Petal [h.s.]

Chapter 25

"Harry, I can't be pregnant! I had a hysterectomy."

"What on earth is a hysterectomy?!" I frowned in annoyance as she was speaking to me in riddles. I had my jeans in my hands already, ready to get changed. Her face was calm, but tense and sad at the same time.

She let out a sigh and looked down to her feet, before one of her hands slightly tugged down her shorts, revealing her 7 inch scar to me on her lower belly, a scar that I had seen multiple times before. "I don't have a uterus." Violet explained.

I stood in front of her, baffled, forgetting how to breathe as I tried to remember how to blink.

She released the rubber band of her pyjama shorts so they snapped back into place, hugging her hips. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and I almost saw her crumpling in front of my eyes. It was as if she got smaller the more I looked at her, and she refused to meet my vision.

I didn't get it still. "How... What?"

"I don't have a uterus." She repeated. "I have one ovary and my cervix left, so I physically can't have children. I don't have periods, because I don't have a uterus. It's why I told you we didn't need a condom. I can't get pregnant." Her voice was quiet and shaky, and it was the most personal thing she'd ever said to me.

"You can't get pregnant." I repeated slowly as if to confirm it for myself. I had no idea the reason for one of her scars had been such a drastic surgery.

"I probably have food poisoning. Had some questionable salami at the café when I was there with Abby."

We hadn't moved in a minute as I was still trying to process what she had told me. She couldn't have children, and I was an asshole. That was basically it. "I... I'm sorry." I spoke, completely baffled by the whirlwind of emotions I had gone through in the past few minutes.

She lifted her head for the first time to watch me and shrugged. "Don't be. You didn't know, and it's not your fault. It is what it is. I... I probably should've told you sooner."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I stepped back a bit until I felt the edge of the bed against my calves, and I sat down. She shrugged again, still hugging herself. "Nothing much to talk about."

"How... How long ago was this?"

I could tell she was conflicted with the amount of information she gave me as she stood shifting on her feet slightly, still in her pyjama shorts and top. The easy feeling I'd had when I woke up and saw her, had disappeared and had been replaced with feeling like an absolute bag of shit. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions, talking about an abortion just because she had thrown up once.

Fucking hell, I was an idiot. I could tell it hurt her to talk about this.

She sighed and sat down on the bed next to me, staring straight in front of her. "I was 13. There... had been an accident. I told you the house burned down, it's how I got..." She reached her arm up to pat her own shoulder blade over her shirt, gesturing to the burn scar "... this."

I nodded slowly, waiting for her to continue. "My parents were in the fire, they died that day. You know that already. Everything I owned was gone, I don't have... any photo, any memory of my childhood or my parents. I almost forget what they look like most days. And the hysterectomy was a side effect... I had fallen down and my uterus was in complete shreds so they took it out during surgery that same day." She softly explained.

I could tell she was lying. No one's uterus is in shreds from falling down. But I refrained myself from asking for more details. She'd tell me when she was ready, which obviously wasn't now. If it weren't for my idiotic behaviour, she probably wouldn't have told me about the hysterectomy until she was ready to.