Veronica stopped herself. She’d worked so
hard at not thinking about it, and letting Blake live the life he
had asked her for all those years ago, but she saw now that she had
to tell him. He had to know. She owed him that.
“
When I told you we had to
talk. I wasn’t going to break up with you. Blake, I loved
you.”
Blake cringed when she said she loved him.
Deep down she wanted to tell him she still had feelings for him,
and even though years had passed, not a day went by that she didn’t
at least think about him.
“
I needed to talk to you to
tell you I’d changed my mind, and wasn’t going to go away for
college.”
“
And why would you have
just out the blue changed you mind about going to
college?”
His voice dripped with sarcasm as he stared
at the wall, refusing to look at Veronica.
“
Blake, will you look at
me?”
She was still sitting down on the bottom
stair. She didn’t have the energy to get up. At first, Blake was
reluctant, but his eyes eventually met hers.
“
I’d changed my mind about
going away to school because I was pregnant. Traveling and school
didn’t matter anymore. We were going to have a baby. We were going
to have the family we always talked about.” Veronica
sighed.
After all these years, Blake finally knew.
She thought it would have lifted a weight off her chest to finally
tell someone besides her parents and the doctors that she’d once
carried Blake’s child. Blake, who had been staring at her
wide-eyed, seemed to need a few minutes to process this new
information. She understood it was a lot to have to inform someone
after almost ten years. As he whispered the word ‘pregnant’,
Veronica watched as his knees wobbled. Steadying himself before he
fell, Blake moved to the side of the couch and rested his body
against the arm.
His face paled. “You were pregnant?” He
whispered, before putting his face in his hands. “Why didn’t you
tell me?”
The hollow sound of his voice made
Veronica’s stomach quiver. She wrapped her arm around her
mid-section and swallowed the thick saliva in her mouth to
speak.
“
Yes, I was six weeks
along. I conceived that weekend we spent together. After our huge
fight, I thought I was sick and asked you not to come see me. I
realized it was morning sickness.”
She stopped and laughed to herself. “It was
most likely the worst case of morning sickness ever in the history
of pregnancies. I wasn’t able to hold anything down for months.
Anyway, once I recognized I wasn’t sick, and I was pregnant, I
called you.”
Blake lifted his face out of his hands and
said, “But you never said a word. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“
Truthfully? I was so
blindsided by the break up, I didn’t know what to say. All that
kept running through my mind was I didn’t make you happy anymore.
Or that I wasn’t mature enough for what you wanted. My insides felt
shredded, and it took everything in me not to throw up in the car
and on you. Sure the ride made me a little nauseous, but after what
you said—after I knew you meant every word of it—all I could do was
concentrate on keeping what little bit of food I ate earlier down.
My parents didn’t believe I was feeling better, so I had to eat to
prove I could leave the house.”
Blake seemed to hunch further into himself,
and Veronica had trouble seeing him that way. Dropping her head,
she looked at a small piece of dust resting on the stairs.
“
You wouldn’t look at me,
and then we drove back in silence. As I climbed out the car, I made
up my mind. If I wasn’t who you wanted, then I would give you a
chance to go and be happy with whomever that lucky girl was. I
wasn’t going to tie you down.”
“
Veronica, you should have
told me.”
His voice was much louder, and it made her
jump. She couldn’t respond. What could she say? She shook her head
and continued to stare at the grayish ball of dust on the
floor.
“
Where’s the baby—child
now? Did you give it up for adoption?”
“
No.” Her voice
trembled.
“
Veronica, did you have an
abortion?”
With Blake’s question, she glanced up. “No,
I could never do that. Not to something I loved. Not to something
that was a part of you.”
“
I don’t understand. I
haven’t seen you with any children. What happened?”
Veronica pulled her legs up to her chest,
ignoring the sharp twinge on her side, and rested her chin on her
knees. Since she woke up from the fall, there was a persistent
throbbing in her head, and it seemed like every part of her body
hurt. As the past and everything that led her to where she was now
whirled in her mind, the pain intensified. Closing her eyes, she
began to tell Blake the truth.
“
After we broke up and you
dropped me off, I practically ran to my room. I’d told my parents I
was feeling better so you and I could talk, but I was still
throwing up. I’d become better at hiding it from them. They were
worried it was a stomach bug and thought I should see the doctor.
At the time, I kept a few plastic bags in my closet. I’d throw up
in the bag and toss them out later once my parents weren’t around.
So once the one and only meal I’d consumed for the day left my
body. I laid there for what seemed like hours, trying to think
about all of my options. It didn’t take me long to see that I
didn’t have many. I figured it was lack of food, and being
overwhelmed with the knowledge that I was pregnant, and that you
didn’t want me anymore, which was why I couldn’t come up with a
good plan. I hadn’t told my parents yet that I was even considering
not going away. They’d already put so much money into everything I
needed for college, that I decided I would follow through with my
original plan and go to school. At least, I would have more time to
think. And more time to prepare my parents for the news. So, that’s
what I did for the next two weeks before I left. I concealed my
morning sickness, kept out of your way, and I prepared myself for
school. I estimated I’d have about a semester before I needed to
explain anything.
“
My parents were rather
surprised the day we were going to head out for school. I hadn’t
told them we broke up, and they were still expecting you to come
with them to drop me off. Telling them we broke up, and not wanting
to talk about it, made a very uncomfortable trip. Nonetheless, once
they settled me at school, and they returned home, I began my new
routine. I loved school, but I was so home sick. I don’t think it
helped that I was still having trouble keeping food down. When I
talked to my mother on the phone, I would have to assure her
repeatedly that I was fine. She could hear the stress in my voice,
and she knew something was up. But I still didn’t know how to break
the news, so I would tell her I was adjusting to my new life, and
all was well.
“
About two and a half
months into the school year, germ season hit.”
Veronica chuckled to herself and mumbled,
‘stupid small town’. Out loud for Blake to hear she said, “I guess
you can blame it on the fact that until then I had only been
exposed to illness here in Surpatch. Add being pregnant, and
malnourished from throwing up, and I was a walking target to get
sick. Sick may be an understatement. The first few days I felt like
I was on my deathbed. I laid in my room unable to move. My roommate
called the Resident Assistant, and the RA called an ambulance. It
didn’t take long for the doctors to see that I needed to be
admitted. They weren’t sure what was wrong with me, but they knew
they needed to act fast. I was losing the battle to live. I,
however, only had one concern: the baby. Until I became pregnant, I
never understood the bond one had for someone you’d never even met.
I also worried about breaking the news to my parents. My mother
called like clockwork, and she would be looking for me soon. By
that point, I had already been in the hospital for two weeks.
“
One day the doctor came
into the room and explained I had some sort of toxin in my system.
According to what they found from all the tests, and blood-work, it
was a unique strand—there was only one other documented case. I was
given a choice, a choice basically on how I wanted to die, because
both options they offered gave me less than a fifty percent chance
to live. My first option was to let nature take its course. My body
was still fighting to keep the baby and me alive. From what they
could tell, the baby was still doing okay. The baby was too young
for me to deliver and survive outside of the womb. There was about
a thirty percent probability I would live, a twenty-five percent
chance I would live long enough to give birth, and the prospect
that the baby would survive if I did was unknown. My second option
was to take this experimental drug. Of course, the treatment came
out after the other person who’d been documented died. So they were
unsure how effective the remedy would be. But, they gave me a
forty-five percent chance of living if I took the medicine. I laid
there and waited for them to give me the survival rate of the baby,
but they said nothing. When I asked, the doctor stared me right in
the eyes. I still remember it as if it was yesterday and he said
‘none’.”
The flashback seemed to be ingrained in
Veronica’s mind. She shivered curling further inwards.
“
It had come out in such a
monotone voice, that I wasn’t sure I heard him right, so I asked
again. The drug was so strong that it would have killed the child
within a matter of hours. They told me to think over my options,
and recommended I call my parents. I realized, no matter what I
chose, I could still be dead soon. The doctor didn’t have the
chance to leave the room before I made my decision. There was no
way I could take that drug. If I had a chance of giving life to our
baby, then that was my only option.
“
I thought picking up the
phone to dial my parent’s number was hard, but no, the hardest part
came when I not only had to explain over the phone that I was sick
and dying, but I was pregnant too. To say they flipped their lids
would also be an understatement. My parents flew out the following
morning, and were at my side by that afternoon. I refused to tell
them how far along I was over the phone, but once they entered my
room it didn’t take long for them to do the math. They knew it was
yours. I think my mother figured it out first, recalling the
morning sickness and everything. She believed the pregnancy was the
reason we broke up. She figured I’d come to you with the news, and
you told me to get lost. I explained repeatedly that you had no
clue, and I wanted to keep it that way. My dad, of course, wanted
to kill you. He didn’t care if you knew or not. It was the fact
that you got me pregnant which made him upset.
The stress of it all was too much. I was
laying there dying, and all we did was fight. We fought about the
pregnancy, and because I refused to take the drug. My parents also
felt I should call you. Finally, it came down to me telling them it
was my life, and they needed to respect that. I was keeping the
baby, and if it cost me my life, so be it. If they couldn’t get
over it, then they needed to say their goodbyes so I could lie
there, and die in peace. If they could live with my decision, then
they were welcome to sit and watch me die. Either way, I didn’t
want to argue anymore. On the outside, I was brave as I gave them
my speech, but I was falling apart on the inside. I never saw them
that upset. Blake, my father cried. The man, who told me there was
no point in crying over something that couldn’t be changed,
cried.
“
After my ultimatum, they
stayed and even if they didn’t respect my choice, they never spoke
out against it again. Somehow without the medicine, my body lasted
a lot longer than the doctors predicted. The physicians contributed
it to the fact that I was still young. Some days were better than
others. Around the six month mark of the pregnancy, I started to
slip in and out of consciousness. My body was so frail, and
everything hurt. It felt like my skin was burning all the time. The
medical team told my parents I could die any time. The baby would
be early and they weren’t sure if it too would survive. Amazingly,
I still held out. Another month and a half went by—most of it I
don’t remember—before my health finally failed. My mother who was
in the room at the time—though she never told me the full
details—said my heart stopped. The team of doctors I had needed to
act quickly to try to save the baby and me. They rushed me into
surgery, where the team performed an emergency C-section. Through
some miracle the doctors were able to save the both of
us.”
Pausing, Veronica tried to collect herself.
Retelling the story for the first time was more overwhelming than
she ever expected. As she sat there trying to maintain herself, she
felt the sides of her face become moist. With her arm, she rubbed
her face and found it to be wet. It took a moment to understand the
concept of it. Crying. She was crying. She hadn’t cried since she
was five years old. She sensed Blake was in just as much disbelief
as she was. She tried not to let that distract her as she went
on.
“
It was a girl. She was so
tiny and precious. I thought I loved her before she was born, but I
know now that I didn’t even understand the concept of love until I
saw her. She was absolutely perfect. The excitement of saving the
both of us didn’t last long, though. Only a few hours had gone by
before the doctors broke the news to us. I had passed the toxin on
to her and her little system wasn’t strong enough to fight it.
There was still no way they could give her the drug that was now
coursing through my veins. If I would have died and went to hell, I
probably would have felt cooler. I felt like I was being burned
alive, from the inside out. And I had to endure all of it quietly,
so I could attempt to stay alert while the doctors explained to me
that my precious little girl was still going to die. If it wasn’t
for the fact that I wanted to spend as much time with her as
possible, I probably would have given up then. But I fought because
she was fighting. To be so small, she was a true fighter. She held
on for almost two days before her little system just couldn’t
handle it anymore. That was the darkest day of my life. I was so
lost. I didn’t want to fight anymore. I didn’t want to live
anymore. My body was so tired, and I slipped into a coma hours
after they pronounced her dead.