DESPERATE ELLA
1736 Words
“Desperate Ella. Desperate, pregnant Ella.” People were starting to call me.
They’d move out of the way when I passed, and if I had to touch someone, they’d jump and scream like the pregnancy was contagious.
Breathing already felt painful, like I didn’t deserve the air that went in and out of my lungs. I dragged my feet to class, back home, and back to school.
My father didn’t notice.
He never did.
But he mentioned the “dead raccoon smell”, and noticed the fact that the kitchen knife went missing.
He never noticed where it went.
I sat on the edge of my bed that night with it balanced across my wrist. The house was quiet, save for the sound of the TV bleeding through the walls.
My hands were shaking so badly the blade rattled.
The metal cold when I pressed it to my wrist, so cold it burned.
I waited for the tears.
It didn’t come.
Just one slice, that was all I could manage. A shallow line. A thin red bead welled up against my pale skin, slow, almost like it was mocking me.
A broken sound crawled out of my chest before I could stop it. I couldn’t even kill myself right.
I dropped the knife, it hit the floor with a soft clatter that sounded too loud in the silence.
Dad never came to check on me.
Wrapping my wrist in toilet paper, and pulled on the same oversized sweater I’d been wearing for weeks, hiding the stain, the failure, and myself.
It was the first of many attempts.
School.
Home.
Don’t stop.
Don’t think.
You don’t deserve it.
Mark never called.
He never even glanced my way in class, or in the hallways, he was doing a good job pretending I didn’t exist.
It didn’t make sense that I was the only one stuck.
That I couldn’t move on.
That every time I looked at him, her hand on the crook of his elbow, laughing at a joke he told, my stomach twisted into something ugly.
He doesn’t know I lost our child.
He didn’t even acknowledge our child.
Yet…
It was P.E again.
No more lies about being sick again. Ms. Miles had given her final warning.
And if I wanted to graduate and disappear from this town, I had to pass.
In the locker room, I waited until everyone left.
Metal doors slammed. Laughter faded. Silence followed.
“Did you see Pregnant Ella? Ms. Miles says she’d have to fail her if she skipped again. She won’t be able to hide her pregnancy anymore.” One girl laughs with her friend as she leaves the locker room.
I couldn’t handle it.
I didn’t care if I got failed.
So I bailed.
That night, in bed, right where I lost the last line of hope. I started to think.
Everything went haywire after I started having those weird pregnancy symptoms… and then Archer. What was he doing in that particular room at that particular time??
Everything played over and over in my head.
It started to look suspicious, like someone had planned everything out and I played right into their hands.
The next day I set off to find Archer, he had the answers to my questions.
We didn’t share the same classes, and the only place I knew he would be was the boys locker room.
Pushing the boys’ locker room door open, two naked boys scramble to cover themselves.
“What the f**k, Ella? This is the boys locker room.” Someone yelled.
My eyes didn’t linger, they searched.
Archer stood frozen near a bench, hands flying up to shield himself.
“Why were you there?” my voice comes out shaky, but my resolve is firm.
“What the hell are you talking about? Can you leave?? This is the boys..”
“Why were you there Archer? In hat hotel room. At that exact time?” my voice gets stronger with every word.
And so is the suspicion in my heart.
“You set me up.”I whisper,
God.
If I wasn’t so weak minded, I would have seen this from the very beginning.
Archer hesitates, eyes going everywhere, trying to preserve his reputation even now. When he had no problem telling everyone about how I had been all over him.
“Why were you there, Archer?” I take a step forward, fist balled by my sides.
He grits his teeth and then sighs.
“Can I at least wear a shirt??”
From the look in my eye, he knows it’s not the time, and he raises both hands in surrender.
“Someone and I use that room regularly. We already paid in advance for that particular room, and so I just… I was surprised to see you too.”
“Who?”
He gives me a look,
“A gentleman never tells.”
“You had no problem telling people I was all over you?”
He winces, at least he has the decency to look ashamed. Too bad I don’t need that from him.
“She doesn’t go here. But you can come with me to ask her for yourself.”
She doesn’t go here??
I just moved to this town right before Mark and I got together, I don’t have any friends, or enemies, I rarely leave the house. I don’t have any enemies that would want to do this to me.
But Mark might.
I mean he is one of the best players on the team, so many people would want his spot on the team.
“I want to meet her.”
Archer sighs.
“Is there any point?”
“Are you sorry for the rumors you started??”
“Fine, wait by my truck after school.”
It’s my turn to hesitate. If Mark sees us together, he would never believe that we really have nothing to do with each other.
“No, not in front of school. At the intersection down the road.”
He raises a brow at me I don’t give him the chance to say anything else, I start to leave the locker room when he calls my name.
“Ella?”
I turn.
He glances at my stomach. Instinctively I wrap my arm around it.
“About Mark… do you have to do all this for him?”
“Who else would I do it for… I love him.” My admission is quiet, but it gets a reaction out of him, pity flickers across his face.
I don’t stay to decipher it.
When I put all this misunderstanding behind us, Mark and I will get back together.
In Archer’s truck, my stomach hurt, everything hurt.
But I have to put everything back… I have to make Mark acknowledge his child, our child.
Peggy is her name.
Archer’s secret hook-up partner.
She glares at him for a while.
“I apologize I had him tell me.”
She sighs, running her fingers through her hair.
“It’s fine. He already ran his mouth once at that party when he was drunk. So it’s not like you’re the first to know.”
Other people knew about their spot??
“Who was in attendance to this party?”
They glance at each other.
“Pretty much everyone? But I left early after that, so just the owner of the house, the people who helped set up.”
“And who were these people?”
Another glance between themselves, Archer looks away. Peggy answers,
“It was Matilda’s house, and her friends helped set up. Mark wasn’t there, since he was meeting scouts. I remember since Archer had another reason to double down on the alcohol.”
Matilda.
The name hit once. Then again.
Matilda.
Mark’s girlfriend.
The air shifted.
My stomach tightened, slow and ugly, like something inside me had began to turn over.
Something dawns on me… the heat started after I had drank the mango juice…everything started when I drank the juice.
“Do you guys keep snacks there in the room??”
They share a glance, and this time they are slightly amused.
“Did you see the room?? Who goes there to eat??”
Only naive Ella would go to a hotel room expecting food.
The heat spread through me before it reached my chest.
Not panic.
Certainty.
The taste came back to me so vividly it made me gag. My boddy wasn’t betraying me. It wasn’t something randome.
Someone had done this.
Mark! Mark has to know what his girlfriend is up to.
She… she killed our child!
Without another word, I turn around, leaving Peggy and Archer there, they call me but I don’t stop running.
I am going as fast as I can, pushing my body to move faster, and faster, so i can save the man I love.
His car is in his driveway.
My lungs are on fire, gulps and gulps of air do nothing to soothe me.
She could be inside…. what do I do then??
A laugh comes from inside, it’s loud, a stark contrast to Matilda’s, and not Mark’s boisterous laugh.
He’s with his friends, good. We can discuss then.
My finger on the doorbell, I’m about to push when I hear my name from inside.
“Bro, what’s wrong with Ella?? I’ve seen those pictures, and maybe the baby would ruin it, but that’s not so bad.” the friend says, laughing.
“I mean yeah. But the girl is weird. How long would I date someone who talks to paintings??” he says with a laugh.
He called it a quirk, a cute one. He knew the names I called all my paintings.
“Like actually talk to them? Like they were people?”
Mark agrees and they fall into another round of laughter.
“I am so glad Archer knocked her up, how else do I break up with someone who actually applied to the same colleges I did, simply because I was going there??”
Something inside me went completely silent.
No screaming.
No breaking.
Just quiet.
My feet move without my permission.
But I find Archer, he and Peggy startle when they see me return.
My voice is void of emotion when I ask him.
“Archer,” I ask quietly, “how badly do you want Mark’s life?”
- Writer
