She was sitting in line at the local clinic contemplating her life decisions to this point in her life, she should’ve known better than this. Her legs couldn’t sit still due to all the pent up anxiety from not knowing what to do.

“Olandelayo, next please!!!” the nurse shouted.

She jumped out of her seat and went to the nurse.

“Andeni wena, singakusiza ngani?”

She kept quiet for a while then cleared her throat and said: “Hhhm, I…I think I am pregnant I came to check…”

The nurses all looked at each other and laughed.

“What makes you say that?” one of the nurses asked, “When was the last time you had your period?”

Lungi hesitated before answering. “Sekuyisi khathi maye, two months,” she said bowing her head down.

The nurse didn’t say anything and got up and came back with a transparent glass and told her she must go pee in it and directed her to the toilet. She come back from the toilet holding the glass in her hands and gave it to the nurse.

They had checked her for other things as well but the pregnancy test had came back positive. To say she was devastated and scared was an understatement. Well she had taken three other pregnancy tests before this but she couldn’t fully trust them since she had bought them from the corner store for R10. The first two had came back negative and the other one was positive.

What was she going to do now cause she had tried talking to Tshepo but he had been ignoring her for weeks now so she decided to go to the clinic to be sure.

Next year she was supposed to be going to matric and maybe the after go to university but she had fucked up all her chances now. She should have known better she has seen this happen to other girls but thought it would have be different with her. She had told Tshepo they should use protection countless of times but he wouldn’t buldge.

When she had first agreed to have sex with him he said, “We can’t have sex for the first time using a condom, where’s the fun in that and besides it would make it more painful than it would have been without one.”

She had been afraid to disagree with him cause she had heard from her friends that their boyfriends would get angry with them or sleep with other girls that would agree to do it without protection. She didn’t want it to come to that so she agreed.

She and Tshepo had been dating for a year and some months now. She didn’t understand why he was acting like this now. What was she going to tell her granny, after countless times she had told her to stay away from boys and that she must not even look in their direction.

What about school, would she have to drop out of school because of this? She couldn’t allow it. She had to do something before it was too late. It had been days since she had confirmed the pregnancy, she couldn’t sleep nor eat anything and she was pretty sure everyone around her had noticed that something was off with her.

The following day she had cornered Tshepo at school to try talk to him – it hadn’t gone well.

“And you telling me this cause?” the boy had asked. She was shocked, what was that supposedly to mean? How could he do that to her ?

She felt as if it was the end of the world and suddenly the was a loud ring in her ears and everything around her started to seem blurry, in this moment nothing made sense and the lump her throat didn’t help at all.

“What did you expect? That we would live happily ever after and be one big happy family? You know what, I don’t care what you thought or what you decide to do with it but all I know is I want nothing to do with that, so you can go figure it out yourself and make sure to leave my name out of it,” he said, looking at her in disgust. He left her there not knowing what to do with herself.

She ran to the toilets as fast as she could before the tears could fall. She locked herself in one of the toilets and cried not caring if everyone could hear her, then she remembered how sweet Tshepo used to be before she had agreed to have him have his way with her, how he would whisper sweet nothings to her ears telling her how the ocean couldn’t compare to his love for her, how he used to call her by every pet name to ever exist or how he would hold her hand kiss it without hesitation.

God, how dumb could she had been she had seen this happen with other girls but she had been clouded by ignorance. On her way home to school she couldn’t seem to engage herself in the conversation her friends were having and they hadn’t noticed how far away she had been these days so it didn’t matter anyways.

She had taken numbers from those abortion posters and had called them. They told her to come the next day for appointment. This meant she would have to skip school to get to it.

On her way there she was nervous and felt out of place with the school uniform she was wearing since she had left home as someone who was going to school and how dogey the place seemed didn’t help her nerves.

As she sat there she couldn’t help but wonder what her child would’ve been like if doesn’t go through with it, would they have her eyes maybe her smile? What they would grow up to be and if she could be able to give it the life it deserves.

She heard her name being called. She must have zoned out for a while but she had to she to go through with it. She was convinced she had no more tears left in her considering the way she had been crying these last couple of days but now all she could feel was a numbness and heaviness that wouldn’t go away.

She stood up and stood at the door contemplating her next move. All she knew was that whatever decision she came to, she would never be the same again.

THE END