original fiction: elective
elective
{PG-13, original fiction, 512 words: general.}
Doctor’s voices are always kind, but their hands are always cold. Lessons it seems no one has learned from.
“I fucked up, and I’m sorry-“
- is what you should say, what you want to say - but you don’t.
It’s that way with a lot of things.
You tap the second test against the counter-top: outside the bathroom, you hear your sister crashing about nosily in the kitchen; making one of those epic meals she never lets you touch.
To be sure, you re-read the instructions, carefully; but it’s been three months already and there’s a tight feeling in your stomach and a burning in the back of your throat, and you know, you know it’s right.
Your sister ignores you pointedly after you exit the bathroom, save to shoot you an angry look when she peeks at the mess you’ve left behind in there (such a fucking martyr, she doesn’t have to clean it up).
Your head is completely blank and you don’t know what to do, or who to tell; you dress almost mechanically, and are out the door in minutes- and by ten in the evening you’re staring at the surface of your vodka and orange, and for some reason, you just can’t cry.
You frown over the cost - your boyfriend may have paid half, if he knew, but he doesn’t and the one here standing beside you is your mother, and she’s the one who’ll foot the bill. She’s probably used to bailing you out, by now: but it doesn’t get any easier.
She’d barely even lectured you at all after you told her, just practical questions (how long and if you’ve prepared) then practical advice (where to go, what to do) - almost resigned, you know, and you feel kinda sorry for her. Even though you’ve got no right, even though the reason she feels this way now and the reason she’s felt this way so often before is entirely your fault and you should have stopped all this long ago.
It’s late and the lights in the waiting room sting your eyes; you want to reach out and hold your mother’s hand like you used to when you were five, and you were just a little brattish and it was all almost forgivable.
She leafs slowly through the National Geographic; the sound is loud against the white of the walls.
The barrier that’s there, it’s one you built yourself.
Doctor’s voices are always kind, but their hands are always cold.
You spend the entire time staring hard at the ceiling, trying to think of anything but this, trying not to pay attention (it’s easier not to remember than it is to forget). You hate, you hate fluorescent lights, you hate how you can see everything, you hate how bright it is.
The procedure is short but you feel and watch every second; the machine sounds so weird, and you really, really want to throw up.
“Do you want to know the sex?” the attendant asks, afterward.
The drive back is characteristically quiet; your mother says a few soft sentences as you enter the car, and when you don’t respond the conversation dies.
Street lights on the side of the road flash by. Your eyes blur with tears, and the lights look a little like stars, that way.
{PG-13, original fiction, 512 words: general.}
Doctor’s voices are always kind, but their hands are always cold. Lessons it seems no one has learned from.
“I fucked up, and I’m sorry-“
- is what you should say, what you want to say - but you don’t.
It’s that way with a lot of things.
You tap the second test against the counter-top: outside the bathroom, you hear your sister crashing about nosily in the kitchen; making one of those epic meals she never lets you touch.
To be sure, you re-read the instructions, carefully; but it’s been three months already and there’s a tight feeling in your stomach and a burning in the back of your throat, and you know, you know it’s right.
Your sister ignores you pointedly after you exit the bathroom, save to shoot you an angry look when she peeks at the mess you’ve left behind in there (such a fucking martyr, she doesn’t have to clean it up).
Your head is completely blank and you don’t know what to do, or who to tell; you dress almost mechanically, and are out the door in minutes- and by ten in the evening you’re staring at the surface of your vodka and orange, and for some reason, you just can’t cry.
You frown over the cost - your boyfriend may have paid half, if he knew, but he doesn’t and the one here standing beside you is your mother, and she’s the one who’ll foot the bill. She’s probably used to bailing you out, by now: but it doesn’t get any easier.
She’d barely even lectured you at all after you told her, just practical questions (how long and if you’ve prepared) then practical advice (where to go, what to do) - almost resigned, you know, and you feel kinda sorry for her. Even though you’ve got no right, even though the reason she feels this way now and the reason she’s felt this way so often before is entirely your fault and you should have stopped all this long ago.
It’s late and the lights in the waiting room sting your eyes; you want to reach out and hold your mother’s hand like you used to when you were five, and you were just a little brattish and it was all almost forgivable.
She leafs slowly through the National Geographic; the sound is loud against the white of the walls.
The barrier that’s there, it’s one you built yourself.
Doctor’s voices are always kind, but their hands are always cold.
You spend the entire time staring hard at the ceiling, trying to think of anything but this, trying not to pay attention (it’s easier not to remember than it is to forget). You hate, you hate fluorescent lights, you hate how you can see everything, you hate how bright it is.
The procedure is short but you feel and watch every second; the machine sounds so weird, and you really, really want to throw up.
“Do you want to know the sex?” the attendant asks, afterward.
The drive back is characteristically quiet; your mother says a few soft sentences as you enter the car, and when you don’t respond the conversation dies.
Street lights on the side of the road flash by. Your eyes blur with tears, and the lights look a little like stars, that way.