I wanted Bobby. I needed him with me. “I’m sorry...confidentiality.. protects the others... blah blah blah.” I didn’t give a shit about procedures and practices. I wanted someone who loved me to hold my hand while the fetus got sucked out of me. I needed him there. “We’ll be done in no time, and you’ll be able to leave.” After a blood test, I was given a pile of paper clothing to change into in a small locker room. I cried as I slid the paper slippers on my feet. I looked in the mirror as I put the paper haircap on my head. Getting dressed for my abortion. The noise my feet made as I padded into the hallway was humiliating, and I felt stupid. I sat in a room of girls like me, wrapped in paper, with sterile white sheets on our laps. Waiting our turn, seated in cold plastic chairs, watching TV or looking at the floor. “Carmen?” It was my turn. I followed the nurse into the operating room and began to cry again. This time I shook and sobbed and couldn’t control myself as I climbed onto the table. “Are you gonna be okay?” She asked me and she meant it. I could see the care in her eyes, and I said yes, or probably just nodded, as she prepped me for surgery. I cried loudly, hot tears dripping off my face and onto the paper covered table. I’m so scared, I thought. Or maybe I said it out loud. I want Bobby. I want my mom. The doctor entered the room and introduced himself to me, shaking my hand in an awkward gesture. Pleased to meet you, doctor. You been aborting long? I couldn’t stopped crying as his speculum entered me, I crawled backwards on the table, sobbing uncontrollably, saying “No,” as if I were being forced against my will. “You have to stay still, Carmen. You have to calm down.” The nurse told me. “Take deep breaths; relax.” I couldn’t take deep breaths, I couldn’t even breathe. All I could do is cry and wriggle. I broke the stirrup. She had to hold my leg. The procedure was taking place, and I didn’t even realize it. I was so distraught and upset. I could hear the machine, but could feel nothing as I cried loudly, and these words ran through my mind, again and again, rhythmically, like a poem: Ripped away. Ripped out of me. The vacuum was turned off. “It’s over.” She said. She held my hand. “It’s over?” I asked, half-disbelieving. “It’s done.” She looked at me with eyes that knew, and I felt she was my sister in moment, my sister in experience. I remember thinking, in what felt like knowing, that she had been where I had been once. The doctor then told me something I did not need to know. “The specimen” he called it “was measured at 9 to 12 weeks in development.” My “specimen” was older, and more developed than I had thought it to be. A miscalculation? A fake period? I wondered. How much guiltier did that make me, then, of murder?

This is what we needed to do; this was the best thing.

I continued to cry as I moved into the wheelchair, and as I was wheeled into the recovery room, I kept my face in my hands, I saw nothing but blackness, and felt nothing but misery. The cramps were excruciating. I lay in recovery with my knees up to alleviate the pain. A different nurse peeked into my curtained section and scolded me to keep my legs down. You bitch. I thought I fucking hate you so much. If you pop your ugly face in here again, I’ll make such a scene, all the other recovering women will be crying by the time I’m done” My knees went back up in rebellion, and because it helped my cramps. I dare you, bitch, I thought I tried to rest, and stop crying, and slowly felt myself becoming myself again. I laid and waited until they decided I could sit up. There were five or six of us in recliners. Five or six of us who had just been through hell. Sisters. But none of them would look at me, or at each other. We all chose the immediate area in front of us to fix our stares, as we sipped our complementary tea or lemonade. Saltines or graham crackers, I had to eat something, so I nibbled on a graham. Another girl with very long, beautiful hair was coming out of her drugged unconsciousness. You lucky bitch, I thought. You got to sleep through it, for an extra $150. She sat up in her bed and her paper smock came open and I saw her breast and felt embarrassed for her. Sneaking glances at the others, I wondered who they were, and why they had decided, like me, to experience this horror, instead of having their babies. How desperate were their situations? More desperate than mine? Or less? And why the hell won’t anyone look at anyone? I wanted so badly to make eye contact with someone, to connect with one of them, to give and receive comfort, within her knowing eyes. The nurses decided I was ready to go, so I walked back to the locker room,feeling weak and tired, took the paper abortion costume off and threw it away. Putting my clothes back on, I felt a slight sense of relief. I am not pregnant anymore; it’s over. I walked back into the waiting room. Bobby jumped to his feet and took me into his arms, and there I cried again. He helped me with my coat as we went outside. I made him check to make sure the protesters were gone. I was not strong enough to see them, or have them see me, weak and empty; fuel for their zealous fire. Thank god they were gone. In the car, he held me some more and we drove in silence, both of us trying so hard to believe.

This is what we needed to do; this was the right thing.