cut it out, briony. all you have to do is walk up to the door and knock.
but it was hard. they were leaden, almost, the way her shoes were sticking to the concrete flooring below her. imagine that sure, all you had to do was walk up to the door and knock. but then you have to wait for the door to be answered. and then you have to casually, politely, calmly, explain to the man behind the door (who could be mean, ugly, diseased, or in some other way completely terrible) that you are pregnant, you are carrying his child, and oh-by-the-way you are keeping it?
how do you do that? ruin someone’s life?
she would have smiled, if her nerves permitted it. her life was already ruined. one simple trip to the gyno to insert an iud had turned into a fiasco. her charts were mixed somehow and instead of inserting an iud, briony was artificially inseminated. after waking up to absolutely the wrong post-procedural brochures and billing statements, and lots of crying, and a call to her lawyer (and her mother), the attempt to remove the sperm was met rather unsuccessfully. because, although she had never even had sex, her body knew what to do and had already planted the embryo in briony’s uterus: it was too late. she was already pregnant.
thankfully, the donor had not donated anonymously, and after a very long shouting match between her attending ob-gyn and her attorney, she was released with the promise of a medical malpractice lawsuit and a post-it with the name and address of the... father of her child.
briony didn’t immediately take a cab over to his place. no, she had schoolwork and life affairs to worry about; she had a lawsuit to file; she had a million and one things she could do before she faced the music. but after a couple of weeks went by, midterms passed, and now briony had no more reason to avoid it. so she put on her big girl hat (figure of speech) and her big girl shoes (actually, just a pair of blacked-out nikes) and decided to get it over with.
the crumpled piece of paper in her hand read bellamy salas, and listed an apartment complex a couple of rail stops from her own. it was definitely in a similar wealth class, lower-end but nothing too scary. briony’s was just a little further from the nearest subway stop, whereas his was virtually across the street. the buzzer let her in without any questions, and she climbed the stairs as quietly and cautiously as she could. now here she was, standing on the concrete landing, trying to find the courage to proceed.
she had gotten this far. and she better move, before anyone else witnessed her weakness and gave her an excuse to run away. this guy probably didn’t want anything to do with her. it wasn’t his problem that she didn’t want to have this child, and it wasn’t his fault that she was raised to not consider abortion an option or to not at least try to include him in his future child’s life. and the sooner he knew, the better.
briony took a step. then another. now she was within knocking distance. all she had to do was raise her arm and rap the door with her knuckles a few times—that was easy. and then someone would answer the door. that was easy, too: it was answered only after a short while. now came the hard part, and she couldn’t even look as she spoke, eyes trained exclusively on her hands, wringing the hem of her jacket nervously.
“uh, is bellamy salas around—?”
she prayed that he wasn’t.
(tagging @bellsalas cause idk what im doing)