I sat on the edge of my bed, holding the pregnancy test in one hand and the weight of my future in the other.
Even now, after Nurse Collins confirmed it… part of me still hoped it was a mistake. That maybe she read the results wrong. That maybe, if I closed my eyes hard enough, I could wake up in a world where that night never happened.
But every time I blinked, the truth stayed.
Aunt Grace had been… gentle. Kinder than I deserved. She didn't yell or question. She just held me. That scared me more than anger would have. It meant she understood too much. Felt too deeply.
She hadn't asked who. Not yet. Talia was the only one I told. I didn't even say it out loud, just let the words fall apart in her hands like broken glass. She cried with me. Didn't ask anything. Just said, "I believe you."
Now the house felt like a vacuum. Quiet. Too quiet. Like even the walls were holding their breath.
I tried journaling. Writing always helped before. But now the words refused to come. My pen hovered over the page, heavy with the things I wasn't ready to say.
"I feel… like I've been erased."
That's all I wrote before closing the notebook.
My body didn't feel like mine anymore. I avoided mirrors. I avoided tight clothes. I avoided myself.
Aunt Grace knocked gently that evening. "I made soup?"
"I'm not hungry." She paused. "Do you want company?"
I didn't know how to say yes. I didn't know how to say no either. So I just sat there in silence until I heard her footsteps retreat.
I wasn't mad at her. I was just... drowning. Quietly. The next morning, I opened my window and let the light in, not because I was ready, but because I wanted to remember what breathing felt like. Talia texted me twice that morning.
"You up?
"Wanna walk to school together?"
I stared at the screen for a full minute. The idea of school made my stomach twist, but Talia… Talia was different. Safe.
I typed:
"Not going. Staying home."
Three dots appeared, then stopped. Then again.
Then finally...
"I can skip too. Come over?
I hesitated. Before I could respond, she sent another.
"You don't have to talk. We can just sit."
That did it. I needed someone who wouldn't ask me to explain. Someone who didn't need the whole story to understand the weight of silence.
"Okay. Door's open."
Ten minutes later, she walked into my room like she always had no knocking, no caution just Talia being Talia.
She was in her oversized hoodie and ripped jeans, hair tied in a messy bun. She didn't say hi. Just dropped beside me on the bed and leaned her head against mine.
We sat like that for a while. Breathing the same air. Sharing the same heaviness.
Then, softly, she whispered, "I Googled the symptoms of early pregnancy... just so I'd know how to help."
I let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You're ridiculous."
"I know." She smiled a little. "You're gonna feel a lot of things, Ava. Angry. Sad. Empty. Some days you'll feel all of them at once. That doesn't make you broken."
I didn't respond. I didn't need to. My tears did it for me.
Talia didn't flinch. She handed me a tissue. "Just promise me something?"
I looked at her. "Don't disappear." That got me.
Because that's exactly what I'd been doing vanishing, slowly, day by day. Avoiding school, dodging mirrors, walking like a ghost in my own skin.
"I'm trying," I whispered.
And for the first time in days… I meant it.
Later that night, Aunt Grace came to check on me. I expected her usual gentle knock, but this time, she walked in without one, her arms full of brochures and a hesitant look on her face.
"What's that?" I asked, instantly guarded.
"I'm not here to force anything," she said, sitting down slowly. "But I talked to someone. A counselor. She works with girls… who've gone through something like this."
I looked at the stack. Counseling. Trauma support. Safe spaces. Anonymous helplines.
"I can't talk to a stranger," I said flatly.
"You don't have to," she replied. "Just… think about it."
I didn't say yes. But I didn't say no either.
When she left, I sat with the papers. Just stared at them. Then for the first time I said it out loud.
To no one. To myself. "I was raped."
The words hung there, sharp and soft and terrifying. But real. And somehow… saying it didn't kill me.
The words drifted out of me like a secret escaping the shadows. I didn't cry. I didn't even blink. I just let them settle into the air around me, letting them be true for once, not just in my body, but outside it too.
I stayed like that for a long time.
Eventually, I reached for my phone.
Talia's contact stared back at me.
My fingers hovered.
I didn't want to say it again. But I needed to. I needed someone else to carry this weight, even just a little. I hit the call button. She picked up on the third ring. "Ava?"
"I don't want to keep it," I whispered.
There was silence.
"You don't have to say anything," I added quickly. "I just… I needed to say it out loud to someone who knows."
Talia's voice was gentle. "Are you sure?"
"No," I said. "But I can't look at myself. I can't feel it growing. It's not supposed to be there, Talia. None of this is."
"Grace wants me to see a therapist she thinks am going nuts, or depressed, all this sounds ridiculous"
"Ava..." she said. "I think seeing a therapist is not a bad idea considering your situation"
"so you think am crazy too, right" my emotions were beginning to get the better of me.
"No! Ava I don't think you're Crazy, I believe you're strong. really strong cause if something like this had happened to me I wouldn't know how to react".
There was a pause. "Look. We'll figure this out. Together okay." I nodded, though she couldn't see it. "I haven't told Aunt Grace. I don't think I can."
Just then, the wooden floor creaked outside my room. I froze.
The door stood ajar, not fully open, not fully closed. Just enough.
"Ava?" Aunt Grace's voice came quietly through.