Scars [Ashton Irwin]

Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE:

"Do you know why? I mean, is it a genetic thing?" He asked, after having taken a moment to absorb all of this information.

"No." I sighed, holding onto his hand. I knew that what I was to tell him could change the way he felt about me. The way he looked at me. But I also knew that I had to tell him. I loved Ashton, and I wanted a future with him, but some things from my past just had to be revealed.

"Babe? Are you okay?" He asked, looking at me with those eyes.

"I do know why." I said, deciding to grow some balls.

"Well, what is it?" He asked. He was worried, and he was curious. I could see it all in his eyes.

"When... two years ago...I," I wasn't sure how to say it, and he was getting frustrated. "Two years ago, my boyfriend Jace got me pregnant." I started. I would skip all the details about Jace, and tell him only what he needed to know. I was terrified to look up at him and see his reaction to the news, so I kept my eyes on our hands. "I-i had just turned sixteen, a-and I was terrified. When I told Jace the news, he got angry. He even accused me of cheating. But he was the only guy that I had ever slept with.

I thought that I was in love with him, so I told him that I would do anything if it meant that he wouldn't leave me with a baby. He told me that I needed to kill it. I was horrified at the idea, because I had always been against abortion. But he said that if I didn't do it, he would leave me and then kill himself so that he wouldn't have to pay child support.

I thought about it. I cried about it, but I knew that I had to do it. Jace would leave me if I didn't, and my family would hate me. So I scheduled an appointment, but when I met with the doctor, she said that I was too far along and it was too late to end it. But when I told this to Jace, he obviously didn't care.

Jace called one of his friends who dealt with illegal abortion. I didn't want to do it, but I had to. I went in there, and they put me in a room with a bed and a bucket filled with water. It wasn't sterile. It was filthy. They gave me this weird tablet and told me to take it and wait thirty minutes for it to work.

I lay there for thirty minutes, Jace kept telling me that this was the right thing to do, until the tablet kicked in. I was in so much pain. I felt like I was on fire. There was blood everywhere, and I was so afraid. I thought that I was dying. I wanted Jace to hold me, but he stood back and avoided looking at me. I rolled around in pain for almost an hour. I was in so much pain.

And then the guy said that it was time to get it out. My pants were lowered, and I was screaming and they told me to shut up because the neighbours would hear me and become suspicious. That tablet was given to me to induce labour. I gave birth, Ash. I gave birth.

B-but it wasn't over. It looked like an alien. I didn't know what it was. It was so small. It wasn't even shaped like a baby. They gave it to me and it was struggling for breath. It couldn't breath. The lungs hadn't developed yet. It was reaching out its little alien arms as I held it and watched it struggle.

And then they brought the bucket of water forward and told me to hold it down in the water and drown it. Th-they told me to murder my baby. And I did it. I held the little thing down while I cried and it died. I killed it." My body shook with sobs as I relived the memory. I could still feel the pain, I could still see my little alien baby struggling to breath.

I willed myself to look up at Ashton. He had gone pale, and was staring off into space. But once he had turned to look back at me, I didn't know who the man in front of me was, because that was not my Ashton.

"Say something. Please. Anything." I sobbed. He frowned at me, and then ripped my heart right out of my chest when he pulled his hand away from me. "Ashton-"

"You killed an innocent soul." He mumbled, and the words cut deep into my heart. "And you refer to it as a thing."

"Ash, I just explained it all to you."

"None of it justifies what you have done."

"Ash, I was young and afraid."

"My mother was fifteen years old when she had me!" He snapped. "And I don't mean Anne. I'm talking about my real mother."

"You're adopted?" This came as a surprise to me. I had no idea, although I had my suspicions because Ashton and Cassidy look a lot like each other, but not much like Anne.

"It's an option. Did you know that? Adoption is an option!" I didn't like that he was almost yelling. "My dickhead of a father got my mother pregnant when she was fifteen, and he was twenty-three! He told her to abort me, but she said no. Did you know the word no?" His words were dripping with so much venom, and it terrified me. I had never seen him this emotional.

"Ash, I-"

"No! Listen to me! She was fucking fifteen! And she had me! She didn't care what he said. She kept me! She dropped out of school because nobody would help her take care of me. And then that asshole came back for round two, and left her with a second child. She was a seventeen year old single mother with a two year old and a new born baby. She fought when the officials wanted to take us away. She fought hard, because even though she was struggling to support all three of us, she still loved us, and she wanted to keep us! You think that your stupid fucking boyfriend asking you to murder your baby justifies the fact that you killed an innocent soul? You think that this is fucking okay!?"

"Ashton, I.. I was just-"

"Afraid? You were afraid? What would have happened to me if my mother was like you? I wouldn't exist! You wouldn't have me! And you wouldn't have Cassidy! You took away from this world what could have someday been someone's best friend. You took away something precious."

"I already feel bad about it!" I shouted.

"No, you don't! You think that just because he asked you to do it, it makes it okay. Fuck, McKenzie, how could you have been so fucking stupid!? You can't erase what you have done."

"I know I can't." I sobbed. "And the guilt eats at me everyday. I have to live with it, you don't."

"Because I would never kill an innocent soul."

"You don't know what it was like! You have no idea how I felt!"

"And I wouldn't like to know." He murmured. He was angry. So angry that as he left me all alone, my body shaking as I cried, he didn't look back, but still called me a murderer. It hurt the most coming from him, because I cared about what he thought of me. I cared too much.

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Author's Note

I know that this isn't well written. I didn't know how else to interpret it, and it was just too emotional for me to spend a lot of time on like my other chapters. I may or may not edit it and try to make it better.

But I do hope that you liked this, and please vote. Pretty pretty please, with Calum on top?

xxx McRee Black