Babies, Boyfriends, and Why I was Pregnant by 16

Chapter Ten: Distance

<<Weird chapter, kay? Kind of depressing, but vital to the story. If you have anything really serious against prostitution and drugs, skip this, kay? Just warning you.

aksm246>>

I wasn't sure what to make of Annabelle's confession. It was obvious that she meant it, but... she was Catholic. She shouldn't love me. Why would she?

The more mature, motherly side of my brain told me that she must be suffering entirely. Going against her religion, rejected, an outcast...

I felt a little roll inside my stomach. My hand dropped down instinctively and I muttered reassurances to my little baby. The baby had enveloped my entire life aside from Jasper. The baby jwas my everything. My entire heart was taken up by two people in my life. Of course, there were spots for friends and other things, but I knew that I couldn't live without my baby now. I needed the baby. I loved it.

"Should we tell your mother?" Jasper's words broke through my reverie.

"Tell her what?"

"That she's going to be a grandmother..." he gave me an odd look that I could not decipher. I blinked twice.

"For all our child is going to know, I don't have a mother."

"Please?" Jasper looked at me with beseeching eyes.

"Why do you care about my mother? She's done nothing but hurt me my entire life. I have scars Jasper. She cut me and punched me. She... she destroyed me."

"I know that she's a terrible woman, but anyone would want to know if their child was going to be a parent."

I thought about it for a few moments, then nodded. "Okay," I finally agreed.

***

I took a deep breath as fear swooshed through me. This apartment that I had lived in all my life was haunting to me, all the memories from it were awful, and I couldn't help but shudder as I looked at that faded wood door.

Jasper leaned forward and knocked. There was no reply. He knocked again after a few minutes. No reply. I reached past him and turned the door knob. The door was not locked.

"Mom?" I called into the silence. No reply. "Mom?" I cried again. I started walking through the apartment. There were empty liquor bottles everywhere, and the stench of cigarette smoke reached my nostrils.

I walked down the filthy hallway that led to my mother's room. I knocked on her door before entering at no reply.

She was lying on her bed, eyes closed, not stirring. I slowly walked to her bed side and saw an empty bottle of pills on its side. My eyes widened. I shook her shoulder roughly and a low moan escaped her lips.

Jasper came running in when he heard my scream and he immediately called 9-1-1 as I wailed at my mother's bedside. The ambulance was there within 10 minutes and by that time I had somewhat collected myself.

The paramedics rushed my mother out to the ambulance on a stretcher and Jasper and I climbed in after.

I sat there in the ambulance staring at my mother's still form in anguish. Her chest was moving up and down very slowly, but she had no colour to her skin. She was white as a sheet.

My tears fell onto her moth eaten sweater gently as the thought of her dying hit me. I could never forgive this woman in front of me, but she was my mother and I never wished her dead. If she lived on, I would hate on, but if she died, I would love her again. Right now, everything was in between. She was not yet dead, but she was not living... I loved and hated her with a passion that surprised me.

My little baby kicked. Suddenly, my mind switched to my mother's perspective when my sister and I were inside of her.

She was 17 when she became a prostitute on the streets of Toronto. She got pregnant by a man she didn't even know and apparently, he was a slob... (my half-sister's father).

My mother was religiously obligated to keep my sister, for her family was strictly catholic. Even though her family had disowned her when she dropped out of school, a superstitious notion still rested in her mind.

My mother, of course, could not do her work in her condition, so she started working at a local grocery store. It didn't really pay the bills. Once she had my sister, she continued work as a prostitute. She had 3 miscarriages after that, then gave birth to me.

My mother had no time for me or my sister, ever. She couldn't afford daycare, so she just left me at her apartment on my own while my sister went to school. I got many injuries from those days, because I was small and knives looked pretty. When I started school, my mother realised that I got good grades so she tried to enter me in those stupid competitions that parents put their kids in so they can brag. My mother was not bragging, she wanted the money. Unfortunately, I was good in school, but not that good. We didn't earn a dime, so my mother would punish me by hitting me.

The teachers would always ask what the bruises and scars were, and I told them that I fell down or hurt myself by accident. They didn't believe me, but they couldn't press charges.

In high school, finally the truth came out that my mother abused me, so they waited until I was 16, and gave me my loan. I hadn't seen her since then.

My body began to shake again as I thought of the last time I had seen her. She had a blank look in her eyes as though she couldn't care less where I went. She didn't hug me or kiss me good bye. She spat at my feet when I made to say good bye. She would always say that I wasn't pretty enough or that I was too fat, but on that last day the spit was enough to tell me that I was not wanted.

That was the true distance between my mother and I.