WORTH IT.

My shaking hands held the white test as I waited for my destiny to be determined by a second pink line. 

This isn't my story.

I double checked the instructions, pretty sure I did everything right. 

Can these things be wrong?

Shallow breaths. 

A voice in my head, disrupting my anxious thoughts, "Don't take that shortcut."

He wasn't talking about this. I'm just paranoid. This isn't my story. 

I sat on the cold toilet seat lid. The bathroom spinning in the midnight silence. Memories of who I was evaporating. 

The tub that my parents bathed me in as a kid. Soapy pig tails and toothless grins. 

The mirror where I put on my first makeup before a sixth grade dance. 

Memories. 

A childhood dissolving.

Not this.

I glanced over at the sink counter and picked up the test.  “No.” 

It sounded like someone else’s voice leaving my lips. Held breath came rushing out as the pink line darkened.

“No. No. No.” 

My face went cold as an invisible grief pulled the blood from every extremity toward the ache in my chest. 

This isn’t my story! 

*        *       *

I raged at the Creator for the hand destiny had dealt.

Why do you care about this baby’s life more than mine? 

Why does it have to be me or this baby? Why do I have to be the one to die?

I didn’t get an answer then. But sitting here, almost fourteen years later, typing this love letter to you, I know.

In my moment of rage at nineteen, this Creator saw me at thirty-three, sitting down to write, baring my soul for the world to judge, to be able to tell you, 

I chose life. 

My life.