Two Minutes
Hannah Stoppe
©
Copyright 2024 by Hannah Stoppe
|
Image by Gerd
Altmann from Pixabay
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Locked
away in the
bathroom with my thoughts, sitting on the floor. Just two
minutes,
is what I tell myself as I recount how I got here. It all
started
online, meeting a guy who seemed sweet and kind, gentle even.
Everything felt perfect.
I
remember how
excited I was as I prepared for our first date, carefully choosing my
outfit. We were only going to be spending the day at the mall, but I
wanted to impress him. The day of the date came, and I stood outside
the doors awaiting his arrival. Then he arrived, my stomach in knots
with the nerves and excitement. My first date.
It
is as if I am
still there, in that moment when he took my hand, guided me to a
secluded area and kissed me. Before I could utter a word he had his
hands up my blouse, my mind screaming no as I stood frozen in fear.
It was not long before he inserted himself inside of me, aggressively
and without care for my pain.
I
closed my eyes, I
can do anything for just two minutes. He finished and I was
left
bleeding, my eyes burning from the mascara that dripped into them
from my tears. He got what he wanted and left the date seeming—
disgustingly — proud of himself. I felt disgusting, violated,
and hollow.
Standing
up and
looking in the mirror now, I do not recognize the girl who looks back
at me. Now, when I look at myself all that I see is a girl who is
broken, inside and out. I inspect her closely, as if she is a
painting on the wall.
I
see the dark
circles under her eyes from the lack of sleep, as the night terrors
of that day at the mall haunt her every night. I see her pale skin
and lips, from both the lack of nutrition and fear of going outside.
She has not gone out in weeks.
I
come back to the
present and look down at the test on the counter. It has now
been
two minutes. Nervously, I pick up the pregnancy test on the
counter and flip it over to see the results. My hands shaking,
dropping it onto the floor the first time.
I
pick the test back
up and see the results, my stomach dropping as I see the second line
appear. Positive. I sit back down on the bathroom
floor,
nauseous and terrified. Hoping I was wrong, I uploaded a photo of the
test online anonymously asking for second opinions.
Tears
formed in my
eyes as the first “Congratulations!” response popped up
on the screen, and they began rolling down my cheeks as the second,
third, and fourth appeared. I had nobody to turn to; no family or
friends could possibly find out, they would ask me what happened.
That was a question that I would not be able to bear answering.
For
what felt like
hours I remained sobbing on my bathroom floor, terrified of the life
both outside and now: inside. The next few weeks I
walked
around my house, feeling as if the reality I lived in were that of a
horror film. Looking down at my stomach, feeling guilty for the
hatred I felt toward the being inside of me. A human-being.
I
did not know this
being, all that I knew is that it was half him. My
morals and
my emotions were now at war in my mind. I did not know what was right
or wrong, wondering if this potential person was worth losing myself
even further in the process. Even now, I could not feel anything but
a mixture of guilt, pain, and disgust toward it.
How
could I even
learn to love it? I thought to myself. I glanced at the note
on
the counter, the number for the abortion clinic written on one side,
and the number for OB-GYN on the other. I picked up the note, gliding
my fingers carefully across each number. It was almost like I hoped
for the answer to appear in front of me like a sign from above.
I
told myself that I
would decide in the morning, a lie I told myself every day for the
past week now. I hid the note in my drawer and laid in bed. I closed
my eyes, and whispered for anyone, anything to show me a sign and
drifted to sleep. The sleep was restless at first, but the loud
silence surrounding me eventually fell quiet long enough for me to
stay asleep, at least for a little while.
It
was the middle of
the night when I woke up again, both from a night terror and a sharp
pain in my stomach. I sat up sweating and breathing heavily, come
on, you can breathe for two minutes. With each deep inhale
the
pain grew sharper, I knew something was wrong. My mind shifted to the
life growing inside of me and I began to panic.
I
run downstairs and
into the bathroom, and remove my bottoms. Blood. Thick, bright blood
is everywhere. It starts gushing down my leg as I stand there in
shock, unsure how to feel. The sharp pain interrupts my thoughts with
its stabbing force, jolting me out of shock. I turned on the shower,
removed the rest of my clothes, and sat in the tub as the red water
swirled down the drain.
I
began to cry, now
feeling incompetent as a woman. What kind of woman am I if I
cannot give life? I knew I contemplated aborting it, but that
decision felt like something I could control. I could not control my
own incompetence.
Not
knowing whether
to be relieved or upset, I soon discovered I felt both
simultaneously. It felt just as wrong to feel relief as it did to
feel sadness, yet I could not help how I felt. I was both, and I
learned to live with it. I had to.
I
cannot say whether
I will ever recognize the girl in the mirror, nor can I say if I will
ever escape the day at the mall or the night in my bathroom. What I
can say is that it gets manageable. Whether or not that is enough,
only time will tell. Sometimes it just takes two more minutes.
Hannah
is a university student who enjoys exploring creative outlets such
as: writing, drawing, painting, dancing, and singing. Other than
immersing herself in the arts, Hannah enjoys exploring the outdoors
and working on expanding her knowledge through both reading and
studies.
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