Three A.m.

• Jessica Repalust, Grade 12, Emmaus College
• Short Story
• 2015

Excellence Award in the 'The Write Track 2015' competition

He saw her lying down. It was almost three a.m. and he knew he should’ve been there hours ago. She was curled up almost. Hands under her pillow. Her legs brought half way up to her chest. He lied down behind her. Their legs locked, him holding her. He placed his left hand on her stomach. It lay there for almost a minute undisturbed when she then placed her hand on his. It was as if they were both trying to protect the tiny foetus that was buried inside. He knew he was ready to be a dad but he didn’t think she was ready to be a mum, despite stating differently. Even in college she had said she didn’t want kids when she was older: didn’t want to pass on those ‘genes of hers’.
They fell asleep like this but when he woke in the morning he discovered that he was alone. He got up and found her in the bathroom staring at her herself in the mirror. She had just came out of the shower - he could tell by her wet hair and the splashes of water shining on her skin under that bathroom’s fluorescent light. Vanessa was intently staring in the mirror. Like she was in some kind of trance. Staring like the body in front of her was foreign: something she had never seen before. Examining it, every inch. Her body looked the same to Eric but maybe he wasn’t observant like her. “You okay Vanessa?” Eric asked. She didn’t answer. She just continued to look in the mirror at herself. He imagined her tracing the outline of her body - specifically her stomach region - but his thoughts where interrupted when she looked at him in the mirror and replied with a ‘yes’ and a half smile. Although knowing her for so many years, however many years it was, Vanessa was still an enigma to him just as she was when they first met.
Today they were supposed to go for Vanessa’s 12 week ultra sound. Dr Robinston was a good doctor. Had known Eric’s family for years. They found out that they lost the baby. Vanessa appeared nonplussed but Eric could tell she was slightly relieved. Ward couldn’t help but suspect that both Dr Robinston and Vanessa were keeping a secret from him. Something they had arranged without his consent. At home, Eric confronted her and asked what had really happened. At first she denied but after so minutes she broke down in thundering tears and confessed. She had organised an abortion with Dr Robinston four weeks earlier. She didn’t want to have a baby. She wasn’t ready. Eric, bewildered that what he suspected to be true, grabbed his keys, walked out the front door, and slammed it - hard enough that the photo of them from their wedding day, which was sitting in a pasty white frame, dived to the floor, leaving a distinct crack on the glass between their two bodies.