Kwame and Annette- II

Kwame

I sat on the stairs outside her room and took another swig from the half empty bottle of cheap gin I had bought on my way to the pharmacy. 

I couldn’t sit in that room and watch her do the tests, I couldn't  take the tension and uncertainty that would coagulate into despair as she took each test. Because I knew she was pregnant. 

When I walked into the pharmacy and got the test I knew this was not a scare, or a hoax for attention on her part. She was pregnant. 

The tests were going to be positive and my life was over.  She was so pro life, so adamant in her stance on the evils of abortion. I remembered her as she argued with righteous indignation when they had had that discussion in class “I mean you have already committed the sin of fornication, would you really compound it by killing the only innocent party in all this, the poor baby! It could grow up to be the person who would cure AIDS or bring world peace!” There was no way I could convince her to have an abortion. Plus I’d always promised myself I wouldn’t be one of those boys that coerced a girl into getting rid of an unwanted pregnancy. I would stand by her no matter what she chose.  But please let her choose an abortion I was not ready to be a father.

I heard the sound of weeping coming from her room and my worst fears crystallised.I dropped the now empty bottle of gin and crawled to her door. I sat down by the door listened to the sounds of her tears. Felt something wet on my cheeks and realised I was crying too. My life was over.

Then I noticed that the crying had ceased. I staggered up to the door and creaked it open. She was lying on her bed, her back to the door and curled up in the foetal position. I started to walk up to her then turned around.  I walked out of the room; continued walking till I reached the car park.  My drunken haze had disappeared. I had been scared sober by the realisation that I was going to be a father. I wished I could have stayed with her, comforted her but right then, at that moment she was the last person I wanted to see.