CHAPTER 5 — Aftermath
My legs weren’t my own.
My arms couldn’t lift me.
I slumped deeper down the bed.
I had to be lifted up the bed
because I couldn’t do it myself.
What had they done to me?
Let me die now.
It wasn’t to be.
They washed me.
Prepped me.
My family came back.
Eighteen — springback.
“I’m okay.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.
Cold and shivery,
I tried to stand.
The cleaner caught me.
Everybody had left to celebrate.
I was supposed to be waiting for the porter
to take me somewhere.
Where?
Who knows.
I couldn’t even move properly.
When I rose again,
she had a cup of tea with sugar in it.
I was on the bed,
way above her pay grade.
She caught me
and put me back
with compassion and care.
I always remember that lady
who hugged me
and made me feel safe.
I wake in the morning
to my first visitor — Derek.
The pack is next to me.
Smurf nappies.
“You stupid girl.
What have you done?”
Eighteen.
Not seen him since I was fifteen.
Hello, Dad.
My next visitor is the family planning nurse.
She can barely rouse me from the bed.
She lays out the leaflets and tells me,
“You can get pregnant straight away again.”
I look at her with venom,
remembering — in later years —
that my body had only known two orgasms
before this poor baby was ripped from my vagina.
Physically torn from my body
when my hips snapped.
My pelvis broke.
The damage was done.
“She’s 18. She’ll be fine.
Her mum delivered four.”
I wasn’t fine.
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