Our Punishment

         

 Their eyes were the worst.  Staring, judging, taunting, rolling.  Condemning with every raised eyebrow.  As if they knew what it felt like.

       The circumstances under which I found myself that year were what most people would call typical.  I fell in love.  What more do you want?  It didn’t matter that he was five years older than me.  It didn’t matter that my parents didn’t approve.  It didn’t matter that everyone stared.  I saw none of it.  Love is blind, isn’t that what they say?  And in my case, it was true.  Like a blindfolded sheep being lead to the slaughter, I would have let him guide me to the ends of the earth.  And in that room, it sure felt like the end.

       The teacher called for our attention and ordered us to our seats, but I could still feel their eyes.  They knew.  Everyone knew.  You can’t honestly expect to hold such a secret in a high school full of teenagers just dying for their next gossip victim, like vultures circling over a creature struggling for its last breath.

       I felt a wave of nausea and forced my eyes shut.  Clenching my jaw and holding back tears, I gripped my pencil tightly in hopes of some much needed security.  I hadn’t even told my mother yet, and they all knew.

      Of course, I said goodbye to my love as soon as the words, “I’m pregnant,” came blurting out of my mouth.  I had known for awhile, but didn’t know how I could possibly tell him.  Now, I wish I had kept my mouth closed.  But how long could I expect to withhold such information?  A month?  Two months?  Maybe even five?  Eventually, he would have figured it out, and left just as quickly and without words.  I’m better off.

      I keep telling myself that, like I might start to believe it someday.  It doesn’t stop me from feeling as though half of me is missing.  Like a head, or an arm.  Or worse.  A torso.  He was never worth my while, but once again, love is blind.

     The sick feeling in my stomach kept building.  Why me?  I closed my eyes again and lost control and let a solitary tear creep down my cheek.  I was alone, completely and utterly.  The world had isolated me entirely because I broke a fundamental, yet unwritten rule—sixteen year olds do not get pregnant.

     So this is my punishment.  I will forever walk around with a marred reputation, a tainted and imperfect soul, known never as the girl who gets good grades, or is the star athlete, but as the one who traded her flower for a child.  I will be condemned by my peers not because I am carrying a child, but because I am sixteen and carrying one.  This child, who would otherwise be called a miracle, is now labeled a mistake due simply to the circumstances—to timing.          

     This is not just my punishment.  It is ours.