2019 I came face to face with a gorgeous little 23 year old with an ornery smile. He went to the same high school as I did. However, our paths were not destined to cross until years later when I moved back to Ohio. He embraced our old alma mater where I ran from any connection to the place. But considering he was a 23 year old still stuck wishing he was catching touchdown passes, his love for that school wasn’t a surprise.

We met by chance, talked on the phone, exchanged messages, until one fateful night where we decided to finally meet up. Mutual friends of ours had been “seeing” each other, so it just happened to workout that we could all go to a local bar together. I’ll be honest I had no business agreeing to meet up with this former football star. You see 2019 had started off rough with all the court / restraining order drama from the fall out with my abusive ex. This morning before our night out I had to face that abusive ex in court. So by the time night fell, I had already had a couple Xanax and drinks in my system. When it came time for us all to meet up, I was gone. I don’t remember anything from that night except for his gorgeous eyes and the smell of cinnamon from the big red gum he was chewing. From what I’ve been told, he ran across 224 to my apartment after I left the bar. At some point in the night I thought I must have fallen because I woke up the next morning with gravel in my hair and bruises on my legs. But you see I don’t remember any of the events that occurred after taking shots at the bar. It all went dark. I don’t remember him coming to the apartment, I don’t remember talking all night with him, and I certainly didn’t remember sleeping with him. 

You see all I remember is waking up next to him and him telling me he needed a ride home. I was dressed, I had clothes on and other than a headache felt fine. At this point I didn’t know we had sex I thought we just fell asleep next to each other in the living room. I guess he had to hurry home because he was supposed to be driving to Columbus with his family that day. After I got home I received a thanks for the ride text followed by one that said “I can’t believe I finished in you”... this was the first instance where I realized oh shit. We slept together. Until that moment I had no idea what happened. 

I was later told he pinned me down outside my apartment in front of my car and the mailboxes. At one point he walked me over to a friend's car and they gave him the keys to the apartment. He carried me inside. This is how I found out where the bruises and gravel in my hair came from. My friends thought it was funny that I was so far gone, they couldn’t believe I didn’t remember any of it. They had Snapchat videos of him on top of me in the parking lot. Like I was some kind of joke. They said, “that’s what you get for getting so drunk.” 

I found all this out in the days that followed. I felt broken and ashamed. I didn’t know it was rape. I blamed myself. I thought if it was really rape, and they all saw, someone would have stopped it. Someone would have stopped him instead of giving him the key. If it was rape someone would have stopped it instead of videoing it, right? If it was rape they wouldn’t have left me with him...right? 

This story gets worse. A few weeks go by and I don’t hear from the kid. Then I realize wait I haven’t had a period either. I shrugged it off at first, my periods were never perfectly on time anyways. However, to play it safe I took a test and there it was, clear as day. The second those lines appeared, my heart sank. This is it I thought, I’m having a baby and I can’t even remember having sex.

The moment those two little lines appeared, I realized I suddenly had this whole little life inside me and I didn’t even know this kid from Adam. I sobbed, I couldn’t think straight, I could barely breathe when I sent him the text that said “I’m pregnant” followed by a photo of the test. He immediately FaceTimed me. He thought I was lying, then he tried to convince me that it was a false positive because the lines were faint, and then he tried telling me those tests weren’t always accurate. I could tell he was panicking. This kid was sitting there mouthing “Oh my God” over and over again while one hand was pulling his hair. My heart was pounding. How am I going to have a baby with this kid? I immediately began to question even telling him. Maybe I should have just handled it myself. But how could I do that? This was his baby. No… this was our baby. He created this mess and now we were suddenly responsible for this human.

He was dead set from the start on not having this baby. I convinced myself I could do it alone, I could raise the baby and never have to wonder “what if.” However, this confidence in myself didn’t last long. The look on his face killed me. This kid looked like he was going to lose it at the thought of his parents and friends knowing he knocked up a girl he barely knew. He played me like a fool and knew exactly what he was doing. You see, I wasn’t the first girl he did this to. So he knew exactly how to get what he wanted to cover up his little indiscretion. So out of guilt I did what he wanted. I’m a natural born people pleaser… even if by pleasing others I’m hurting myself.

If I could do it over, I would never agree to do what we did. It doesn’t matter that at the time we swore up and down it was the right thing because lord does my soul feel different. You see the lovely thing about having the option to choose is that you have this great timeline you have to follow or otherwise your decision is made for you. And my clock was ticking. If I kept going back and forth on what I was going to do I’d be out of time and the abortion would have to be a surgical one instead of the pill. Abortions are expensive and he made sure to remind me of this. So I set my appointment, I made sure to tell him when I was going to go.

He told me he didn’t feel comfortable going, said it wasn’t his place to be there with me. So there I was about to face one of the hardest days of my life, completely alone. I was choosing to end our baby's life and I had to do it alone. I hated him for this, it was so easy for him to just ignore what he did but for me, I had to live with it. I heard our baby’s heartbeat. I saw them on the screen. They were real. They were here. These are things I will never be able to forget. Images that will sit in my mind for all of time.

He did keep his word by paying for it. Even had me meet him in the middle of a parking lot to give me the money. He didn’t want anyone seeing us. He came from one of those families, he was connected. That’s the thing with people who grew up in our small town and went to our catholic high school. Reputation is everything, so this little indiscretion of his could change everything.

The day of the appointment I got in the car and went. I had a friend take me. The whole hour long drive she kept telling me she could turn around, I could change my mind. But I knew this wasn’t true. I knew he would kill me if I decided to keep this baby. So I sat there in silence, with my hand pressed against my stomach hoping that this unborn baby I was carrying would forgive me for what I was about to do. Praying they would understand I was just trying to protect them from their father.

The appointment was straightforward and simple. Take one pill in the office and the other a few hours later. He made me send him a photo of the pill to make sure I actually was going through with it (as if calling the clinic to confirm I arrived wasn’t enough).

The weeks that followed the abortion were the toughest of my life. I found myself drowning in shame. I slowly began to realize what occurred that night was not right. I realized not remembering having sex means there is no way I could have consented. And when I confronted him about this he simply said yeah you were pretty much blacked out. So he knew I was gone and still did what he did. He saw nothing wrong with having sex with a girl who was incoherent and unconscious. In fact, he and his buddies turned me into a punchline. When he was asked where he’d been he’d tell people he was busy working overtime to pay for an abortion. Like it was some sort of accomplishment to knock a girl up and pay for the abortion. I couldn’t understand how people could be so cruel. I had sunk so low into depression at one point that I saw no way out. I thought suicide was the only way to overcome the events of that night. I was found lifeless on the floor because of his actions. I was struggling with so much shame and guilt. I was suffering in silence afraid to say anything because of his name. His actions nearly cost me my life. 

I survived. I still don’t know how or why. But I promised that since I did, I would work hard to be the person I needed when it happened to me. Even though I still sometimes find myself dreaming about how different life would have turned out had I just kept the baby. I think of how if I would have just never told him I was pregnant, I could be holding our little one right now instead of writing this. I sometimes wonder what became of him. I wonder if he ever thinks of me and what he did. Does he sit and think about the night he decided to take advantage of a drunk girl? Does he think about the fact that he chose not to wear a condom after pinning me down in a parking lot? Does he sit and think about how different life would have been if I would have just kept the baby? Does he ever see the wrong in what he’s done? 

But that’s the thing: we can’t live and wonder what if. It’s a dangerous place that can only lead to a depressing spiral. I know a part of me died that day with his choice. For the rest of my life I will mourn what we did every December. However, I look at the abortion differently now because I know mothers will do whatever the have to in order to protect their child. And that’s what I did. I saved them from having him as a father. And I saved myself from being stuck to him. 

I’m trying to stay strong. I’m now beginning to face the demons in my mind in order to stay alive. I have come to realize like many victims, I never acknowledged what happened to me the night I conceived his baby. I was caught so off guard by what happened I never processed what occurred. When I told the story to friends, some called it rape. But if that’s what it was, why didn’t my so-called friends I was with that night, stop it? Why did they watch him pin me down?

I still have so many questions surrounding that night. However, I am now doing my best to move forward. I channel my pain into my poems, because they helped give me back my voice. So, from now on I will grieve, I will write and I will remember. But I am now focused on living, rather than dying. 

- Francesca Robert