Pull Out My Insides

As my stomach starts to slowly expand, so do my symptoms and worries. My four month pregnant stomach is carefully hidden from everyone else and only a select few know about the life inside of my sweatshirt, so to speak. Yet it doesn't keep away the insecurities and uneasiness that someone will blab and the whole school will find out. It's not as much the school that I'm afraid of finding out, but Asher. I still have yet to tell him. Honestly, I don't think I will. I'll just come to school in the fall with a protruding stomach too big to hide and he'll know then. At least, that's what I tell Suzy or Henry or Stella or Mason whenever they nag me about telling him.

Nausea overwhelms me from my deep slumber, causing me to groan and get up reluctantly. Fucking nausea. Once it started, it hasn't stopped yet. Four months in and I still get morning sickness. Hopefully, as the months go by, the sickness will decrease. But one can only hope.

My thoughts come to an abrupt halt as I suck in a sharp gasp, a soft fluttering in my abdomen catching me off guard. As my eyes close in a sense of contentment, my hand finds the prominent bump and the nudging continues, announcing its presence to make sure that I won't forget about it. Like I could ever forget the child growing inside of me.

My mother's voice calls out from downstairs, reminding me that if I don't hurry up, I'll be late for school. Seeing as today is the last of school, the fact that I could be late for school isn't quite as important in my mind. Or any other day, really. After throwing on some clothes quickly, I rush downstairs, carefully, mind you, and grab my lunch that my dad leaves out each night. Once I give my mom a quick kiss on the cheek, I make my way out of the door and into the old car that my parents let me have. It's not the best quality car ever, or the best looking, but it suits my needs quite well. My parents thought that seeing as I'm 17 and pregnant, I would need a car. I'm quite surprised that my parents didn't throw me out or send me to a relative, but they were quite accepting, agreeing that they would support my decision, no matter what it was. Oh, once my brother found out about it, he completely flipped shit. Nearly went on an angry rampage, going on and on about 'how much that dick screwed me over' and how he's 'going to kill that bastard the next time he gets even the quickest look at that piece of scum,' but I just calmed him down to the best of my ability. But I can tell that he's still not happy about... not that I expect him to be, I don't really think that anyone is happy that I got pregnant at 17 by my douche bag, heartbreaking prick of an ex-boyfriend. Despite the circumstances, every time I feel that familiar fluttering in my lower abdomen, I can't help but get a feel of excitement and contentment all over.

As I make my way into the crowded school, elbows deliberately stab my sides and ribs, drawing manic laughs from the ones looking to torture those that they believe to be below them. Soon, I find myself in my usual seat in English, staring out the window with wistful eyes, not wanting to wait until the end of the day to get out of this hellhole. The teacher explains something in the background, the words not reaching my ears, but I'm soon broken out of my reverie as a yearbook hits my desk. Oh, yeah, yearbook signing. (S.N. I don't really know if this happens elsewhere or something, I'm just making shit up, mind you, my darlings) The class passes around the yearbooks and everyone is supposed to sign something and then once everyone's done, the yearbooks will be distributed to the owners. There's really no point in doing this, but I think that the school just does it to pass time and shit, seeing as there's nothing to do on the last day of school.

The yearbooks get passed around and I just sign my first name on each yearbook, barely taking up any space. But as Asher's is passed to me, I can't really think of what to write. But I decide to write a simple message on a blank page, not wanting anyone else to read it.

Thank you for every single pain that you've left me. I hope that karma causes your life to come to a horrible, painful demise. Fuck you. Zara Randall.

And once I finish the message, I doodle knives next to it (and they're quite good, if I may say so myself) and then pass it on to the next person, making sure the turn the page back to the one everyone else has written on.

Once everyone's yearbook has been passed around, I receive mine back, reading swiftly over the many hate messages and (surprisingly) messages of support and sympathy. As I flip through the pages of the yearbook, my eyes catch a quick message written in a messy scrawl that I would recognize anywhere.

To Zara,
I'm sorry. For everything. I know you may not believe me, but I do love you. Sure, it was a bet. At first. And then I fell in love with you. I wish that I could take back every single day that I hurt you or thought anything bad towards you. But I can't. And I'm sorry. I hope that one day, you will believe me. And until then, Zara Alisa Randall, I'll be waiting for you.
Asher.