Free Underneath It All by Erica Mena

the door she looked and me and asked what was wrong. I told her and her first response was that I was pregnant. I denied it and when we went to the mall she kept going on and on about how I had all the symptoms. I really wasn’t trying to hear what she was saying so I ignored her.
                  One thing about her is that she did have the tendency to predict things. I don’t know if they were premonitions or what but she had been that way since I met her. I prayed over and over that it wasn’t true and that she wasn’t right. After we left the mall she dropped me off and advised that I get some rest and try to eat something.
                  She came back the next day and I had just gotten another beating from Raul. I was really sad and not all the way there and when I let her in she sensed that my spirit was down. She grabbed my hand and led me into the bathroom that was in my bedroom and gave me the pregnancy test that had been in the pharmacy bag she was carrying. I laughed at her because she was so convinced that I was pregnant. I probably laughed because I didn’t know what to do. She read the instructions to me and with her standing there; I pulled my panties down, sat on the toilet and began peeing on the stick.
                  It was weird because Linda kept popping in my head and I was thinking about how hard it was for her to have Jason at a young age. I started thinking about my sisters, my career; I mean what if I was pregnant? Everything flashed before my eyes and I became really nervous. My hands were clammy and I was hot and suddenly overwhelmed. With Linda as an example I always said that if I was stupid enough to get pregnant then I would be smart enough to keep it. This was my motto for a long time and now at 18 whether I was ready or not, I may have to put it to the test.
                  When it was time to check the results it read positive clear as day. I cried at first mainly because I knew my relationship with Raul was unhealthy and I was unhappy. Financially I wasn’t ready for a child and I knew I had a lot ahead of me that I still wanted to do. How was I going to do that with a child? I cried because in a round about way I thought that this life growing inside of me was providing me with the sanity I needed in a very hectic and chaotic situation. I knew that if I was really pregnant like the test indicated then I would finally have something that was mine that wouldn’t hurt me or leave me yet I would have something that I would have to protect and take care of because now someone was depending on me to bring them into a world that they hadn’t asked to be brought into.
                  Raul’s birthday was that night and I didn’t know how to tell him or what his reaction would be given that he already had two kids. I didn’t know if he would hit me or if he would leave me out in the cold. I didn’t know what to expect and a part of me didn’t care. I just knew I had to tell him and that God had placed this child in me so I had to suck it up and allow whatever was going to happen, to happen. I was scared but I knew that if I hid it from him any longer it was only going to get worse for me so I put the test inside a card that I had gotten him.
                  Once midnight hit he was standing out on the balcony with Frankie smoking a cigarette and I casually went up to him, handed it to him and walked back into the bedroom. When he entered the room he asked me what I was going to do and I told him that I was going to keep my baby. Why do men always do that? Why do they always say, “What are you going to do?” No bitch, it should be what are we going to do since we are the ones that created this child. Right then and there we named it. He told me that if it were a boy his name would be King. At first I wasn’t feeling it. I had already had a name picked out from when I was younger.
                  Every