In a Perfect World

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Two Years Ago

            “Brittany W?” I heard a nurse call me as she signaled for me at the front desk, pulling me from my haze.  My eyes refocused, taking in my surroundings again because it didn’t matter how many times I walked into this office, I still couldn’t believe I was here. 

            “Yes?” I said when I walked over to the desk.  “Is something wrong?”

            “Gallagher just wanted me to tell you that she will be running a bit late,” Nurse Aileen told me.  “If you are hard on time, we would gladly reschedule you for tomorrow.”

            “It’s okay,” I mumbled, fidgeting with the ends of my hair.  “I can wait.” 

            I needed this to be done as soon as possible; I couldn’t keep coming in to the office.  I wanted everything to be over so I could stop thinking about it and beside it was going to be my last session before the procedure.  Of course, out of all the clinics in all the towns surrounding mine, I would pick the clinic that required the maximum amount of counseling sessions before actually performing an abortion. 

            When I came to Atlanta, I’d come with the intention of having the baby, but the moment I touched down in Atlanta I suddenly didn’t know what I was doing.  I was in a new town, with no one but Austin and Callie.  There was no one really around to influence me, Austin and Callie didn’t want to talk about my pregnancy too much and they were usually pretty busy with work.  The first day Austin and Callie went to work, I felt so alone, I was itching to go back home; I couldn’t handle not being around my friends and my whole family, but I didn’t want to go back home pregnant. 

            For the past two weeks, when Austin and Callie went to work, I bused my way two towns over to the nearest abortion clinic and talked to Gallagher, a teacher who counseled during the summer and a mother of two.  In our sessions, because I was further along in my pregnancy than most people who got abortions were, the clinic decided I needed to have comprehensive counseling so that I could fully understand the procedure and the emotional and physical repercussions of having an abortion.  Gallagher, like me, got pregnant when she was in high school, but had an abortion and then after graduating high school, college, and graduate school and after getting a job, she got married and started a family. 

            Gallagher didn’t talk me out of having an abortion, but she didn’t talk me into it either, she just asked me questions and listened to what I told her, she became my friend.  Sometimes she would call me in between sessions to make sure I was okay, and I would call her too whenever I was overwhelmed.  There were so many times when I wanted to call Ella or my parents about the decision I was making, but then it would no longer be my own decision. 

            I sat and observed the waiting room full of people for the first time I’d ever been to the office.  Most of the time, I browsed the Internet on my phone, but today was different, I felt like I needed to see who was there around me.  Most of the girls in the waiting room were alone, only two guys sat with their presumably their girlfriends, all grief-stricken and terrified by what awaited them behind the door to the exam rooms.  I knew what they were feeling, I’d been feeling the same way for the past four months with the doctor’s appointment I went to, and every meeting I had at the clinic the past two weeks.  We all knew the same thing: everything was not going to be okay, not just yet at least.  

            I had a pretty clear grasp about what I was doing, Gallagher made sure that I was clear about everything.  She outlined the entire procedure two meetings ago, she went through every detail, details that were gruesome and I wanted to erase from my mind, but it was policy for me to know what I was going to do to the baby I was carrying.  Ever since I found out I was pregnant, I went through every option in my mind, I thought I had personal morals and beliefs that stopped me from what I was going to do, but I was desperate.  I was desperate for the life I envisioned for myself and I was going to do anything and everything to make sure I had the life I wanted to live.