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Isabelle's Diary Interludes

Dear Diary,
Wishes don't exist. If otherwise, they would have been able to describe or count the amount of times that I had wished for my insides to stop falling apart with every day that passes. Or that my belly stops growing.

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Dear Diary.
It is fourteen days now, since my parents stopped speaking to me. Nadine returned to Lagos the day before because the break she took from the hospital was over. I cried when she left, because she was the only one that talks to me. I held on to her at the airport and she gripped my face *she was crying too* and she assured me that God would see me through. My father had told her the last time that if she brought my topic up again he would disown her as well. But she prayed every night that my fathers heart would soften towards me. I doubt if it would ever.
I do not know what my life has become anymore. I had told Aunt Patricia but she wouldn't let me utter the choice of abortion. I wished that even if I did it, my parents would talk to me, but they wouldn't. You should see what it has come to now. It is terrible. Home doesn't feel like home. I live with strangers that I call my parents. My mother tries, but whenever she sees me, she starts to cry. I never meant to hurt her, or my father. I never meant to hurt the ones that love me. I have not gone to church with them, and they do not care anymore, in fact, they try as much as possible not to come home and stare at disappointment in human form.
How can I do it? Diary? How can I heal from this. It breaks my thoroughly. How many times to I have to apologise to let them know that I didn't mean to hurt them on purpose. Nadine says I should give them time, but I am running out of patience. I would never give up on them. I will make sure that they won't stop loving me.

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Dear Diary,
I saw Sultan for the first time since the meeting at my house. I thought I was going to do all that I swore I would do when I set my eyes on him, but I didn't. I was going to slap him, shout in his face, cuss his life out. I wanted him to feel what I was feeling. He doesn't care. He doesn't look at me now. When he sees me, he runs away, he tries to make sure we aren't even in the same room. Not that I blame him because I feel the same way but I have so many questions I'd love to ask him, how it feels to deny the truth in my face, how he sleeps at night. That he looked me in the eyes and denied ever knowing me or the baby. That he told his parents I made this up. Or that his parents had this already planned out, and I want to ask him about the pain. I wanted to shout in his face that he had caused me pains on the inside. Oh, the pain. Seeing him felt like a knife piercing through my open wounds. I don't know if I would ever forgive him, but I can't even forgive myself.
The hardest kind of forgiveness is one's self. I can't look in the mirror and see myself anymore. I am irritated and sincerely disgusted. My heart keeps breaking each morning, each time I see pieces in my dream, pieces of my past life, my happiness. Pieces before the pain.
I decide to go back to school and the first thing I find out now is that Sultan and Mercy were officially dating. I saw it coming. I couldn't say that they stabbed me in the back, but I would like to know why they had brought me in this situation to then finish me. I watched them, walk around school and people swooning over their pathetic relationship like they were some celebrity couples. I no longer exist to them, or even Damilola. In fact, they now mock me and laugh at me. They mock my crossed eyes and even the pregnancy. I blame myself for falling into their charm in the first place.
The principal's secretary is coming into the class now, so I really have to go. Although I do not know why they are looking at me.

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Dear Diary,
I'm sorry I'm a bit messy, I try to write but I keep pausing because the teardrops keep falling down onto you.
School is not yet over, but I am in the reception waiting for the driver to come and pick me up from school. The brown envelope lays beside you. I had just been expelled.
From the moment the Secretary walked in an hour earlier and called my name, the way she said 'Isabelle Simeon Edache' with so much force I knew that trouble loomed. Besides, most people know me as Isabelle Simeon. But it's not my full name that was the problem. It was the fact that I've never been called this way to see the principal.
I walked closely behind her to the principals office. There, I see the principal, Mr McCarthy, and the two Vice Principals. I also see the school nurse. I knew what it was before they could even say a word.

Mr McCarthy looks at me with those blue eyes and says "Isabelle, I had known you from the time you stepped into this school. You have been on the honour roll since Jss1, and you have been the perfect example for other students to follow. You had been nominated as the head girl, seeing that we had to sign in the prefects a bit later, due to so many other activities coming up. That is why I can not bring myself to believe what I've been hearing and what I've evidently seen"

He brings out a piece of paper and continues. "When the nurse came to me yesterday and told me you might have been pregnant, I was about to fire her from stating such an accusation. But I have seen the test results you went to take at the hospital"

You see, I had a weird feeling about the doctor at the so called 'youth friendly' hospital that Nadine took me to to see how far gone. But to discover that she was the same nurse at my school was sickening. She obviously had kept the results for herself. This is a prime example of the Bible scripture 'the heart of man is desperately wicked, who can know it?'

He then goes on to say. "As much as I regret doing this, this school is a highly reputable school and we cannot let any students taint the image it has built for itself after all these years. We have now come to a decision that we're going to have to expel you"

The words didn't hurt me like I thought it would. I simply asked for my expulsion letter. My parents wouldn't make it of course.  Aunt Patricia would come with the driver. Then I went to pack my things, obviously feeling a bit relieved but tense. Relieved because I wouldn't have to deal with the terror of seeing Sultan, Mercy and all those horrible people that chose to make my life harder. Tense because I would abandon any education until after the baby is born. Tense because I don't know what life holds for a sixteen year old mother.

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Dear Diary,
I had my antenatals this week. The driver and Patricia went with me. I wish I would not look into the face of that doctor. I still couldn't believe she had the audacity to act nice after she made sure I left. No one talks to me anymore, and I am not used to it. Although my house is naturally empty, I still just can't get used to it.

But this Saturday evening, Aunt Patricia comes now to tell me that I was going to church with my parents tomorrow. I thought they wanted to hide me , since my belly was showing, but just a little bit. It is too hot for me to wear anything thick, and now I know that they're (parents) intentionally doing this to confirm that indeed I am pregnant. It won't be obvious if I dressed in oversized clothes. Majority of my wardrobe doesn't cling to my body, so I know I'll be fine.

When I went through my wardrobe, I found the dress that I had worn that night. I looked at it, despising it, despising myself, the cleavage revealing dress. It belonged to Mercy. I found also, the eyeliner, that was the only thing I had agreed to apply on my face, because I do not wear makeup, even if I did, Mercy was darker than me and I couldn't use whatever liquid thing she applied on her face. Foundation, I think. Mercy had said that the eyeliner looked good on me, when I looked in the mirror I felt truly pretty and my eyes weren't as crossed. I felt like some Egyptian princess. That was when I thought I was rebellious and too big. If only I had applied wisdom.

But I bundled those things and took them to the back of the house. I burned the cloth with the matches I found in the kitchen. And simply threw the eyeliner. These things would never be me, and never in my life would I accept to look like that in public. It showed a different side of me that I'd never love to see anymore.

I felt at peace. But only for a moment. When I looked in the mirror and noticed it looked a bit bigger now. The belly. It was exciting and scary to see that this thing inside me was going to be a baby.
I sank to the floor and began to cry because it felt so wrong. Then because I started to cry, I brought you out and began to write to you because somehow I don't know how you do it but writing in you just feels so much better.

Until Patricia told me that I would be going to church with my Parents tomorrow.

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Thank you guys so much for reading this far. I know it's taking a while to upload but school life is too much for me right now. Seeing as it's almost winter break I will try and be more frequent. Love you all and God bless you.