"CRY" by Sarah Ryniker

STORY LAST UPDATED ON 20/12/2002

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This story has a high sexual content.

Cry Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Epilogue

CHAPTER EIGHT: COPING

As much as I hated to do so, I went into work three days later. I was still feeling like a train had run smack into me at a thousand miles an hour. My body and soul both felt it. I felt like I wasn't part of my own body anymore. I was just living to live.
    Francine and I now had an even shakier relationship. I could tell that what I had done had affected her in a way that she'd remember for the rest of her life. Yet I couldn't understand why she was avoiding me so much. She would hardly even look in my direction.
    I wanted to know why, but I knew that asking her would bring up what had just happened. I had wanted to forget so badly, yet every time I had a split second to think, I would think about it. It made it to where I could hardly function; yet I did anyway.
    I prayed to God every day for forgiveness. I was sure that he'd never forgive me, however. I was a lost cause. I had done the most unforgivable things in a short period of time. How could anyone forgive me, if I couldn't even forgive myself? I was lost to God as much as I was lost to the world and to myself.
    Mother and I were even farther apart than we had been before. There was a huge, empty space between us. We were two different people living in the same house, simply circling around one another, hardly noticing that the other even existed. She had gone into her own world. I knew she knew what was going on in my life, and the lack of respect that she now had for me made her treat me as if I wasn't even there. It hurt, but I understood and ignored it for the better part of the time.
    Life was something that really didn't exist to me any longer. I was, as I have said, somewhere else. My body simply lived on its own survival instincts. My soul had been ripped from me the moment I had made the decision to go through with the abortion, even though I knew what they were going to do.
    Landon began to try once again to have sex with me. I instantly pushed him away. I was more disgusted with sex now than I had been before. I feared never being normal again because of this overwhelming feeling of guilt and disgust. I felt guilty because I'd killed a child, my child. I felt disgusted because it was partially my fault that I had got pregnant. I hadn't lived up to the responsibility of what that caused, and now I was a murderer. And a big part of it all was his fault.
    After several times of pushing him away and yelling no, Landon fired me. I didn't honestly care. I didn't want to have anything to do with being an object of lust any longer. I felt none of the power I had at first, now. I felt like I was a disgusting human begin who didn't really need to live. And the men's gawking also made me feel very gross. I rejected any offers to go out with me, and I nearly had a mental breakdown if anyone of the male gender touched me. I had become a sort of circus freak, and I didn't know how to cope with it.
    I found a job at a grocery store fairly quickly. Why I hadn't got the job before, I didn't understand at first. I had applied here when first looking for a job. My boss's excuse was that I'd had no experience before and now I did. I found out later that he simply liked where I had got my experience, and had plans to get into my pants. He was mighty disappointed when I refused him several times, and became extremely rude to me. But he never fired me.
    I didn't make nearly as much money as before, and finally urged Mother into getting a job. It took awhile but she finally relented, her fear of going "back there" was enough to put her into first gear. I wasn't making enough and when the electricity was shut off, it only took the one time before she was working hard at the very same grocery store as me.
    Even working in the same place didn't fix Mother's and my relationship. I could see that she wanted to ask; I could see that she was wondering why. But she chose to stick her head in the sand and ignore it all. I knew that she didn't want to know the truth about her only child. I knew it would kill any mother to find out everything that I had done within the past year.
    I was trying an extreme amount to cope with everything. When a month had passed, I finally got an immense urge to speak to someone about it. Yet nobody was speaking to me. I hadn't even seen Francine in months and Mother didn't want to hear it. But I needed to get it out of me, away from me. I needed to feel clean again, and I felt that the only way I ever could was to simply tell somebody about what I had done.
    That's when I started to go to the library to use the Internet. I began my search for women who had gone through or who were going through what I was. I felt that they would understand. I was hoping, desperately hoping, to find a group of women who'd had abortions and had been tortured souls ever since. I hadn't expected to find much, but what I did find made me sigh with relief.
    There was a group in Las Vegas, Nevada. A young woman by the name of Alyssa Berttenne had started the group. Now there were twenty women involved, and counting. She had been nineteen years old when she aborted her accident child, and had regretted every minute of it. In need of some help, she began a group for women to help one another cope, and talk about why they had done what they had done. However, you had to be there to be in the group.
    What made me decide to go through with moving to Nevada was beyond me. But I felt the need to go. I needed to start my life somewhere else. I just wasn't cutting it here. People who knew me here would never see me as anything but a child. And the two people that I cared about most couldn't stand to look at me.
    I decided to tell Francine first. It would be easier to explain to her. And maybe, I thought, someday she could forgive me. I knew that's why she wouldn't talk to me. She was having a hard time forgiving me for doing something that she was so against. I understood why, now. But it hadn't taken Francine to abort her own child to be so against it. Or so I thought.
    I made my way home from the library to Francine's small cottage in the car that I had got only two months earlier. Her cottage was only a mile away from the club. As I passed the club, I held my breath. The place held so many horrible memories for me. Even passing quickly by it made me feel nauseated. I felt as if I were suffocating. The feeling was incredibly frightening.
    I drove through the forest of trees, thinking about what I had to get into order before leaving. I knew that my decision was very rash. I hardly knew how to be on my own. But I also knew that the best thing for me was to leave. I had already decided to start school once I got out there. To be what, I hadn't yet decided. But I knew that it was a must.
    When I drove up the driveway to her home and parked along the house, my palms grew sweaty. It would be the first time I had spoken a word about the abortion since it had happened. And reliving it was something I had promised never to do. But I knew talking about it just a little bit would help the agonising pain pumping through my veins every time I thought about it. It was something I just had to get out of my system. I needed just some small release. I felt like chains of guilt bound me.
    When I finally got out of the car, I made my way up the porch, hoping that she was there. I knocked softly at first and then harder when she didn't answer. When she got to the door, she seemed shocked to see me. Her eyes even darkened a bit at the sight of me.
    "Look, Francine, I know you don't want to see me, but I need to talk to you," I began, hoping that she wouldn't turn me away.
    She thought for a moment, swallowed as if swallowing her pride, and nodded. "Come on in," she said, stepping back to allow me entrance. "Do you want anything?" she asked as she walked ahead of me, tying the plaid robe that she was wearing. Her hair was tossed up onto her head and she appeared to have just got up, which she confirmed as if reading my mind. "I just got up and made some coffee if you'd like some."
    I shook my head. "No, thank you anyway."
    She sat down at the table and I quickly followed her lead. She began to sip at the coffee she had poured herself before my arrival. She peered over the top of her mug at me. Finally, she set the mug down and sighed. "This is about the abortion, isn't it?"
    "Yes. And I need to tell you that I need to move on. One of my ways of doing that is discussing things with you and apologising for ruining our friendship by doing something that you were so against," I began.
    "Oh, sweetie, you don't think that I've been avoiding you because of my being against abortion do you?" She seemed shocked, and her words shocked me.
    "Well, yes, I had assumed so. Why else would you avoid me?" I wrinkled my brow in confusion.
    She shook her head and looked away. "Because it brings back too many memories," she whispered, almost too soft for my ears.
    "What do you mean?" My heart began to make its familiar pound of anticipation.
    "Remember when I told you that when you were done playing games that I had a story to tell you?" She waited for my nod of remembrance before going on. "Well," she started with a deep breath, letting her shoulders drop, "it's about Landon and the things you were going through. He did it to me, too, Cry. I became his mistress, so to speak."
    My mouth dropped. "Did he really threaten you and everything?"
    "Yes, and the threats became worse and worse. It went from me losing my job to me losing my life. I, unlike you, however, simply chose to wait until he got bored with me. Which he finally did.
    "Not before he got me pregnant, however. You see, Landon chooses not to use protection, and I never thought to get on birth control. I became pregnant and, like you, I was at a complete loss as of what to do."
    "So I aborted the baby. I went through the depression. I became a completely different person. I became bitter and mean. I hated the world. The thing is, Cry, it wasn't long before you got there that this happened. And he didn't get bored with me until you arrived. I was partially relieved by your arrival, until I got to know you. I then became worried, especially when I realised what was going on. It was happening all over again." She ended her story with a sigh. Tears were in her eyes, yet she never let them drop.
    "Did you ever begin to just enjoy it?" I asked nervously. I felt ashamed even as I asked, but I needed to know if I was normal or not.
    Her cheeks flushed red before she nodded. "I guess you just have to after awhile, or you go crazy."
    I nodded my understanding. "I also came to tell you that I am moving away to Nevada."
    Her eyes widened. "Really? Why?"
    "There is a group of women there that gather together to talk about what possessed them to abort their children. I need that right now. I think it would be a good idea for me to go and start my life some place else, anyway." I felt somewhat relieved, though, after hearing that I wasn't the only one.
    "That is a good idea" was all she said. We said our good-byes and she walked me to the door. I didn't look back as I left her standing there, watching me leave. I might see her again, I might not, I thought to myself. But whatever happened, I wanted to remember parting with her the way I had. We were two souls who had reached each other on a sickly similar level. I would forever be connected to her and would always be there for her. And I knew that she felt the same way.
    That night, I chose to talk to Mother and tell her what had happened. The truth needed to be revealed to her. She needed to know what was going on and why our blossoming relationship had taken a nosedive into Hell. So as I left Francine's house, I made the decision to tell her about it that night.
    I approached Mother that night after dinner. She sat on the sofa watching television. I walked up and sat beside her. Then I leaned against her and wrapped my arms around her waist. "I need to talk to you, Mother."
    She put her arms around me and hugged me tightly. "I know you do, Cry. I've been waiting for you to finally do so."
    So I began to tell her, starting with the job I had found. She listened to me, without asking questions. She nodded a few times, but her eyes never revealed anything of what she was feeling. I wanted so much to know what was going on in her head, but she never let on to it. I suppose that was a good thing, for I kept going until it was over.
    "So I got an abortion, Mother. And it was the most horrible thing for me to ever do and I am so sorry about it!" I was crying by this time. I hadn't gone through it all until that moment and it left a blazing, burning fire of pain running throughout my body.
    "Only God can forgive you for that, Cry. And maybe someday, if you're good enough and sorry enough, he will." That's all she would say to me. I told her my plans for going to Nevada and she simply said, "Good for you."
    It was the last thing I ever said to Mother. I found her the next day with her wrists slit and hanging from the shower curtain pole. It was a grotesque and horrifying scene, one that I will never forget. How and why she did it, I didn't know. I just prayed that maybe someday I would understand why she had done it.
    So the apartment was now empty. I moved out into a smaller, temporary studio until I would move to Nevada. It was a lonely existence, more so than it had been before. I truly had nobody now. And the loneliness was the worst at nights when I would think about things. It was only so horrible because I could remember a single good thing in my life. Everything had always been lonely for me. And, for so long, that had been my own fault.

Cry Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Epilogue

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