Regretting and Protecting

I never liked lies. I didn’t want the others to lie to me so I never lied as well. The first and last time when I lied, was when my dear grandmother from my mother’s side was ill. She had cancer and we knew her end was coming, yet I didn’t do what the doctor said. I shouldn’t have let my grandmother smoke. Maybe if I had kept her away from smoking, she’d have been alive for a little bit longer. Just a few more months… I had never lied again since that time.

Twelve years later, I told my second lie. I had just fought with my fiancé and we had broken up. I wasn’t able to stay inside the house. I felt like the walls were trying to smash me. I had no money on my mobile phone so I couldn’t call the friends which I had pushed away because of my fiancé. I checked my Facebook account and thankfully a friend of mine messaged me.

What’s wrong? He had asked upon reading the status I had just posted. We talked but I wasn’t able to open up to him. When he offered to come and take my from my house and go for a walk, I immediately accepted, not even thinking about the fact that we used to be more than friends. We were friends with benefits but more than that, we really cared about each other. With him being thirty-eight and me being twenty-two, I knew I could trust him.

I got dressed with simple clothes, not caring about my appearance and went out to meet him. I felt a bit uncomfortable since I hadn’t talked with him the last two years because of my man, but in the end I warmed up. He asked about what was wrong and strangely when I started speaking, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut for even a moment, so I told him everything but I added a lie. A lie I shouldn’t have said…a lie which come out of my mouth for unknown reasons.

~~*~~

I had already the positive pregnancy test in my hands and my boyfriend was in shock. We decided upon going to see a doctor as soon as possible. The first time we went to the gynecologist, he instructed me to take off my clothes and wear the robe he handed. I did as he said and I tied it behind my back and sat on the hospital bed with my legs open. The doctor pushed my legs apart even more and pushed something inside me and then I could see the baby on the screen.

After the doctor checked to see if I there were any complications, I got dressed and we went and sat on the office. He explained everything we needed to know and my boyfriend said to schedule the operation needed for the abortion. The whole way to my house, my legs were shaking and every night from the first month I was pregnant till the third, I was sleeping with my hands caressing my belly. At times, I would just sit inside my room, all alone and caressing my belly while thinking how my baby would be if I let it to be born into this world. Her eyes and her hair…her small hands and toes, so tiny…

The days passed and the day I had to take the pill, come pretty quickly. The gynecologist had said that without the pill, the tools for the operation would damage me and there was the possibility to never be able to have a child again or even die. So, I took the pill with tears in my eyes and tried to sleep. I was a college student so my parents thought I’d go to the college early in the morning. They had no idea I would be skipping to go for my first abortion and hopefully the last. My boyfriend went to the same college as me so he stayed at my house that night.

When two hours later I woke up with the worst pain I had ever felt in my life, the first thing I did was to go to the toilet and lock the door. I was trying not to cry but the tears left my eyes as my mouth was kept shut. The pain was worsening by the seconds and the blood which ran from between my legs was like when I was on my period.

Two hours of crying silently had passed while I was all alone inside the bathroom. When the pain become too much to handle, I woke up my boyfriend. Upon seeing my tears and hearing what I had to say, he called the doctor again and again but he didn’t pick up his phone. I laid in bed and cried and cried. I cried for seven hours without stopping at all and the balls of blood that come out from between my legs every time I went to the toilet didn’t make it any easier. I was slowly killing my child, my flesh and blood.

When the time had finally come for me to go to the hospital, I got dressed and when I saw myself in the mirror, I felt like a lifeless skeleton…a zombie, a person who wasn’t me. With an empty stomach I entered the taxi my fiancé had called and I fainted for a few minutes. Half an hour later, we entered the hospital and I was talking with the gynecologist telling him how awful I was thanks to the pills he made me take. He kept saying, ‘’you had to take these pills, otherwise your life might have been in danger.’’

The gynecologist led me to the waiting room because they had to examine my heart first. A nurse told me to get undressed and wear the hospital-robe which was blue with white to the sides and ends. I did as she said and I even more the plastic blue shoes which had the feel of the bags we use when we buy stuff from the supermarkets. I sat on the bed and waited till they called my name.

My heartbeat increased as I got up from the bed and followed the nurse towards the operation room. The gynecologist followed as well with another male doctor by his side. Once we were inside, I took off my underwear which was filled with blood and they put it inside a plastic bag for me to take it after the operation was done. I sat on the bed and laid down. One of the nurses grabbed my hand and told me to count to ten as she inserted a needle inside it, while the other nurse made me wear a mask. I remember counting to three when I felt my mind burning and I was out.

When I woke up, I realized I was under anesthesia and my fiancé wasn’t with me. Once I saw the unfriendly operation room and another girl entering for the same reason, I started crying. I didn’t realize I was crying till the other girl touched my hand and told me, ‘’don’t cry, don’t cry’’ while she started crying as well. The nursed were yelling for us to stop crying and then the male nurses come in and took me out so both me and the other girl could calm.

I sat across the operating room to rest as the nurses told me and waited for the doctor. I had half hour to calm down and it helped me if you think I was staring at the walls of an empty room all alone while thinking where my fiancé was. The gynecologist entered and asked me how I was feeling. When I said I was okay, he told me I could leave whenever I wanted. I asked where my fiancé was but the doctor didn’t know.

In the end, I ended up leaving the hospital alone. I had no money with me so I took the bus without paying for a ticket and when I reached my home, I went straight to sleep. When I opened my eyes again, everything felt like a nightmare…a nightmare I wanted to forget and forever erase from my mind. I called my boyfriend but he wasn’t picking up his cell. He was nowhere to be found and I had no one to talk to about this. For the next six months I was alone, till he decided to come back into my life and ask me to forgive him.

~~*~~

‘’He really left you all alone?’’ My friend asked me and I nodded my head. He took the tears I hadn’t realized that were running down my cheeks away and he pushed my head against his chest, letting me cry freely. When I calmed down and after he had heard everything that had happened in the last two years with me and my boyfriend, he said, ‘’I wish I was with you but you’re the one who pushed me away.’’

‘’I know. I did it because I was and I still am in love with him. I love you too and you are special to me, but I don’t love you like him.’’ I replied to him as I looked deep into his eyes.

‘’I know and that’s why I let you go.’’ That was all he said before we went back to my house.

We had become friends again and the special bond between us was still there. He was the only one who could always understand me and would always come to my aid. I had gained my best male friend back but why had I lied? Why did I make my fiancé seem so bad when he wasn’t?

The truth was that my fiancé was waiting for me in the hospital but he wasn’t allowed on the third floor. The third floor was only for women. He was beside me the whole time the doctors allowed him to be and he even cried with me. I must have lied because I was hurt. I was hurt that he had been keepings secrets from me and lying after everything we’ve been through. I wanted him to be more of a bad guy than he was. And maybe deep down I wanted my friend to comfort me, to pity me and make me feel better.

Later on, my fiancé and I, both regretted not keeping the child but we had to protect ourselves. We weren’t ready to bring a baby into this world and the baby would suffer was what we were thinking back then. Now that I think about it, I should have protected the baby. I should have found a way to keep it even if I had to work day and night. I should have let his pure soul be born into this world and not kill it. I took a life with my own hands and I will regret it for the rest of my life.