Page 10 of Cutthroat

Eve gasped.

Her head snapped up and jaw dropped at the three words that rushed from Eden’s mouth. Neither of them had ever expected to hear her say something so cruel.

Eden could see the disbelief on both of their faces, their shock meant nothing to her. She refused to carry the child of the man that she no longer loved. A man that apparently never loved her.

“What?” Eve and Brenda asked in unison.

Eden kept her mouth shut. There was no need to repeat herself because she knew both women heard exactly what she said.

“Edy. Don’t-”

“My mind is made up. I don’t want this baby any more than I want the man that put it inside of me. From the first time I met Jermaine, I made him the center of my universe. Cooking vegetarian meals, praying over him every night, I never missed an opportunity to show him how much I loved him. He repays me by stabbing me in the back. Get this baby out of me,” Eden shouted. She was so livid that her entire body shook.

Eden was beside herself with grief. All she felt now was bitterness, hatred, and an intense need for payback. Jermaine’s betrayal had stripped her of everything that made her a good human.

“Eden, I know Jermaine fucked up, but this baby is completely innocent. He or she doesn’t deserve your wrath. Jason did the same thing, but I never thought of aborting our kids. Jason -”

“Jason wasn’t fucking our sister Eve!” Eden shouted.

Brenda clutched her invisible pearls as her jaw hit the floor. Of all the things she thought she would hear, hearing that Jermaine had been having an affair with Envy was not it. Brenda cringed.

She thought back to the multiple abortions that she had personally performed on Envy and wondered if any of the children belonged to Jermaine. She hadalso treated Envy for several STD’s. Envy had always been a horrible person, but Brenda never thought that she’d have sex with her sister’s husband.

“Edy, you’re right. Jason didn’t do what Jermaine did, but the fact still remains that your child is completely innocent. Don’t make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. You’ll regret it,” Eve said sincerely with tears filling her eyes.

“I love you, Eve. But this is not about you. I didn’t judge you, so don’t you judge me,”

Eve burst into tears. She never told Eden about the child that she secretly got rid of. It was her biggest regret. At the time she thought she would be hurting Jason, but she was the only one hurting because no one else knew, or so she thought.

“Dr. Young, I am of sound mind and body. I’m not under pressure. Can you please perform the abortion? I won’t ask twice. I’ll use a coat hanger and scrape his ass out before I beg you to do your job,” Eden said coldly as she stared directly into Brenda’s eyes. She refused to call her by her name, because she wanted Brenda to know that she meant business.

A tear fell from Eve’s eye. She had seen this type of pain several times in her life. Good wholesome women loving a man with every iota of their being. A woman giving a man their all and loving him sogenuinely that she reserved nothing for herself. Eden had loved Jermaine that way and now she was conflicted. His selfish ways had unleashed the bad side of a good woman. Eve wept silently because she knew Eden would never be the same kindhearted woman ever again.

“Ok Eden,” Dr. Young responded solemnly.

She could tell by the way that Eden was speaking that she had already begun to change. The professional side of her told her that Eden would never mentally recover from this. She also knew that Jermaine would pay dearly for his mistake. Even though he didn’t know it, he already was.

“Since you’ve never done this before, I’ll explain it to you. Since you’re twelve weeks, I’m going to perform a D&E. Dilation and Evacuation. It is the most safe and common practice for pregnancy between twelve to sixteen weeks. I’ll inject your cervix with numbing solution, before opening it and emptying the contents with the suctioning vacuum,” Brenda sighed.

She had given this speech several times in the past. But somehow this time, it felt wrong. This was a procedure that she never imagined doing to Eden Merci Shelton. Jermaine had done something so cruel that Eden despised the child growing in her womb.

Hearing Brenda refer to her child as‘contents’was confirmation that the baby needed to be removed. Or at least that’s what she told herself.

“Let’s do it,” Eden said as constant tears rolled down her face.

“Eden, please don’t do this,” Eve begged as she stood in front of her younger sister. “Jason and I will raise the baby like he’s ours. Sis, please, please don’t do this. You’re only doing this because you’re angry. Please don’t do this.”

Eden ignored her. She knew adoption could have been an option, but she didn’t want Jermaine’s child to ever see the light of day. He didn’t deserve a lineage as far as she was concerned.

“Where will the procedure be performed? What do I need to do?” Eden asked as she diverted her eyes.

She looked at her bare hands. The large platinum 5-carat wedding ring that she once drooled over was long gone. After being released from jail, Eden had taken the ring back to the hotel and given it to Richelle to pawn. She knew the girl wouldn’t receive the full twenty thousand dollars, but whatever the Pawn shop chose to give her, would be more than she currently had.

“It will be performed upstairs. I’m going to need you to sign a few consent forms once we get you up there and before we get you prepped. When you’re done, the nurse will help get you changed into a gown, then start your I.V. The whole process of getting you prepared, and the evacuation will take about thirty minutes.

You’ll be rolled into the recovery room for an hour after the procedure. After that, you’ll be able to leave. You may experience bleeding and cramping for seven to fourteen days after the procedure. Do you have any questions?” Dr. Young asked.

Eden couldn’t speak. She was ragged with emotion. Instead of speaking, she shook her head left to right slowly, letting Dr. Young know that she had no questions.

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