100,016 miles

I was driving past the reservoir, listening to ‘More Adventurous’ when it hit me. I was pregnant. I pulled to the side of the bridge and stood there, taking in the water and feeling the wind hit me harder than it should have. I was seventeen, hardly old enough to know what I wanted out of the rest of my life. Hell, I hadn’t even finished high school. Things had started turning around for me in the previous months, I quit hanging around stoners and scheduled the ACT. I had a long distance boyfriend who loved me and I was blowing through my coursework like I was starring in the Return of the Prodigal Student. Everything was falling into place. But then I began to feel this alien emotion, something maternal and foreign. I called you, because you’re the first person I needed to talk to when making a life altering decision. You weren’t the father, you weren’t even my friend at this point, but I loved you and these are the kind of moments that drew us in close enough to pretend that we had some sort of resemblance to an amicable relationship. The phone rang once, twice, three times and then finally I heard your voice. You said my name with a sort of surprise I wasn’t expecting; a mix of shock, hurt and disappointment only you could turn two syllables into. “I’m pregnant,” was all I could muster. You thought I was calling to tell you that you were the unlucky bastard who knocked me up and you were silent. “It’s his. I don’t know what to do. Is this going to ruin us?” I was shivering, it was late summer but the water was cold and the wind had picked up. Then you spoke, “You already ruined us years ago.” I hung up and threw my phone into the lake. I stood on the edge of that bridge, thinking about how the water would feel if it hit my body. Probably like ice, or knives, neither of which I was desolate enough to face. I shut myself in my car and turned the speakers up. “And if I get pregnant, I guess I’ll just have the baby. Let it be loved, let me be loved” rang through my car, heart and mind and I knew. My mind was made up, I was going to be a mom and I was going to learn to love the person who loved me.

Anonymous