bruises // heathers

thirteen // 1990

Veronica sat on the edge of the bathtub in her childhood home, praying to some god she never really believed in that the pregnancy test would read false and that her period was simply late from the stress of seeing her boyfriend commit suicide and the guilt of not stopping him. That her possible morning sickness was just from the nightmares waking her up. Veronica was begging the test to turn up negative, she had so many big dreams. How would a baby change them? She couldn't be a mother, she thought. Even if it read positive, she'd have an abortion. But then she remembered, it's his baby. The hypothetical fetus inside her belly was not only her child, but his too. She couldn't throw away a piece of him. Veronica was so terrified of the possibilities this test brings that when the timer she set went off, she jumped from not anticipating the loud noise of her mother's baking timer she had borrowed without asking. Veronica closed her eyes as she picked up the pregnancy test off the counter, she said one final prayer before opening her eyes.

Positive. The test was positive and Veronica began to cry so hard that the stick in her hand determining her future blurred furiously. She had tempted fate, or rather fucked fate, and she had lost. With tears falling onto her blue skirt, Veronica wrapped up the test in tissue paper, hoping it looked something like a tampon applicator as to not alarm her parents who probably wouldn't have notice if she taped it to the fridge. She discarded the stupid plastic stick into the wastebasket before leaving the bathroom after washing her hands and wiping her eyes. She wondered to herself if JD would have wanted her to keep the child, or if he would have wanted her to do what was best for her and abort the accidental fetus. She walked outside her house, neither of her parents were home as usual, before getting into her blue station wagon hand-me-down car and driving to a confidential doctor's office where she would get an official test to see if she really was pregnant. Maybe the test was wrong, but she couldn't possibly ask for another one, she borrowed the test. If she asked for another one, that person would know that the first one was positive and that she was double checking. They'd know what Veronica was still registering, that she may very well be pregnant with a dead man's baby.

Veronica got out of her blue car, slamming the door and going inside the doctor's office she had seen girls sneak to for birth control or abortions without their parents having to know. She walked to the front desk and saw a woman about thirty sitting there.

"How may we help you?" The woman asked, smiling widely at Veronica.

"My name is Veronica. I need to get tested for..." Veronica trailed off, she couldn't even say the word but she rested her hands on her stomach, looked at the receptionist and hoped she understood.

"Oh, of course dear, take a seat right over there and the doctor will see you soon." The receptionist replied, smiling smaller at Veronica now.

After a certain amount of time, a girl in yellow came out crying with the doctor behind her. A girl in green was shouting at the doctor for being so stupid.

"Veronica?" The yellow girl, Heather McNamara, asked. "What are you here for?"

"It doesn't matter." Veronica responded, averting her eyes from Heather's brown ones. "Why are you two here?"

"We're both pregnant. Turns out we managed to get pregnant at the same date, with the two idiots who turned out to be fucking." Heather Duke, the girl in green, shook her head making it very clear she didn't believe a damn word of it despite the proof.

"Oh my god," Veronica mumbled.

"And I'm trying to talk Heather into an abortion but she won't do it because she's fucking catholic." Heather Duke snorted. "She's trying to convince me that the things inside us are blessings."

"But Heather, they are." Heather McNamara whispered quietly. "We have to raise them, Heather would want us to. If Kurt and Ram were here, they'd be with us in an instant." Heather Duke simply rolled her eyes in response before leaving the clinic, Heather McNamara following her quickly. It was shortly thereafter she was called by a nurse, it was her turn to be seen now.