people think about me. But, ten years from now, I'm praying that I'll get to a place where I can laugh at this moment."

Dr. Onya touched my hands. "Sometimes your mind likes to play tricks on you to make you feel like you're alone when your not."

I looked at my stomach, "Pretty soon I'll have someone who'll love me unconditionally. If my life ever amounts to anything, it'll probably be bringing this human into the world."

"Oh Victoria, dear. Your life won't end after this child."

"I don't know, sometimes I feel like I have to make the best of my life right now before it all revolves around another person. That's why I have to get better."

"What's your idea of better?"

"I don't know. Stronger, more confident, less whiny, more lovable."

"Well you can't control the environment, the only thing we really have control over is ourselves. What is keeping you from giving in to the people that love you?"

"Secrets. You know about my father's situation, and I was almost kidnapped on homecoming night. I don't want anyone around me getting hurt."

"Shouldn't they be allowed to choose whether or not they want to be around you? Don't you think they should be offered the choice?"

I sighed, "I'm afraid they'd leave me if they found out. I'm afraid of being alone."

"You surrounded yourself with the cheerleaders and tried to play by their rules, but they left you anyways. You've felt the heartache. Maybe things would get better if you surrounded yourself with people that actually cared. Being alone doesn't have to be scary when you're separating yourself from people that only bring you down." 

I rubbed my stomach and thought about that for a while. 

She handed me back my journal. "This week, focus on all the times people make you feel good about yourself."

"Okay."

After Therapy

"So, wait wait wait. Let me get this straight. You were almost kidnapped on homecoming night because your father got into it with one of the worst gangs known to the streets?" Layla asked as I put my brownies in the oven.