"Just a month or so to go now right?" Kelly was giving the best smile she could muster and I had to fight back telling her to just stop talking I know she means well. I know it's just to keep me from feeling all the bad things I was feeling and to make me feel like this was normal.
It wasn't.
I was having his baby. Jane told me to think of it as just me being a surrogate for the parents. I couldn't. I tried but I couldn't. I would look in the mirror at my huge belly and I would try to pretend I was doing something beautiful like everyone made it out to be. I couldn't though all I could think about was how he felt inside of me. How he would cover my mouth when I cried. How I learned to just stare at the ceiling and take it.
"Yep."
"You've hardly even touched your food," She gestures down at the plate that looked like it could be from a magazine with how little i've ate from it.
"I'm not hungry."
"Aaron—"
"I know. I fucking know, I have to eat for the baby. I have to drink for the baby. Oh, can't get too tired, can't be depressed, can't do any-fucking-thing that's not helpful to this stupid fucking baby!"
I was breaking. I was snapping. I was collapsing in on myself. The due date was getting closer and closer and everyone was trying to make sure everything would go according to plan. I had to keep myself in an almost unrealistic pristine condition to ensure a healthy birth. It felt like no one was even asking me about how I felt anymore. Everything was about the baby. It was as if everyone was deluded into thinking I was pregnant willingly. Like, I had some boyfriend waiting in the wings.
I was raped. No one was acting like it though. Maybe because we found it parents. They were expecting a healthy kid. It still wasn't fair. Wasn't it only natural for everyone to feel even a little disgusted as to how it was conceived? It was like everyone forgot that important detail. I started to wonder if maybe it wasn't important anymore. Maybe it was only a big deal to me. Maybe it wasn't as vile to them because it didn't happen to them.
For a while I had pretended the same thing. Everyday it was weighing more and more on my conscious. I wasn't doing this for anyone. I was doing it out of spite. Like, I somehow had the upper hand over him. He made it clear he didn't want a child running around with his DNA not after what he did. He didn't want someone looking to him for answers later in the future. I wasn't doing this for my own autonomy.I was doing this because of morals. I wasn't doing this to help those who couldn't conceive or carry.
I was doing this to get back at him.
It was selfish. It was childish. It was disgusting.
I was dealing with the consequences.
"Hey, That's not what I meant," Kelly looked so startled by my outburst. She arranged for us to have day together and look at how I was acting. She left her baby to come deal with me.
"I'm sorry. I'm just...I'm having a hard time, I guess."
"That's perfectly normal."
There was that word again. Normal. This wasn't normal. I wish I could take this knife and jam it into myself until there was no baby anymore.
"Right."
"You can talk to me. Always."
"I'm so tired of talking. I talk to you, I talk to Derrick, I talk to my therapist, I talk to doctors, I feel like I talk all fucking day and no one is listening."
"Just say it. No judgement. It stays between me and you."
"I don't want to do this anymore. Sometimes I just imagine flinging myself down the stairs or even just stabbing myself in the stomach."
"Oh, Aaron."
"I feel like so terrible everyday. I'm disgusted. He raped me and i'm just having his baby. I'm letting this thing possibly ruin my body and for what?"
"Because you want him to suffer even if he doesn't know it. Whoever did this you it would ruin him if he ever found out wouldn't it?"
I don't respond.
"It made sense when you decided and now you realize maybe it wasn't a great idea. That's normal. The way you got pregnant isn't at all but wanting people to hurt the way you did is. We've all had feelings like that. You can't change that now you're going to give it two people who don't care where it came from and that's a blessing. It'll have a great life and that's because of you," She holds my hand. I have to resist the urge to pull away. I didn't want to be held. I didn't want to be comforted. What I wanted no one could offer me.
"I wish I felt that way."
"I think one day you will," I try to be grateful for Kelly. She was trying to take on such a big role in my life. That maternal figure. Sometimes I find myself feeling like I wasn't appreciative enough. These days though Im finding that Im not feeling anything at all.
"I wish you would tell us who the son of a bitch is," her voice has an edge to it. I inwardly sigh.
Her and Derrick both have been trying to get me talk for months now. My old caseworker never did a good job of keeping up with anything and most of the families I had been with from the last three years weren't even being documented. Some of their names were even wrong. They both wanted so badly for to me to press charges or just give them the name and address. I heard Derrick express numerous times that he wouldn't even go to the police if I told him. He said he's just "handle" it.
I knew what he meant and although he might not want to go to police himself, Steven was the type that would. I couldn't let Derrick get in trouble for me. He had kids to take care of and he was already doing more than I ever could imagine. It didn't matter anyway. Going to the police meant questions and it didn't matter what I said or what connections either of them had. It would be my fault. The cops most likely would take his side and it's not like I ever reported anything. It would just be me too many months late deciding I want to get even.
He got to live his life in blissful ignorance. I sometimes find myself so jealous. Of all of them. They just did what they did and went on with their lives. No remorse. No fear. Nothing. I wanted to feel that—that nothingness. That uncaring. I cared too much, about everything. I felt everything times a thousand.
I was sure I didn't want to feel anything anymore.
