Resolve.

Yasmin awoke with her hand cradling her stomach once again. This had become a regular occurrence, and she often wondered why she even loved something that barely existed in her body. She tried not to think of this growing thing as a person, because she knew it could never be. She couldn’t face her devout Catholic parents; for she knew it would be the apocalypse in the Southern 4 bedroom home she occasionally returned to during school holidays. The father wanted nothing to do with her, and this was way before she knew she was carrying this life form. No, she could not consider it a baby, she thought, hoping to resolve the argument that had been going through her head for weeks.

He was a moment of weakness, so why did he seem to haunt her so? When she met him, he seemed so perfect but of course there had to be signs. Delayed answers to text messages, calls he wouldn’t answer, deep inside she knew something had to be wrong but she still pursued. He could be perfect for me, she thought, the lie that drove her to continue. He was cute, not the cutest, but he had a swag to him that made her skip a breath and made her heart beat just a tiny bit faster. Yasmin loved men with confidence and confidence was something he embodied. If she had him, maybe she wouldn’t be so sure about the course she was about to send her life on.  But he didn’t care, he made that obvious when he stopped calling, texting, stopped everything. Yet, she would have small fantasies about them being together again. She imagined calling him and telling him about the bundle of cells that lay inside her, creating and recreating and organizing into what could one day become a human being. She imagined making a family with him, the life form being the center of their love for each other.  She knew these thoughts weren’t rational, or even right. He left her for reasons she could not understand, and even the cutest of babies would not bring him back and definitely would not make him love her.

In a week, Yasmin would be rid of this life form. The life form that stood as a reminder of her naiveté, her wasted emotions, and her moment of sin would no longer plague her body.  She knew it would fill her mind, but thoughts were easy to ignore most days. This child could not be, was her simple rationale. She didn’t love it; it stood as a reminder of he who did not love her. She could not look into the eyes of a little girl or boy, knowing the eyes belong to him. Strengthened by her pain, Yasmin wiped a tear and found a new comfortable position to resume her sleep, her hand cradling her stomach all the while.