Baby's Breath

Chapter 23: message

Dignity. What did it mean, anyway? What was the price of it? Did anyone have any at all? I watched kids playing volleyball beside the glittering pond as the sun painted pinks and oranges with its corona. A couple snuggled on the bench, hands clasped.

Oh, how ragged I felt. Torn. Used. Discarded. A pang of anguish clutched my chest, and my head swam with dark splotches of vertigo.

"I can't do this. I can't." I stared at my bulging stomach, sinking my nails into the flesh. "Do you feel that? Do you? You are hurting me." I pulled away, a zip of pain created by my nails. What was I going to do now?

Numb and alone, I rose and started my way home. By the time the clouds cooled in color from the blazing day, I was aware of a car slowing down beside me. I kept my gaze askew. Go ahead and kidnap me. I'd be of no value to your black market. A virgin no longer. I snorted.

"Jess!" someone called, but it was only a dream. "Jessica, stop, will you?"

I kept on until the car shoved itself a meter in front of me. I stopped, my heart pounding out of fear, my eyes wide. A pretty girl with short, dark hair and skin, slammed out of the car. Her catlike eyes were wide, but there was something hidden that made me clam.

"Gosh, Jess, why didn't you stop when I called you? I know you can hear me." Audra stood there, her fists on her hips, her eyebrows pinched together.

I was spent. I had no will for fighting anyone anymore. "What, Audra, what? What do you want now? So I told Josh that I'm pregnant. So what? My life is just as, or more so, ruined than his will ever be. So like a man to tell the girl to get rid of the baby. He has nothing. All he did was squirt and I'm stuck for nine months plus eternity." I shook my head, and moved onward, ignoring her. "You know what, Audra?" I turned, forcing what bravado I had left. "Go tell Josh to take long walk off a short pier."

She stood there, her mouth opening and closing like a gasping fish. "I see how this is going." But I kept walking. Her footsteps ground into the gravel as she caught up with me. "What're you going to do? The baby?"

"My problem, not yours." I lifted my face and stabbed her with a glare. "Aren't you glad it's not you?" I shouldered her away, though she didn't touch me, and kept on walking.

She shouted her frustration and stomped her foot. "Gosh, you're stubborn! Fine, Jess, have it your way. But I've seen what you've been through these past few months now that I know. So I called Wee Born Haven and told them all about you."

I stumbled to a stop, having heard what she said, and raced over to her. "You did what? Audra, how could you?" My voice echoed along the sides of the mountains that shielded the last of the sinking sun.

"Face it, girl, it's the smartest thing either of us has done since you decided to become a Playmate."

"I can't believe you." Horror shivered down my spine, my eyes grew big. "My dad—he will kill me!"

But her face didn't mirror my anxiety, only stayed cool and amused. "No, Jess, these people are there to help girls in your situation with unwanted pregnancies—what else are you going to do? Trash your baby? And if you're caught?" She snorted, her lip curled into a sneer. "It's better than ending up in jail or worse, dead!" Her eyes spoke disgust as she gazed up and down my body, her lips ending in a twist. "I'd call them if I were you."

"I hate you, Audra! You've no idea what you've just done!" I swayed, longing to get off my aching feet. My legs hurt and so did my belly.

"Oh, I do. You may think anything you want of me, I shouldn't care, but I do even if you feel I'm a jerk. You have their number." She gave me her back and sauntered to her car. "I hope you make the right choice, Jessica." Her door slammed shut and off she drove.