She kissed him goodbye knowing he wouldn’t remember her tomorrow. Holding onto him tightly, she stared at him fiercely determined to remember even though it was not going to matter. Not that long ago she wanted to get rid of him, seeing him as nothing more than an inconvenience. She was young; not yet 18 with her whole life ahead of her. School for her was uneventful and while she wasn’t the best student in her class, she was far from the worst. She was popular but that to her was a facade covering the void created from working parents who never really had time for her. It was the fast paced determination to earn more amid the volatile global economy that can plunge anyone living in middle class comfort into abject poverty. As her mind began to drift, her baby’s cries rudely brought her back to the present. She looked at him again confused with her shifting emotions at how when she first knew of his existence within her, she’d want to dispose of him. In a sudden hazy epiphany, she said to him, ‘People told me you were just going to ruin my life! I nearly fell for it! I was told to even kill you by friends and even family members when you were much smaller insisting I have a choice cause it’s my body. You know what? They’re right! I do have a choice! If I didn’t hear your heartbeat after I went for a medical check, I wouldn’t have known that what was inside me wasn’t a lump of cells but something like I, except much younger!’ Hesitating, she cut herself off. Time was short as she soon had to let him go. In an odd mix of narcissistic gratitude and remorse, she was thankful her baby is too young to process what she just uttered. ‘Your dad?’ she asked him startled by the bluntness of the question. ‘He may be the reason why we’re in this mess but he’s no father in the same way I can’t be your mother. He doesn’t want anything to do with you! Heck! He now wants nothing to do with me! It’s not that you did anything wrong - how could you be a mistake? Cause it is I who screwed up! I couldn’t give you the life you need, the life you deserve!’ She hesitated again. A knock on the door startled her. Calming herself down, she looked at the infant and whispered, ‘Your real parents are going to come get you!’ Biting her lips she meditated on a time when the concept of the nuclear family was engrained in her mind. The thought of staying at home once married neither tempted or horrified her as she felt it was dependent on whoever she might unite herself with for the long ride. Having a family for her seemed like something distant into the future and not the deep penetration into her present. Closing her eyes once more, she felt him squirm. Smiling sardonically, she had a flashback of when she first felt him move within her. Difference now he is no longer inside her but someone far more tangible. He has her eyes, her nose, the pale fragile skin but that smile? From his dad; the man or perhaps (in her words) the boy who duped her with empty promises. Suckling him, she thought back again to when she first met the baby’s father. There was an outdoor basketball court in the path she takes going to and from school. It was also not far from a university frequented by undergraduates who used the grounds to socialise under the guise of playful competition. Surrounding the basketball court were park benches that were occupied by the elderly during the day and teenagers during dusk. Trees adjacent to the benches allowed some, though inadequate shelter from the elements. For her, stopping a while at those benches, allowed a brief respite from the hectic conundrum of adolescence. Those passing through were just like her at the time, nameless faces of strangers she sees often but at the same time, oblivious to each other’s existence. It so happened that the bench she usually sat on was occupied by someone’s sporting gear. A basketball flew in her direction but lost momentum as it landed by her feet. Looking up, she saw a group of young men having their daily hoops with one of the men - the only one shirtless due to the summer heat - chased after the rogue ball. Picking up the ball, she handed it to him. He smiled back taking his ball and the rest of his sporting gear though her gaze betrayed her first time interest in her unorthodox interpretation of the “fairer sex”. On a typical weekday, she’d gaze mindlessly at the basketball court regardless if there was anyone making use of it or not before heading home soon after. As, at the time, it was the start of the summer break, she stayed. Besides, what was waiting for her at home? If her parents were too busy, they were looking for reasons just to start an argument with her even if it was trivial and mundane. The shirtless basketball player approached her after his last round for the day and began a conversation. He was older but only by a few years but as he was a university student and with her just a year short of graduating from secondary school, such an age gap was hardly encouraged, let alone welcome. Nonetheless, they soon found they had other interests besides the cliched mutual physical attraction. During that summer, they began to meet up more frequently. To her surprise, she discovered he was not from the city but was an exchange student who would return back to his home country once the summer was over. Their relationship blossomed quickly and in a moment of weakness, they went much further than either intended to take.&nbsp; By the time he left, she noticed something was wrong with herself. She was late. Given how close she felt the two became, she texted him as a joke saying she was carrying his baby. To her surprise, he didn’t reciprocate a response. The next day, she was blocked on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The initial disappointment soon transitioned to rancid relief, counting it as a blessing to be rid of a man who was unreliable. Another month went by. She was still late. It didn’t help that she was feeling ill almost every other morning. Again, she dismissed it thinking she caught the flu or stress from studies. After all, her final exams determining which university to go to were a matter of months away. Her teachers often nagged her and the rest of her class that the final year of secondary school will be the most stressful in their life and in her case, they were right but for very unorthodox reasons! When she couldn’t hide her pregnancy, taunts and insults from the ones she thought were close to her were the pre-birth gifts she’d receive. Behind closed doors, she received slaps from her parents, with her parents blaming each other wondering where they as parents went wrong. Before the girl discovered the added life within her, she was not the type to turn the other cheek, but now must accept the verbal abuse deserved or not from something she didn’t anticipate due to her own naivety. She tried in vain to keep a low profile. As the delivery of this new life approached, not being the subject for malicious talk was a forgotten luxury. She thought back to the last time she saw and held the man complicit in this. It was their first time they consummated what she considered a genuine relationship and perhaps an escape. She kissed him goodbye knowing he wouldn’t remember her tomorrow and not because of accidental memory loss but because she was just a number; a hit and run of romance that was never romance to begin with! What felt like the stopping of time, she heard the slow cacophony of sound as the door slowly opened. “You act like you don’t care?” were one of the many questions that continually ran through her mind as the shadows of those about to take away her baby became more blatant. These were one of many questions she was asked in the weeks leading up to her delivery by those who knew her when she succeeded in keeping a poker face. In a low whisper that only she and her baby could hear, “Of course it’s hard! I always knew it wouldn't be easy!” She looked at her son whose face turned to hers even though he couldn’t fix his gaze at hers yet. Biting her lips, she struggled not to break down. ‘Are you ready?’ asked the nurse waiting outside the room. More images flashed through her mind. Exams she must sit if she recovers from labor soon enough, the only university of the four she applied to that responded with a conditional offer, the rest of her life when she enters the workforce clouded by the curtain of incertitude made her giddy. ‘They’re waiting!’ said the nurse crossly. ‘We haven’t got all day!’ Uncertainly, she retorted, ‘Yes! It’s time!’

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Carl Perito

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