Buried Abomination
1240 Words
Izzy had secrets as well.
Quiet, crouching things that lived in her throat and only stirred when the lights went out. They weren’t secrets because they were shameful. They were secrets because no one had ever asked the kind of questions that would unearth them.
Morning finally arrived like mercy she didn’t believe in. It was a miracle she’d made it through the night.
Izzy rose from the porch slowly, as if lifting a body that didn’t want to belong to her anymore. Her legs were even more numb now, but they carried her off the wet floor, down the gravel driveway, and onto the open road. Still soaked. Still bleeding somewhere inside. She walked. And with every step, the thoughts came, uninvited and unrelenting.
They whispered and echoed and screamed: ”YOU LET IT HAPPEN.”
It started with a name. Just one.
”Ella.”
Maxwell had said it first like it was an afterthought. Then again, like the name tasted better the second time. Then again, like it belonged to his mouth. Izzy noticed. She always noticed. She tucked the observations into the corners of her chest like lint.
“Ella doesn’t eat red meat. Ella prefers almond milk. Ella’s car broke down, I had to drop her off.”
Then came the elaborate performances.
“I couldn’t call all week, Ella’s sick.
”Ella knows someone at the firm I’m pitching to, don’t ruin this for me.”
”Don’t come over tonight, I’m exhausted. Tell your aunt I said hi.”
Ella became a ghost haunting everything Max used to offer Izzy.
He laughed when he said her name. That laugh. The full one. The one Izzy used to think was only reserved for her.
The sparkle that used to flicker in his eyes when when she walked in the room now lit up for someone else. She had lost the key, and Ella had found the lock.
One evening, when her heart was a lit match begging for wind, Izzy tried to speak.
She sat beside Max, but he had already shifted galaxies.
“Why do you always ruin everything?” he barked, before she even finished the sentence.
“I told you there’s nothing going on. You’re insecure. Always making problems where there are none. Making mountains out of mole hills. No man wants a woman who doesn’t trust him.”
Then his voice dipped into something darker.
“Why is it someone else’s fault that you can’t make your man happy?
Didn’t your aunt teach yu anything at all?”
That one cut deeper.
She swallowed hard. The words inside her nearly choked on their way out.
“Max… I’m still in pain. From the trip. From everything.
You never even asked me how I felt. About… all of it.
You made a choice for me, and I, I’m not sure I’ve come back from it yet.”
After that cruel night seven months ago, Max didn’t stop, “You are no longer a virgin, and I have technically become your husband, it's just the formalities that are left, stop acting childish each time I attempt to make love to you, you are hurting me Izzy” He would often bark.
It went on for a while, the “love makings” that did not require her participation.
Four months earlier to the trip, she had missed her period. Her bras fit tighter. She fell asleep during classes. Her body didn’t feel like her own.
Max noticed. Of course he did.
He assured her there would figure it out together, but that was when Ella suddenly came into the picture.
“Get dressed.” He said one morning.
“Where are we going?” Izzy asked.
“Izzy. I said get dressed.” He commanded.
The car ride was silent. The silence wasn’t new, but it was heavier than before.
She didn’t know where they were going until the smell hit her. Burnt leaves. Bitter roots. The kind of place where time felt sticky.
She sat, watching Max whisper to the herb doctor, who didn’t once look her in the eye, asking him to rid her of “that abomination”.
She just kept hoping, hoping someone would say something. Hoping she would say something.
“Lie down, child,” the old man said.
Izzy obeyed.
Her throat tightened. Her legs were trembling.
The tears stayed just beneath the surface, begging for permission.
”Someone say something. Please. Ask me if I want this.”
But No one did. Not even her.
“Spread your legs wider, child. This might hurt.” The old man said, with an almost paternal affection.
Her legs were already wide. Already raised like offerings. Already positioned for something to be taken.
She could feel him stuffing the herbs in, thick and bitter, one after the other.
She swore his hand was elbow-deep, pressing the leaves like they were seeds and she was nothing more than soil.
If this was an abomination, why bury it so carefully?
She closed her eyes howling, and tried to think of anything else, but this thoughts lingered.
”What if it’s a girl?
What if her cry softens Max’s voice again? What if this baby is the love he forgot he had for me? What if it’s my only shot at being loved without needing to earn it?’
But no miracles came.
The bleeding began by dusk. It was fast. Violent. Too quiet.
“Push a little, child.” The doctor said,
pulling out something. Or someone.
Izzy didn’t ask. She couldn’t.
She bit her bottom lip so hard it split.
The pain was easier to control than her thoughts.
“She’ll need only soup. For now.
Kindly ensure it is hot and spicy, you can take her home.”
”Let’s get going, Wife” Max tenderly asked, stretching his hand to take hers.
Her heart flinched.
”Wife?” The word scraped against her ribs like a betrayal.
In the car ride back, he finally spoke.
“You know I love you, Izzy. I did this for us.”
“You’re young. I want to give you the wedding you always dreamed of. Then we’ll have kids, the right way, and make your family proud.”
She didn’t reply. Not once.
Not when he reached for her hand. Not when he kissed her forehead.
Not even when he said her name in that soft, rehearsed tone that used to melt her.
Only her silence answered him.
Only her silence and the ghost sitting in the back seat, the one she wasn’t allowed to grieve.
Why had he erased what might have been her miracle? The one thing that could have rooted her to this world and given her life some meaning.
Was it truly for Ella?
Or simply because he thought he could?
- Writer
