Amnesty | Book 4

s e v e n t e e n

CHERI
It's been fifteen years. Fifteen long years that I had been holding all this shit in. Fifteen long years that I have been asking God for forgiveness. And although I don't doubt that he has forgiven me, I just know that I haven't quite forgiven myself for what I had done fifteen years ago.

As I walk into the health center, I look around in hopes of Tereny still being seated. I was in her shoes fifteen years ago. Only difference is, I will not allow for this poor girl to follow through with it. Not while I'm here. She will not be setting her future up like this.

Who am I to stop someone from doing what they want? I'm the woman who was fifteen years old just fifteen years ago. That's who. I was the poor girl underneath the football bleachers getting taken advantage of by the boy who told me that he loved me. And when I didn't wanna give it up, he did the only thing he'd ever known how. He took it.

He held me a knife point and told me that if I so much as made a sound, he would slit my throat. And because I was afraid for my life, I didn't say anything. I let it happen. And even after he did that horrible thing to me, I still wanted to be with him simply because I loved him. But he didn't want me anymore. He told me that if I knew what was good for me, I would leave him alone and never tell anyone that I was raped.

So I never told anyone.

A month later, I never had my period. I knew all about pregnancy and how it can happen so I kind of figured that I was. I ended up tell one of my sisters. Julie. Julie was twenty-one at the time. She worked, had her own apartment and everything. Instead of telling her that I was raped, I told her that it was consensual. And she told me that I couldn't keep it because if I did, daddy would kill me.

Back then, I was afraid of my daddy. I didn't want to disappoint him or give him a reason to kill me. So Julie told me the best thing to do was have an abortion. She said it would only be the right thing to do. And I believed her.

She gave me the money and even took me to the clinic. She was by my side every step of the way. And at first, I believed that this was the right thing for me to do. I knew that I couldn't raise a baby at fifteen. I was still a baby myself.

So I went through with it.

It didn't really hit me that I had taken a life until I turned seventeen. One of my friends ended up getting pregnant and she was happy about it. I asked her why wouldn't she abort it. These were her exact words to me.

"Giving life to a child makes you a hero.  A nine-month sacrifice of your body is totally worth it to let another precious life have a chance to impact and change the world. Just the thought of seeing my child grow and become better than me is something I'm looking forward to. My mama didn't abort me, why would I do that to somebody who didn't ask to be here?"

And she was right. Why take the life of somebody who didn't ask to be here? I didn't ask to be here and here I am. Alive and breathing. And my baby could've been fifteen years old today, making far better choices than what I made. I had nobody to blame but myself. And it killed me.

"Do you have a Tereny Golden in the back room?" I asked the receptionist who was sitting there typing away at her computer. She looked up at me and pursed her lips together just before opening them.

"Ma'am, every patient we care for are confidential. We cannot give out names. Sorry." She told me.

"You don't understand. She can't have an abortion." I whisper loud enough for only her to hear. "This girl is mentally ill and she feels she's doing the right thing, but she's not. And she's under the influence of drugs." I say, trying to find anything I could to say in order to keep Tereny from making the biggest mistake of her life.