Outcast

May

I panicked as the line of Teachers and Students advanced on me, pointing accusing fingers in my direction. As they tried to pry the sleeping baby out of my arms, I was suddenly overcome with the need to protect the precious object that I held in my frail hands.

I was jarred awake by a knock at my door.
Come in! I had called out.
My Mother came in and lightly sat on my bed. Grabbing her pony tail, she said in a solemn tone

I think it's time to tell your Father.

Her face was drawn with worry. With that look on that face, the beauty, that her wrinkles usually gave her, was not to be found. I felt panicked at her words, my Father wouldn't understand like she did, so I pictured the worst.

I went to argue, but she wouldn't allow it.

Enough May. Your Father is bound to notice soon and so will everyone else. It's been three months and your body is changing, becoming noticeable.

My hand flew to the bump resting between my hips. Slowly, but surely, it had been growing and soon not even the baggy clothes weren't going to be enough to cover it, when it gets bigger. I knew that I had to tell him, I was just afraid.

Mum patted my knee and left the room. Not long after, my Father came in and sat, where she was sitting, on the bed. I studied his face and found worry in his eyes, but this worry was, somewhat different to the one that had taken over Mums features.

I took a deep breath and, with an encouraging nudge from my abdomen, I told my Father what had happened. With each word that came out of my mouth, his face went blank. It was a stone mask, which gripped his face, yielding no sign of emotion. My heart stopped, my body going numb. I was expecting rage, which was not shown. Rage was better than no emotion at all.

He got up silently and walked to my wardrobe. Pulling out my suitcase, he said

Fill this and be gone before I return. You are no longer welcome in this house and you are no longer my daughter.

With that, he walked out and slammed my door behind him.
I just sat there paralyzed until I heard his car start up, then I burst into tears?

I fumbled with my clothes as I packed, tears running silently down my hot cheeks. I stopped packing when I dropped a photo on the floor. I picked it up.

My Mother came in and found me on the floor, with the photo clutched in one hand and the other hand resting on my stomach.

It's a photo of Dad and I, on my 15th birthday. We were smiling, making bunny ears behind each others heads. It was a fun day. It was also the day I fell pregnant.

She gave me a tight hug and dried my cheeks with her dainty fingers, just like she did when I was a child.

Together we finished the packing, only packing the bare essentials, and took the suitcases out to the Ute. My little sister came bounding up to me, as I stood just outside the door, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout and her eyebrows scrunched up into a confused line.

Where am I going??? She demanded, crossing her arms, trying to look intimidating.

I sighed and just said

I'm going away for a long time.

Her youthful face seemed to turn a million years before my eyes. To some unknown extent, she knew what was going on, and she didn't like it.

Hey I said smoothing out her eyebrows,
You look after Mum, OK??

She sighed and nodded, unwinding her arms as a silent tear ran down her cheek. I kissed the tear away and picked her up, holding her tight as she cried.

We pulled up in front my boyfriend's house and I gasped. My Father's car was out the front and he had my boyfriend pinned up against the fence, yelling and cursing at him.

I jumped out of the car and started pulling at his arms, yelling at him to stop. I managed to pry one arm away, or so I thought. With that free hand, he slapped me, telling me to stay out of it, then punched the boy he held in his grasp. And again ... again, each hit distorting the boys face more, each hit making me flinch. He continued this until the boy was unconscious, and even then, didn't stop until the boy's father came home and knocked him out.

I edged around my father and sat next to the unconscious boy, holding his head in my lap, gently running my fingers over his distorted features.

The ambulance's sirens pierced my ears, but I didn't move. The paramedics put him in the ambulance, I stayed with him. At 3 am the next morning, he was announced clinically dead. I knew then, I would never forgive my father, I could've forgiven him when he kicked me out, but not now, not since he killed the one that, in 6 months time, I would give child to.

The next few months passed in a haze, first came my boyfriend's funeral, then my Father's trial. I got kicked out of school for being with child; Christian schools find it improper, having girls fall pregnant at the age of 15.

I often have vivid dreams, the same as the first, but different. The accusing fingers were still there, but this time, they were my father's and, this time, it was him trying to pry the baby out of my hands.

I fell into a deep depression, nearly dying from starvation, though I started to eat when my Mother said I wasn't just starving myself, I was starving my child as well, but I didn't taste the food I was eating.

My little girl was born on the 16th of February 2008, it was also the day I pulled out of my depression, I told myself I needed to pull myself together for my daughter?.

I'm still excluded for being a teenage mother, even though I'm 18 now. My daughter is a thriving 3 year old, showing me something new every day. She shows me the world through her eyes, and I can see how beautiful it is.

On the 21st of February 2008, my father died in prison, of a heart attack. Ridding my daughter of her horrible grandfather and ridding me of a father I would never forgive?