The Choice

The coffee grew cold in her hand as she sat staring, unseeing, out the window.

The wind raged outside, battering the trees with rain as it whipped their leaves into a chaotic dance, mirroring the turmoil inside her. It had been a long week of sleepless nights and days spent agonizing over what she should do. Her stomach clenched tight, and her hands felt clammy against the cold cup, but she continued to sit there, paralyzed by her inability to make any choice at all.

She’d given herself a week to think about it, and today was her self-set deadline. No more procrastinating, no more denial. It was time to face reality. Since the morning the test had showed up positive, she knew this day would come, no matter how much she wished it away. She had to make a choice and live with the consequences of whatever decision she made.

The weight of responsibility was crushing her. She felt like the poor coyote after an ACME safe had been dropped on him from a great height.

All this time she’d been fighting, at home and at school, to assert her standing as an adult, able to make decisions about her own life, yet now she cowered in her window seat, wishing someone else would take care of everything for her. Wanting mommy and daddy to make it all right as they had when she was a little girl. The irony of it didn’t escape her and she sighed, wiping at a self pitying tear gathering in the corner of her eye.

The fact was, she was the one responsible now, she was the only one who could make this choice. It was her life, and like it or not, she was an adult.

One thing she had learned during this last week was that having too many choices was actually harder than having none. If you had no choice, all you could do was get on with it and make the best of whatever situation you found yourself in. Having too many choices was a nightmare. There were so many things to consider, so much to weigh up.

On the one hand there was Paul. Should she tell him and lay some of the weight of the choice on his shoulders? Did she want to risk derailing Paul’s life as well as her own, knowing his sense of duty would require him to step up and be a father even when he’d worked so hard to put himself on the road to the life he planned?

Should she just make the decision on her own, not tell him at all? Was that even fair? It was his child too; didn’t he have the right to be included in the decision?

What about her rights? It was her body after all. Did she even want a child to raise, with or without a father? What about her plans, her career? Was she willing to sacrifice all she’d worked for cause of an accident? They’d never discussed having children. In fact, they’d never discussed a future together. They were high school sweethearts, with plans to go to college and move away from this small town to successful careers in the big world out there.

Then there were her parents. She couldn’t face telling them. She’d been the perfect daughter till now, how could she let them down like this? She’d always studied hard, got good grades, and had earned a place in her first-choice college. Her father was so proud she wanted to study medicine, he boasted about her to all his friends, saying that she’d probably become a surgeon, although she knew he secretly wished she’d come home and join his general practice. How could her mother face her friends when her only daughter was a shameful statistic — another pregnant teenager.

But in the end, it was her choice, wasn’t it? She full heartedly supported women’s right to choose. Her body, her decision. She shouldn’t let the expectations of her parents, Paul or the town, to influence her decision.

She got up from the window seat and put the coffee cup on her dresser. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, consciously trying to comfort herself, yet in a subconsciously protective manner towards the thing growing inside her, the thing she was trying very hard to not think of as a baby yet.

She looked around her room. It had gone from a little girl’s room in pink ruffles, to a teenager’s room with the boho look that reflected her personality, bright colors, a mix of patterns, a black and white poster of Marilyn, her open laptop on her desk, and photos of her and her friends on the mirror.

She moved closer to the photos and gently touched them with her finger tips: her and Paul by the lake last summer, laughing so hard at his failed attempts at fishing that it hurt her sides. Her and Kate, her best friend, doing duck-faces at the camera outside the ice cream parlor they hang out at. So carefree. So innocent. So unaware of the agonizing decision her future held. Their future, if she chose to tell Paul.

Should she have an abortion and continue her life as if nothing had happened? Could she actually do it? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that despite being pro-choice. The thing growing inside her wasn’t a baby yet. At least she never thought of it that way. She’d avoided thinking of ‘it’ as anything other than a ‘thing’. She knew it was her way of protecting herself… of allowing herself a choice in this situation. If she began to see it as a baby, with Paul’s blue eyes and her smile, she knew she would never be able to terminate this pregnancy.

If she kept the baby, there was always adoption. But could she give it up? She didn’t think she’d be able to. She couldn’t give away the kittens a stray cat had under their porch last year and now they had 4 cats. How much harder would it be to give up her own baby?

If she kept it, what would she do? She’d have to give up on becoming a doctor. She’d have to stay at home and get a job. What sort of job could an unskilled high school graduate get? What kind of life would she be able to give her child?

She was pretty sure her parents would help once they got over the shock. They loved her. They wouldn’t kick her out, surely? But what a disappointment she’d be… She couldn’t bear to think of hurting them.

And if she told Paul and he wanted to do the right thing and marry her, giving up his career, staying on in their small town and getting a job to support them both. Wouldn’t that be ruining two lives instead of just one?

She closed the laptop on the page entitled ‘things to consider when deciding to have a baby or not’. She could hear her mother in the kitchen, making breakfast. The smell of bacon filled the air and she felt a wave of nausea. She wanted to throw up, not from morning sickness, but because she knew what she had to do.

She opened the door and went downstairs.