The Hidden Garden

Only a few minutes.
Then she would know! Her mind focuses like a camera on its thoughts. The blurred feelings begin to refine themselves within her mind.
The first thing that is projected in her head like a movie is when she used to live with her dad. He had a huge garden in the backyard that always contained vibrant colors of fruits and vegetables. It would be tradition to see who could locate the best vegie or fruit every season when they turned ripe and lush: The sacred harvest. Now that she is older she realizes her dad let her win the hunt every time just to see her deep blue eyes fill with energy and life. Energy and life that came from the earthy smell, the green leaves, the moist soil, the parched air, the warm sunlight, and even the noise of the minuscule vibes of insect life casually humming around the garden.
She tears up at the notion that those feelings of adoration towards gardens and the wilderness have never left her. She just wished she possessed her dad’s magic touch when it came to growing things. Maybe at one time she had been in possession of the wonderful gift when she was living with him. She was not sure if something like that could slip away from a person though. Now that she lived with her mom, and that they ate out all the time she didn’t get to see much of farms, or fresh fruit for that matter. That lack or loss of magic inside of her left a gaping hole. A wave of depression had been washing over her for going on five months now, and there was only one reason why she hadn’t smoked her way into a different world yet. She realized that if she let this loss of magic consume her soul, then she let forces like herself win. Forces that bring coldness and mortality to center stage in this world. It was imperative that she overcome these feelings so she didn’t let these forces win. Life is everything. She only longed for something to benefit from her care and nourishment instead of shriveling into a state of morbid death. Life is so precious, and she would feel so accomplished if she could just be meticulous and precise enough to have it flourish within her sight.
Her thoughts then halted and she began to pace around the messy bathroom anxiously. She stopped in front of the mirror and her image bounced back at her. Messy brown curls rolled down her slender back as wild as they pleased. Her blue eyes pierced through the light as she wiped away her excess eye liner to stall time. They never ceased to be her favorite attribute, but she couldn’t help but take into account the worn and almost disturbed look that had made itself at home in her face for quite some time now. She wished her meds could enhance her beauty, instead of only supposedly “improving her mental state”. You could say that she wasn’t really the most positive person. She jumped out of her bustling thought process and focused on the matter at hand.
The two minutes felt like a life time! She began to think, “What if I really am pregnant? I wonder what my boyfriend will think… I wonder what my parents will think!” She definitely knew what she wanted though. She wanted this little baby more than anything. She would never tell anyone that though. It would be her little secret. She hoped it was a girl. A baby girl. She would become her everlasting garden, until the day she died. A smile crept across her face at the thought.
She looked down at the test.
Positive.
She placed her hands over her stomach gently as tears of joy cascaded down her cheek.
Her moment of pure bliss was interrupted by the annoying jingle she had her phone set on. She wiped the tears on her face away briskly and focused on leveling her voice out to a somewhat normal tone before answering, since it was her boyfriend calling.
“Hi baby!” came out a little too enthusiastically but she continued anyways, “How are you doing? I was just thinking about you actually”. She stroked her stomach gingerly, already adoring the beauty she had growing inside of her.
“Hey. I was just seeing if you wanted to hook up tonight?” he said mindlessly. It was obvious he was busy with something and needed a distraction. She began pacing the room immediately detecting his mood.
“Oh, yeah sure honey. Maybe you can take me to dinner and then we can talk afterwards at your place?” she replied halfheartedly. She felt bad because she knew that the news was only going to add to his already rising stress level.
She felt his confusion and surprise of her request seep into the room and overwhelm the silent atmosphere. He was quiet for a long while as if he was thinking about his answer. She thought that he probably knew something was wrong. Just as she was about to slay the awkward silence with words of promises for tonight and mindless chatter, he replied with a simple ok and then hung up. She felt even more anxious about breaking the news to him when she locked her phone.
She fell on to her bed face forward and let out a moan. She lay there for a good few minutes before rolling over on her back and staring at the fan that lazily spun around and around. She matched its lazy pace as she mustered her strength and trudged off to her closet to get ready. She glanced at her clothes and then thought to herself, “What do I wear for this sort of event?”


***
“You’re what?”
“I’m pregnant,” She replied hesitantly.
His muscles bulged and his veins pulsed with anger and boiling rage. He leaned forward with his hands on the wall, staring at the ground. This only displayed his physical reaction to the news more. She remained perched on the corner edge of his bed, but suddenly felt odd sitting in his room, usually a place of such comfort and familiarity. He looked like he was ready to strike her harshly, but she knew him better than that. He would never hurt her like that. Not once in the three years they had been dating had he ever hit her. She let him pace his anger out for a few moments not saying anything to further upset him. He would calm down soon like he always did.
“I am the dad right?” he spit out quickly. She nodded in response. He sighed while she thought why he had asked that. In that moment she began to contemplate his trust for her and if he really loved her. She wondered what would have happened if she had said no. Images of him leaving her ran through her head. Oddly, that didn’t make her stomach twist into knots, make her heart ache, or even make her eyes water. How could it not? She had loved him since she saw him. He had been wearing cargo shorts with a black Avenged Sevenfold t-shirt that fit him perfectly; matching his eyebrow piercing that gave him the perfect bad boy look. Her insides used to bubble with excitement whenever he gave her his charming half smile and a quick wink. She certainly hadn’t witnessed those flirty tendencies today and she didn’t mind that they weren’t there, but yet she did.
Why was it so hard to just decide how she felt? Her brain pounded from the pressure and the options that lay before her. A flash back of all their moments together played into her head and she couldn’t help but smile. Maybe those moments were lost now because of the baby. Maybe the baby had ruined everything! She felt her body temperature rise and a sudden wave of regret washed over her. She opened her mouth to ask if he wanted to get rid of it but froze. She couldn’t do that to her precious little baby. It would be like stepping on the vegetables right as they were sprouting, squashing all hope of growth. She would never do that. Why couldn’t he just accept that the baby would be fun? It was him who was making this difficult, not her of course. She had heard that feeling the warmth of your newborn in your arms, so fragile and innocent, was one of the most rewarding feelings in the world and often brought people to tears. She ached to feel that warmth and energy. She ached to have a family with the boy in front of her.
The silence was building, weighing down the air in the small room. She decided to say all that had passed through her mind in that small lapse of time when the world hadn’t stopped turning and neither had her brain.
“Look, I know that you might not want this baby, but she’s going to happen. I’ll bring her into this world and love her till the day I die. I really hope you can do the same since she is yours. There’s this image of us as a family in my head, and I know we can make it come true,” she stated with such conviction to her voice.
“I just don’t think I can do it Rachel. I have so many plans for the future and this just isn’t the right time. You know this never would have happened if you hadn’t lied to me about the whole birth control thing,” he replied with a quiver of hesitation in his voice. She got up off his bed and took his hand, pressing it against her stomach.
“Please Ethan. I’m begging you. You know how much this would mean to me and I don’t wanna do this without you. Aren’t kids a part of your future?
The words cascaded onto the floor of the room, flowing around them and filling the room. They both began to feel their emotions drown in a sea of confusion, difference, and regret that they had created themselves.
“Well honey,” he quietly said while looking at the ground, unable to look her in the eyes, “I want to do so many things with my life including have kids, but not now. Not for a while. I can’t love that child growing inside of you. I just can’t. I’d ask you to get rid of it but you’ve clearly shown me that would be a big fat no. I’m angry and sad that you’ve done this. I trusted you when you had said you were using birth control, but obviously you’ve lied about that. I wanted a future with you! You’ve thrown it away for whatever is inside of you. I can’t believe you ruined our lives like this. You’ve done some crazy crap before, but this is just messed up beyond fixing. I mean, did you ever think how this would affect me? You just decided to take this path for the both of us and that’s unfair. I don’t think I can forgive you for this. I think it’s best if we split up, and it’s not just because of the baby. It’s because you lied to me about it to. I just wanted to make that clear. I’ll bring over your stuff tomorrow. I think its best if you leave now please.”
His words rang loud and clear in the condensed space that had once felt like home. Now it was a place she’d never see again, and as she shuffled out she couldn’t help but turn around and soak in the image of her first love in what once had been a place they could go to escape from the heavy realities of the world. It had been a place of revival when the garden was wilted or there was a drought from happiness.
She nodded once and sent a tiny wave goodbye his way. Yet she couldn’t help but feel a tad empty now that everything had begun to sink in. She climbed into her car and threw her bag into the passenger seat. She ran her hands through her hair slowly letting out a deep sigh. All she had left was memories and her baby. She placed her hands onto her stomach and muttered caring words while tears trickled down her cheek at the thought of her little baby girl not having a daddy. She felt the same wilted feeling arise in her stomach that she had felt so many times before and like a trigger being pulled, the following words and reactions came quickly.
“Don’t worry little one. I didn’t have much of my daddy around either,” she cooed, “When I did though we had some good times. We can find you another daddy though. Or it’ll just be us. That’ll be just fine too. You know why? It’s because I have enough love for you that you’ll never need anybody else. My parents weren’t always there for me, but I promise you that I won’t turn into them. I’ll do whatever I need to do to make you happy little one. I’ll raise you right. I won’t be like your grandmother. She’s pretty awful to me. You know why? I was a mistake and she’s hated me since the day I was born. You’re not a mistake though. I’ll prove to everyone that you weren’t a mistake by spoiling you my little precious darling. You are a gift. I’ll make sure you live on forever so you are never forgotten. No one would want to forget how beautiful you will be.”
With tears still trickling down her cheek she drove away. She couldn’t help that the tears started coming at a more rapid pace. She was crying because it hurt inside, but she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone why she was crying if they had asked. She drove past her school. The tears flowed even more intensely as she thought of what her peers would think of her. Of course she would be called all sorts of horrible and degrading names. No one would actually believe she cared about the baby. Mistakes and accidents of that sort were so common now that everyone would just make assumptions. She felt bad for the first time about lying to her boyfriend about using birth control when she really hadn’t. Ever. The events hadn’t played out as she had expected and it was finally enough to make her realize she ended up more alone than before. All she had wanted was a family. A real one and not the supposed family where the parents got married because of the kid, only to fight and eventually split up leaving the poor baby stuck in the middle of a raging war, scared and full of misplaced guilt.
Her body mirrored her mental state. Violent tremors now shook her body and her vision became blurred behind a wall of glassy tears as the car swayed back and forth in the lane. At the loss of control of her emotions a tornado of convulsions devastated her body. She attempted to slam on the breaks. She wanted the car to stop. She wanted the tears to stop. She wanted the depression to stop. The years of insufficient care, depleting attention, and strained view of reality had finally overcome all hopes of becoming normal or happy. She had dug herself into a deep hole she would never be able to climb out of. She was tired of scratching at the walls, attempting to claw her way out. She wanted so desperately to get out.
Her wails of depression piercing through the stale air of the car were the last thing she heard before she was thrown against the windshield. The glass broke and her body felt like a pack of carnivorous dogs was eating away at her flesh, tearing it into tiny little bits. She hit another hard surface and felt her spine concave and snap due to the impact. Her view was spinning and her brain barely recognized the honking cars and the aroma of gasoline and asphalt. Her body wasn’t moving and all she could do was feel a wave of pain crash onto her body like a never ending tsunami of torture. Distant, unfamiliar voices grew louder. She attempted to clutch her stomach to help stop the intense flames that lapped at her insides. This was the last thing she remembered before it all went dark.
In an instant her garden had absorbed the light, the fresh water, and the pure air. In an instant death attacked the growth, cutting and stomping on the lush, fertile forms of life. Rotting in the patches of despair no one would take time now to tend to the lifeless figures that had once been as strong and mighty as ten thousand men. In an instant death had paraded its way into her world as quickly as life.