Page 29 of Palm South University: Season 2

I AM EMPTY.

I thought I knew what it felt like — emptiness.

The summer before my senior year of high school, I described myself asempty. I was searching for purpose, for something to make me feel like living, and luckily I found it in a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy in the wheat fields of Kansas. Kip Jackson helped me find myself, and though we don’t talk anymore, I still attribute a lot of who I am today to who he helped me become that summer.

But this emptiness I feel now, my hands wrapped hard around the steering wheel of Jess’ BMW, white knuckles, dry eyes, tight skin, dry mouth — I’ve never felt anything like this before. My phone is ringing, but I can barely hear it. It’s probably Landon. He’s called twice today, but I’m not ready to answer. Hell, I can’t even answer to myself right now.

Emptiness.

It’s such a strange word.

A cup, half-empty or half-full?

I was brought up in a large, white house with light blue shutters. I went to church every Wednesday and twice on Sunday. My parents consistently donate to the Republican party, at all levels of government, and my political views are about as far right as you can go.

And yet here I am.

I wish I could cry. I wish I could feel the guilt, the shame, the pain I should feel at this moment in time. I’m angry that I’m numb, that I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the word, around the act of horror I just committed.

Abortion.

Another strange word.

My right hand slides down the side of the steering wheel, dropping to my stomach, and I grip the soft cotton fabric of my t-shirt covering it. It’s so flat, so hollow.

Empty.

Part of me wishes someone was here with me, but the larger part of me is thankful I didn’t break down enough to ask anyone. I can barely face the facts of what I did, I’m almost sure I wouldn’t be able to take the judgement from an outside party. No one knows what this feels like until they’re here.

Erin Xander: College junior, pre-law, future president of her sorority, knocked up by the lovable jock in the fraternity house down the street.

That is not my story to tell.

Maybe, if I were stronger, if I were less selfish, we could have made it work. Maybe I could have given up my presidency to have the baby, put it up for adoption, still graduated and become a lawyer like I’ve always dreamed. Maybe Clinton would have wanted to keep it.

As it stands, Clinton will never know.

No one will ever know.

I sniff, but for no reason, because I’m not crying. I didn’t cry when I read the all lowercase letters that spelled outpregnanton that little plastic tube in my bathroom. I didn’t cry when I lied to Jess, or when I made the appointment. I didn’t cry when I walked past the small group holding hand-painted signs outside of the clinic —Choose Life. And I know I’ll never cry, because if ever there was a time, it would have been when they vacuumed my son or daughter out of my stomach like it was a mess made by an inconsiderate neighbor.

I am twenty-years-old, and yet I am a mother, to a baby I’ll never have the fortune of meeting.

Except I am not a mother.

I am selfish.

I am a hypocrite.

I am empty.