Her Name is Annabelle…
At thirteen weeks, she was gone. They termed it a miscarriage but I called it murder….
When I think of her, I imagine her calmly floating in an orb of electric-blue goo. Arms folded across her chest, eyes closed, forever sleeping in a world of her own with nothing more than a beating heart to lull her to sleep every night. She never grew any larger than the size of a passionfruit. The images of her peaceful sleep always take a sharp, left turn into a gruesome scene of bright red splashed and splattered across the bathroom tiles and walls of my upstairs bathroom.
Because at thirteen weeks, I killed her.
For many years, I swatted the idea of producing children away. There had never even been accidents because of how careful I was. Much like the entire world buying gallons of hand sanitizers and rubbing alcohol in bulk to prevent COVID-19, I’d do the same with condoms and birth control pills hoping to prevent BABIES-00 (or whenever the first baby in history arrived).
Children were not on my life plan. A large part of me wanted to wait as long as possible, savoring every moment of singlehood, and an even…
