The Story of Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell's Fault

Trigger warning: graphic physical and emotional abuse. Mention of rape.

May, 1991

I sat on the floor of my bedroom, hugging my knees. In front of me on the blue shag carpet was a pregnancy test. I watched, gulping down my heart, as the yellow piss stain crept slowly up the stick.

One pink line faded into existence, and then another. I stared at them. I was fourteen years old, and I was pregnant.

I pressed my fingertips against the bruise on my ribs, drawing out the comforting ache. That pain was mine, and it was real. I didn't have to prove my right to feel it, and I didn't need to justify it to anyone. Physical pain wasn't complicated like feelings. It was a fact I could cling to in the middle of all the other hurt, blame, and self-recrimination.

A few days before, I'd told Robbie I didn't want to fuck him. He'd beat me to the ground with his fists, then kicked me in the ribs and tits until I'd given in. It hadn't been the first time it had happened. I guess, as they say, some people never learn.

I stood on wobbly legs and went out. The muffled murmur of Robbie's voice came from behind the closed door of my mom's room. Mom was gone, at her second job.

I pressed my ear against the door.

"That's so cool," he said. His fakey laugh ricocheted through me like a pinball in a machine. "It's really special that you do things like that. I love poetry, and I'll bet your poetry is beautiful."

I stood with my hand on the knob, feeling sick, angry, alone. I was just as worthless to him as I was to everyone else. I whirled and went back to my room, slamming the door.

I couldn't keep the sobs from tearing up out of my throat. I sat rocking back and forth, trying to find myself in the chaos of my emotions. I wanted him to die, to be tied up and slowly torn apart by skunks with salt and lemon juice on their teeth. I wanted my friends to stop saying it was "none of their business" when they saw him smack me around, and instead beat the fuck out of him like he deserved. I wanted him to come in and hold me and tell me he didn't have anyone else; that I was beautiful and smart and funny and the only one he needed; that everything was going to be alright.

The door to Mom's room opened, and he stomped down the hall. His footsteps paused outside my door. I dug my fingernails into my calves.

The door popped open. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you slamming your door and shit?" I didn't answer. His gaze fell to the pregnancy test on the floor and his eyes went glassy. "No fucking way."

A shriek rose up in me and clawed its way out of my throat. "You got me pregnant, and now you're fucking some other girl, aren't you?" That dangerous look began to creep into his eyes, but I couldn't stop myself. "You're a fucking cocksucker! I fucking hate you!"

I cowered as he came at me. He kicked me in the stomach over and over and over. I screamed and tried to crawl under my bed, and he kicked me in the crotch, my back, my head.

He finally stopped, and I lay sobbing, wedged halfway under my bedframe. He was breathing hard. "Fuck you, you skank," he said. "That's not my fucking baby."

He turned and left. I didn't move for a long time. I had nowhere to go, and no reason to get up.

***

I told my mom the next day, mostly because I just needed to tell someone, and I didn't have any friends. Robbie had told them all a bunch of lies: I'd fucked the guy who once shit his pants in gym class, I stole the money that had disappeared from Kirk's backpack, and a bunch of other stuff.