Page 59 of Second Draft

“I’d just turned fifteen. It was my mom who realized it first. I was too stupid, too naive to see the changes in my body. By the time she took me to the abortion clinic, I was too far along to terminate the pregnancy. The funny thing…” She chuckles darkly, but there’s no humor there. “Is that we’d stood outside that same clinic multiple times with our church protesting women’s rights. But she had no problem killing her own grandchild in order to protect her precious image.”

There’s the anger that should be there. The anger she’s been holding back, trapped under all her own guilt and shame.

“I thought she’d send me away. You know, to one of those places they send pregnant girls.” Her eyes are vacant, and she stares ahead reliving whatever nightmare she went though. “Without a legal option, my parents took it on themselves to…terminate the pregnancy.”

Every muscle in my body tenses.

What the fuck does that mean?

A sick feeling settles over me.

“What did they do?”

Her lips tighten and she looks at me then. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.” I have to bite the word out, because there’s a part of me that doesn’t. A part of me that knows I may not be able to hold back my anger if I do. “Tell me. I want to know everything.”

I need to know everything. It’s the only way she’ll ever truly be able to move on. If we work through these things together.

“My mother tried different herbs. High doses of laxatives. Scalding baths. None of them worked. Only made me sick.” She rubs her arms and shivers. “My father finally took things into his own hands.”

Fuck.

She goes quiet. Too quiet.

“Layla?”

Her eyes are blank, clouded, cold. This is where I don’t want her to be. As much as I hate seeing her in pain, it’s better that she let it all out.

“Tell me.” It’s not a request, because the distance she’s put between us right now, I know she’ll only respond to my demand.

There’s a long drag of silence, then she says, “He hit me.”

That’s what I was afraid of. There is no way in hell I’m going to be able to hold back on the man if I ever see him again.

“Nothing happened the first time. Or the second.” She’s shivering now, and it’s taking all my strength not to pull her into my arms, but every time I even move a fraction of a hair towards her, she flinches. “By the third day, I started to bleed. Even when I was contracting, when the…baby was being expelled from my body, he forced me to kneel at the edge of my bed and pray for forgiveness.”

“My God, Layla.” Coldness settles over me and I have to blink back the tears that sting my eyes.

“God had nothing to do with it.” Her words are filled with acid.

“No. You’re right.”

I understand now why this child is so important to her. Why she wouldn’t even contemplate getting rid of it. Not that I’d ever wanted her to. But in some ways it would have made things easier. It just would have destroyed her in the process.

“And afterwards?” I ask, trying to keep her talking. This is the most she’s ever opened up to me, and I don’t take it lightly.

“My parents tried to keep it a secret. But people talk. Someone must have seen us at the Abortion Clinic because soon the whole town was talking about the Harper’s slutty daughter who seduced the Youth Pastor. After that I fell apart.”

I don’t care that she protests, I pull her against my chest and wrap my arms around her tightly. She struggles against my hold for a few seconds, before finally submitting, and going lax in my arms.

“Those people are judgmental bastards and your parents…” My back teeth clench so hard I swear they’re going to crack. “What they did was…criminal.”

“I know that now.” She shivers, and I see the goosebumps that mark her arms. “Maybe I always did. When I was strong enough, I ran.”

“At fifteen?” I rub her arms, trying to imagine myself at fifteen. There’s no way in hell I would have lasted a week on my own, let alone seven years.

“I haven’t seen either of my parents again until today.”

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