The following morning, I prepare myself by having my boyfriend close by before he goes to work, surprised my mother even let him in. I'm wearing my favorite pajamas, and I'm freshly showered, my wet hair tied back. Still being completely over the moon about my boyfriend, I apply makeup; it's almost like warpaint, as I prepare to wage battle on my own body.
After settling into my bed with my boyfriend beside me, I take my next set of pills; these have some long, unpronounceable name, but they prevent nausea. It is recommended that I wait at least thirty minutes for it to kick in, to prevent me from throwing up the next (and most important) set up. My mother makes me wait an hour, saying tauntingly that if I throw up the pills and this abortion is unsuccessful, she's not going to fund another one. A grim layer of nervousness and determination coats my already shaky, frightened psyche at her reasoning, and I willingly wait an hour. Barely fifteen minutes after I take the most important medication, I vomit raucously into the trashcan that has been placed strategically by my bedside, while my boyfriend bolts up after me, keeping strands of my loose hair from my face. Deep inside, I am grateful, because I know how sick people throwing up around him can make him feel, and as I throw up I cry, terrified that my pills have come up. My vomit is bitter and acidic, and my mind tries to process the texture, trying to dissect it for traces of powder or pill fragments. There is a moment where I try to hold it back, but it seems like I throw up for a very long time. When I'm done, I begin to shake, my teeth chattering, and once or twice I bite my tongue, blood seeping between my molars. My boyfriend puts his coat on me, wrapping his body around mine, as though sheltering me from further harm while I shiver, and my mother watches my face. She says, "Your body temperature is plummeting, it's going to be soon," and I wonder what "it" is.
Suddenly, the "cramps" begin. They are excruciating, like someone shoving a dull hunting knife into my uterus, plunging and twisting, over and over, and the blows ebb and flow; sometimes they lessen, but the pain never stops. My bedroom is in the basement so I rush from the bed to the bathroom upstairs, and when I pull down my underwear I see they are streaked with blood. I sit on the toilet, knowing that "it" is coming, and I think about what my boyfriend's parents said, how what is coming from inside me and into the toilet, what is now a bloody, pulpy mess, could've been a bouncing bundle of joy, could've been the first female president or a prodigy or someone's husband or wife, is now just dead tissue, and I cry. I cry and cry. I can't describe the feeling of it, beyond the excruciating pain and the strangeness of something so heavy and blessed with such potential leaving my pelvis, and I won't bother to; the only thing I can say is that even in the present, three years later, it can still make me sad.
After a few more trips up and down the stairs, it gets to be like a regular period, and my boyfriend has to leave for work; he is my lifeline, a life preserver in the middle of this desolate ocean, and I am sure that he is equal parts sad and happy to go, while I am desperate for him to stay. Still, I understand his commitments and I know he hates to see me in pain. Later, my mother hugs me, and I hug her back, crying, knowing she doesn't understand because in her desperation to save me, and to give me a future, she alienated me from the only thing I needed at the time; support. I know then, even as I cry in her embrace and breathe in her coffee and cigarette fueled feminine scent, that it will be a long time before I can forgive her for this. I wonder then if I ever will.
