I've Got This

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: blue line, stick, bad jibs, forward, barn burner, top shelf

They were submitted by: http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Fair warning, this is a tough subject and I didn't try to go easy on it. This is absolutely fiction in the way that this kind of thing happens way too often, but this exact thing didn't happen to me. Also, trigger warning: sexual assault. 

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I lean forward staring at the little white stick with its lavender-colored cap and will it to have the answer I want, need really. “Just one little blue line please, pretty please,” I whisper out loud in the bathroom. “Just one.”

The tears that have been precariously waiting to fall start flowing then with no holds barred. The room blurs making it impossible to read my future on the drugstore pregnancy test, an off-brand because ohmygodIcan’tevenaffordanEPT. I know without even being able to see the mirror across the room that this is a full on OITNB-Piper ugly cry with earthquake sobs and a flash flood of snot.

I’m not ready for this.

I can’t even handle being in my own skin these days. I can’t shower enough trying to get rid of every last skin cell he touched.” He” being the man who attacked me, the guy I met online who said I was the most beautiful creature he had ever met, that said all the right things. We’d even gone out once before, met in public just to be safe. His idea actually. But the second time, I went back to his place for a glass of wine after out public meet up, and next thing I know I was waking up naked in his bed the next morning.

I know without a doubt that I have no idea what to do with myself right now much less a baby from a night I can’t remember and sex I couldn’t possibly have agreed to…

That next morning after I woke up sore and dizzy, he acted like nothing happened. While I was still coming to the realization that SOMETHING definitely happened to my body, he called me sleepyhead and handed me a coffee. Before I could even run to the bathroom to check myself over, he leaned in to kiss me on the cheek making me gag. He giggled. The man actually giggled at my wretching and asked if I had always been such a lightweight when it comes to alcohol.

I am, was, his to use and also the butt of the joke.

So how am I supposed to make it through this when I can’t even figure out where I go from here? What if the kid is a boy with bad jibs like his…like…what if he doesn’t look like me and every day is a reminder of a night I can’t remember and don’t want to remember. Or what if it’s a girl and every single day I am terrified that she will be hit randomly with a fuzzy memory of a man on top of her, slapping her across the face and calling her a dirty slut? What if…what if I can’t go through with this and have to end it? How can I live with that for the rest of my life? But how can I live with it if I don’t? What if he asks for custody? For fucking visitation rights.

The timer on my phone dings letting me know it’s time to check this thing, my future. I splash water on my face hoping it will at least give me enough of a reprieve from the emotional rollercoaster I’m on for me to see. I grab a towel, dry my face, and search my eyes in the mirror.

I’ve got this.

I reach for the thing where I dropped it by the toilet, frantic and determined.

I’ve got this.

It’s just one line.

IT’SJUSTONELINE

One.

Blue.

Line.

I know sitting there on my knees in front of the toilet that I’m going to have an emotional breakdown. And I also know that I’m going to be fine, and I would have been fine no matter how many lines appeared on this fucking thing, but…BUT, I am also going to throw one hell of a barnburner tonight once I pull myself together. It might end up being just me, but that just means more top shelf liquor I don’t have to share.

I’ve got this.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado http://www.bakinginatornado.com

Spatulas on Parade http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/

The Blogging 911 http://theblogging911.com

On the Border http://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Bookworm in the Kitchen http://www.bookwormkitchen.com/

The Bergham Chronicles http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com

Simply Shannon http://shannonbutler.org

Southern Belle Charm http://www.southernbellecharm.com

Confessions of a part-time working mom http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/