Where you belong, Samantha Thomas [best ebook reader for chromebook txt] 📗

WHERE YOU BELONG
By Samantha Thomas © 2010

Boom! Boom! Boom! “Get out of the fucking bathroom already!” my father yelled as he pounded on the bathroom door. “J-just a minute daddy!” I called back. Truth was it might be three minutes I just finished peeing on the stick. I quickly wiped my who-ha and pulled up my pants. I placed the pregnancy test on the bathroom sink counter and waited. My father kept yelling and banging on the door, and with each and every new pound I bit harder and further down my nails. The door was shaking now on its hinges and I was terrified, he was almost in.

“You little bitch! I got to drop a duce! Open the fucking door!” I was about to just deem this test a failure and open the door for him before he knocked it down and beat me. Wait, I see something starting to form in the little windows… one line… and two lines. I’m pregnant. Just as I read that my father burst through the door righted himself and stalked towards me. When he got there he seen me standing there my head down staring at the counter. He turned towards what had my attention, he looked straight back at me and said, “What the fuck is this? You little pig! What did you do?” He dove at the counter, snatched up the test and read what I already knew.

“Are you- is that a fucking smile on your face?” It was, I was smiling. I’m happy for once, I’m going to be a mother. When I didn’t answer him because I was too in thought at the fact that, for once I was happy, he took one large step to me placing him directly in front of me. I was so deep in thought at me being happy that I didn’t notice that he raised his hand, threw the test shattering it, and knocked me so hard in the face I flew to the opposite wall. I slid down cupping my face. My lips where bleeding. “Your disgusting you slut! I aint taking care of no one’s fucking bastard you hear? Your gonna find some fucking way, I don’t care how you do it, but your gonna find some fucking way and your gonna fix it! God damn it Britney what where you thinking!”

I didn’t answer him I just nodded it was best to stay quiet until he cools down. He looked down at me his breathing was huffing in and out. His hands clenched down at his sides, then up tearing through his hair, and back down again. He seemed to be having an internal debate about something, before settling I’m assuming, and then he spoke to me, “Get up. I really need to go to the bathroom. Go do your homework or something before I change my mind and do what I really want to do and that’s kicking your ass like you aint never before known. You got that?” Even though he still said rotten things to me, his voice took on a slightly less hostile-asshole tone, and that meant he was a bit more calm.

I didn’t waste time I picked myself off the floor answered him meekly, “Yes daddy.” and with my head down and still cupped, I left him to his business, and did my homework. He didn’t speak to me the rest of the night, in fact after he used the bathroom he took his coat and left, didn’t come back until sometime the next day while I was at school. I was upset that he left because I was really hungry, there wasn’t any food at home at all.

That’s one of the reasons I suspected I was pregnant, because now I was always hungry, and it wasn’t just normal hunger it was a burning hole type feeling in my gut, and if I didn’t eat I felt like I was going to get sick and die. I looked about the house and kitchen looking for anything to eat, and found a couple packets of ketchup, and a take-out box with a half eaten hamburger inside, it looked like a few days old. I couldn’t eat it, so I ate the packets of ketchup and woke up early the next day to try to catch breakfast at school. It was a really, really hard night.

I was in English class when I heard a knock at the door, I was too busy in the assignment to look up. “Britney Hart please.” I looked up at the sound of my name and hanging in the doorway was the guidance counselor. I looked at my teacher who was nodding in agreement. I gathered my things and got up to meet her. “Follow me please.” I followed her down to her office where she said, “Have a seat.” I did and we began. “So, how are you?” I fidgeted in the hard chair and decided to just put all of my things on the ground because they were just to heavy.

I shrugged my shoulders, and looked away to the left starring at nothing. She sat there for a moment probably guessing how to proceed when finally she spoke again, “Your grades are slipping a bit and the faculty and I are concerned because your such a bright student. How are things at home, with your father?” she was doing alright until the end when she spoke of my father, her voice changed and quivered just barely when she said that. I looked over at her and she was starring right at me, but not in my eyes. She was starring at my face and the bruise like hand print his hand left last night, and my swollen lips. “Did your father do that to you?” she asked quietly, her eyes crinkled in sadness as if she might cry. Yeah right.


“I fell.” Lie. Lie. Lie. She nodded her head. “Classic.” was all she said. I knew how this all worked if I spilled my beans, foster care would soon follow and I’d rather get verbally abused and smacked around then molested and or raped. End of story. I knew how Phil worked, there where ways around it. Sometimes. “Look, I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but please know that you can. I’m here for you Britney. Now how about your friends, how’s your relationship going with them?” Haha friends I’m the school leper. “Ash’s too busy, cheerleading and all. We’re well though, thank you for asking.” was all I said.

Truth was Ashley was my sometimes-but mostly never-friend. She used me when she wanted and I let her because I was lonely. She only spoke to me when she had a falling out with her own friends when they caught her fucking their boyfriends, or whatever. I never understood why they ever took her back, maybe I was jealous that they did, because that meant that I was all alone yet again. I looked down at the front of her desk and saw her name plate it read, Caitlynn Welch. Huh, sounds more like a lawyer then a guidance counselor. Funny I never knew her name she was always telling me, but it never took.

Ms. Welch started talking about school work and the complete importance of it all it was all background noise to me like the hum of a bee. I decided to end that, “I’m pregnant.” that was all it took. She said, “Oh!” like ‘oh my gosh,’ “Oh!”

And then, “Oh, Britney.” ‘Oh’ as in ‘oh no!’ complete with the hand covering her mouth and all. Again she sat in shocked silence contemplating, then “It’s not-your father didn’t-” she couldn’t keep to one thought, then suddenly I got her implication. “What the fuck? No! Your sick!” “I didn’t- I just had to know-ask you…. Are you alright?”

What the fuck kind of guidance counselor is she? She ended in a question and I answered indifferently “I’m fine.”

“You know that you have many options don’t you? Do you know how far along you are? Have you been to a doctor?” I hadn’t gotten that far yet, and decided she was right I needed those things. With a small internal conversation with myself I decided I would confide in her, all except about my dad. She could help me with my baby and I really needed the help. “I just found out last night. I’ve been feeling really weird lately, like wicked hungry, and sick, but mostly tired. I’d like to keep the baby I love it already. How do I find out? You know about the far along that’s how old the baby is right?” I asked and I ended up smiling I couldn’t help it, this baby made me happy, but it forced my split lip to be pulled into a direction that neither of them wanted to be in so I settled down to a pained smirk.

“Yes, you can find that out at a doctor or midwife. Y-your sure? Your absolute sure that you want to keep this baby? You still have quite a bit of time left to consider all of your options you know? I‘m not trying to push you or anything like that, I just want you to be absolutely sure in this decision, this huge responsibility. You have options, this has to be your decision and all yours alone.” “Yes I’m sure. Do you know any doctors or midwives?” I had no idea what a midwife was, but from what she said they deal with pregnancies.

She sat all the way back for a moment holding her breath within staring down at her hands before resolve fitted her face about 10 minutes later. It was an awkward very long 10 minutes. “Ok listen up… I will help you Britney. But you must promise me, that you will seek all the help you can possibly get, to listen to anyone who has help coming your way. And above all else, be one hundred percent responsible with the life you carry inside you, at all times, is that clear?” I began to feel hope, and a sense of joy filled me and I smiled unsuccessfully again. “Yes” she nodded and it was settled. I was going to get the help my baby and I deserved, I was finally going to have someone that loved me in my life, and someone who I’d love with everything I had to give, inside me.


WHERE YOU BELONG