Transparent Tears

"...In my heart, I knew why. I had been careless.  I had put myself at risk, and now I had to deal with it.   It was no one’s fault but my own.  My life flashed before my eyes as I thought about how this situation came to be. 

It was a chilly October evening.  The nights had already started getting darker and colder. The air was crisp, and the Cambridge scenery had changed from green to darker orange, with brown, dead leaves lining the sidewalks and street curbs making a whisk like sound as you walked through them.  The parks were empty in the evenings and the sound of children swinging or playing baseball had faded with the season.  Short sleeve shirts were replaced by long sweaters and light coats. I felt very much like the season:  Fall.  Down.  Cold.  Lifeless.  I felt like the stale air, like the trees beginning to wilt, like the colors that were no longer cheerful.  My posture was limp and slack, and my bright smile had faded. 

I walked home from my appointment, and it was the longest mile of my life.   Walking was always a time for me to reflect on the day’s events and thoughts.  During this walk I thought about a lot, naturally, but I was mostly sad.  I contemplated my future and my past, but most of all my present. I had a sickening feeling of guilt and shame, plus a fear that I had never experienced with such force before.  As the intensity of my thoughts grew and weighed down my emotions, it also placed weight on my shoulders.  I was mourning my childhood.  I felt ashamed of who I had become.  I stared at the ground and watched my sneakers as each step brought me closer to home.  I couldn’t hear the cars passing, and I barely noticed the people as they walked past. All I heard were my earrings clanging and the wind whizzing past my ears.   My eyes swelled, and tears ran down my cheeks.  I continued walking home, past Harvard Square, over Mass. Ave., and down a street where I felt my chances of running into someone I knew were slim to none.  It was a longer way home, but I needed that extra time.  My emotions became more overpowering with each step.  I cried as I walked. 

I made it through my front door and to my room without having to see any of my family members.  I didn’t feel comfortable telling them my secret, but I also felt guilty for even having such a secret in the first place.  Not only would they feel let down by me, but they would rub it in my face.  I could envision them telling me how they knew all along Greg would put me in this predicament.  How it was Greg’s fault for impregnating me, and my fault for being stupid enough to get pregnant.  How they knew all along they were right about our relationship, and that I was wrong.  I could already see it, feel it, hear it all: the nagging complaints about how I’d ruined the family image, how all my mother’s efforts to keep me independent and successful had gone down the drain. 

Instead of dealing with all this, I called Greg and told him the results of the test."