That Abortion I (We) Had

By Brittney M. Walker

He or she would be 10 years old, probably now. My life would have been completely different and so would his. Maybe we would have been married, living in California. Maybe we would be living internationally, together, raising our child. Maybe we would have been separated, co-parenting.

We are both in college, on track to be the first in both of our families to graduate. We are both virgins. We are both diligent church-going Christians. We both loved each other, but I never admitted this while we were together. I wanted to wait until we were married to have sex. But it was too tempting, sleeping together in the same bed sometimes. We both had cars and this new found freedom as adults. No parents around to tell us ‘no.’ We spent days and nights together. We knew we were going to be forever. First loves.

Our first time having sex, isn’t at all like the movies. It is a little awkward. We aren’t even sure if we are having sex. I’m not even sure if a quarter of his penis is in. Then he climaxes. He doesn’t know what happened. I’m not sure either.

A few weeks later, my period doesn’t come. I tell him. We ditch school that day, I think. He drives us out of the city to a place no one would recognize us, somewhere by the beach. We drop into the local drug store and purchase a pregnancy test. I go into the…