Kids On Civic Street
By Alexandra Tieng

Jana and Richard were two well off teenagers living on Civic street. Jana and Richard were well off two teenagers living right next to each other on Civic street. Jana liked Richard, and Richard liked Jana. Jana and Richard dated and Jana and Richard fell in love. Richard fell in love with Jana because she was the type of person you understood as being both strong and gentle at the same time, and beauty was a bonus. Jana liked Richard because he was the man she had once imagined as a little girl. Strong, handsome, well -built and romantic. A regular prince charming. Richard and Jana were two, typical, fun kids in love. One night, Jana finds out that Richard knocked her up.

This is where our story begins.

Jana felt her belly for the tenth time that day. There was really nothing to feel, the pregnancy wasn't far enough to feel anything at all. But still she kept doing it. Was she expecting to feel a kick of some sort? She did not know. She did not know how she felt
about much at all right now. She was just sitting at her sofa, her hand constantly wandering over to her belly, resting over it as though there was a magnet inside it and her hand was a big honking piece of metal. The pregnancy test lay still on the coffee
table in front of her. One little pink line. She took in a breath and sighed. What should she do now? Should she cry because she knew once her parents found out, she'll be homeless? Should she smile, knowing that she had new life growing inside her? Should she feel faith in Richard, and know that he'll support her enough to give new life to both her and the baby? Should she run
away right now and panic and see where it leads her? Should she go to sleep, and experiment the possibility of her being caught in a dream she was soon to wake up from? And Jana knew plenty about dreams, how real they can seem. Jana can easily recall the thought that you were about to be murdered when you saw a burglar from your nightmares or the hopelessness you felt when you were climbing out of the rubble of a building after some natural disaster hit it, and you looked around for any friends or family you had just seen so shortly before.

The ringing of the phone snapped her out of her train of thought, sending it tumbling of the railroad.

"Hello?", She answered it, trying to sound as normal and as stable as possible, in case it was her mother or father calling from work.

"Hey."

It was Richard.

"Hey." Jana smiled. No matter what the occasion, Richards voice always managed to lift up Jana's cheek bones.

"Did you test?"

"Yes."

"Well...?"

There was a long pause. Jana slid her hand over her belly again. Her lips parted around 3 minutes before any sort of noise left them.

"One stripe."

Another long pause. What seemed like 40 hours of silence was truly only 2 seconds of awkward.

"One stripe - that means your positive?"

"For pregnancy, yeah." Jana said.

"This is -"

"We aren't breaking up now are we?" Jana said before she could catch herself. A sense of panic had begun to envelope around her throat.

"No, never!" Richard replied immediately, "You didn't let me finish Jan! What I meant to say is, this is wonderful!"

Richard did what seemed to be a half laugh, and Jana could feel his smile over the phone. Jana laughed too, even though she wasn't entirely sure she was supposed to. But when Richard laughed, she laughed with him.

"It is...?"Jana said awkwardly.

"Yeah, we can start a family together! Like we've always talked about. I mean, we have the money, I can find us an affordable apartment." Richard sounded giddy.

Jana smiled. She knew Richard would understand. She took a deep sigh, reminded herself of how much of a comfort it was to have some who loved her as much as he did, who would stand by no matter what. And she giggled as though a petty school girl getting her first high school crush.

The days went on after this conversation as normal as Jana could carry them. She did not say much of anything to her parents, which concerned them she was sure, but her parents seemed to simply have shrugged it off. Jana noticed Richard being awkwardly gentle to her, as though she were some fragile glass on the edge of breaking. This was annoying to Jana, who barely felt the pregnancy only when it came to meal times and her appetite would go missing. It was rather odd - Jana remembered hearing that pregnant women were supposed to be hungry twenty four - seven.

Jana was fixing a vegtable soup in the early hours of the morning when she felt a strong pair of arms wrap tight around her, squeezing her. She did not flinch, or even look as she knew who it was. Richard gave Jana a kiss on her already blush covered cheek and grabbed hold of one of her buttcheeks, making her almost cut the carrotts the wrong giggled, turned around and planted a kiss on his lips. Richard returned it, then took the knife from her.

"Here, let me do that." Richard offered her, Jana felt a surge of annoyance.

"I can do it myself," She said sternly, grasping the knife in his hand, ready to pull it back.

"No, no love." Richard shook his head, "You sit back, and I'll have this - what is it?"

"Vegtable soup," Jana grumbled.

"-Vegtable soup prepared for you in a jiffy." Richard smiled. Jana saw him looking at her for some sort of approval but when she only stood there and stared at him, he took that as an 'okay' and went ahead with it. Jana did not stop him but only surrendered and stood back. She watched Richard chopping the vegtables and saw that every once in a while, he would throw her a loving smile. He began talking to her about apartments he had been looking at, 2 bedroom apartments of course - he figured the baby should have a room for his or herself. Jana just smiled meekly.

Three months later.

It was midnight and the cold air was stabbing at Jana's face. She covered a portion of her chin with her scarf and held her jacket closer to her body. She was just leaving Richard's place. Normally Richard would walk Jana to her house but for this night, Richard was sick, and thus Jana was walking home from taking care of him and feeding him home made chicken soup. The scent of it was still on her.

She continued walking until she passed her house, turned left, turned right, and left again. Finally she found the building she was looking for. Its grayish color blended in with the night sky so that the stars and moon were the only thing that shed any light on it, making it barely visible, for there were no lighted windows. Jana stood before it, a lone figure standing in the semi snowfall that surrounded her. She trembled a bit, thoughts of turning back and going home. She stood there for quite some time, being unable and unsure wether or not to move. She wished Richard were here to embrace her, tell her everything is okay. The thought of Richard was saddening her, she wondered how much he would hate her if he knew where she was now. But she just could not go through with what he was expecting her to go through, she did not want to start a new life.

She pushed forward and opened the door.

Walking in made her want to turn back more. The room she had slipped into was as dark and desolate as the exterior of the building. She could not see much, and the outline of nearby objects as she passed them startled her. She did not know what to do at this point. She had walked into the center of the room and stopped. Was she supposed to call first?

"Psst."

The noise interrupted Jana's thoughts. Her eyes searched the room frantically, Searching for the source of the noise.

"Over here.", The same voice whispered lowly.

The voice sounded like it might have been coming from behind her. She took two fearful steps back. And out of the darkness, a hand seized her arm.

"Ahhh!", She screamed.

The disembodied voice which seemed to come from the source of the hand holding her said, "Shhhh!"

Spinning around, she was able to see a man's face and the disembodied voice was no longer so. He was old, with spectacles over his eyes. He smiled meekly at her.

"Please, be quiet." He said in a voice nearly as low as a whisper, "You are going to come with me, the procedure will be done downstairs. I will lead you there. Do you understand?"

Jana nodded. She clumsily reached into her pocket and took out a small wad of money and shoved it to him as though it were some offering to save her life from a man that was threatening to kill her. He only stared at her for a few seconds, smiled rather sadly thistime, and took the money, putting it into his coat pocket. He beckoned her to come forth with one finger and she followed him. He led her down a staircase and into what seemed like an even spacier room than before. He flipped on a switch.

The room lighted up, the light revealing an large, silver table, next to it, a table containing several small metal objects. There was a peculiar machine at the foot of the table. It looked like a vacuum. There was another person in the room. It was a woman, dressed in the outfit of a nurse. She did not even look at Jana when Jana entered. She only stood at the sink in the corner, washing an object she obscured from view.

Jana wanted Richard here, so she might not be alone with such fragile looking, yet such somehow terrifying strangers. She felt her belly, something she didn't do as often as she used to. She felt her pregnancy, and this time, she could have sworn she felt a kick. Well, she thought, this is goodbye.

She was given the privacy to change into a robe. She wasn't sure why they bothered leave the room, they were about to see more of her than shes seen of herself. She now lay herself on the cold metal table as she was instructed, Her head felt the hardness and discomfort of the table beneath. Once again she wondered if she fell asleep right now, she could wake up and this might have been some very long but not extraordinarily real nightmare. She imagined Richard sitting besides her table now, gripping her hand and encouraging her that everything will be okay. She knew in truth, if Richard knew she was here, he would
probably pronounce their relationship over. A tears welled up in Jana's eyes momentarily, she was able to blink them away.

The doctor came back in the room, dressed now into a lab coat. He put on his gloves, and the nurse hovered over her. A plus with being a well off, or rather wealthy, teenager is that you might be able to stumble across a back alley abortion center with knock - out anesthesia if you paid them well enough. And thus, they put Jana to sleep.

Now that Jana's asleep, lets fast forward to what happens when she wakes up.

The doctor put Jana to sleep. Jana was too asleep to see how much she bled on the metal table. Jana was too asleep to see the doctor and the nurse panicking, realizing they might lose a patient as they watched Jana's BP and heart rate go up, and watched Jana's blood flood out of her like some sort of insane menstrual flood. Jana was too asleep to see them pack their supplies and run out, thinking Jana would be dead within the hour. And they were too busy running to realize that Jana survived.

Now that you have the gist, lets focus back on Jana.

Jana's eyes shot open. It wasn't a groggy awakening or a startling one, but a smooth rather delightful one. The first thing she thought of was 'Is it over?' She tried looking around for the doctor or the nurse, but she could spot neither. After a while of not hearing their voices, she decided to sit up. She felt the room spin, perhaps sitting up had not been the best idea. The room was spinning - it was spinning and she tried to grab onto it, tried to focus on any solid object, and the first notable thing she could see was the mass of the red blanket of blood all over the place. She screamed. She began breathing heavily, and she looked around for help. Jana did not understand. Was it over?

There was emptiness around her, silence except for the humming of machines. Her hand weakly patted her belly, and it prhaps felt a little softer than before. She felt the ridculous urge to ask her offspring if he or she was still there.

Jana's lips felt numb. Jana's being felt alone. Seperated from any form of company, ecspecially from the company that had grown inside her. Jana wanted to rise, she felt as though she had so many questions to ask, even if she didn't know these questions off the top of her head. She was in no state to get up. Realizing this, she laid back onto the bed and sobbed.

Five months later.

"Its over."

"What?"

Jana was standing at Richards doorway, soaked from the onpour of rain.

"I said its over Richard," Jana repeated in her sternest voice. Richard looked confused and distressed.

"-Why?"

Jana only shook her head and stared at his clearly hurt face. Her guilt rose up inside her and she felt like grabbing him at that moment and holding him tight. Yet Jana knew what she had to do, after long months of awkward dates and pretending to still be bearing a child who was never coming. Jana did not know how she could possibly explain any of that, or even bear to tell him the truth. Instead she stood there staring at her first love, swallowing back sobs. Jana backed away slowly, and ran off not knowing what more could have been done. A simple nightmare - she knew this was not. She wished with all her heart that it was. As she entered her own house, she did not say hello to her mother who had

Jana was alone on a friday night. Her friends had gone out drinking and she could not go because she wasn't feeling too well. She lay in bed and she thought of Richard. Jana groaned and sighed. She sat up from bed to get a drink of her water and she held her belly in pain. She was having a massive stomach ache. She curled up into a ball under her covers. And listened to the ticking of her wall clock.. As light exited, and night entered the pain in her body began to increase. Soon she was ready to call an ambulance. Her parents had gone out to the opera and they might not be home till two in the morning. Jana groaned again. And again. The pain was cramping up her organs and she was soon to reach for the phone and then, something was pushing out of her.

"Oh fuck," Jana panicked, she sat straight up and hyperventilated severely, the room started to spin and she was back to five months ago. She began to sob again. This couldn't be happening, she thought this was done with. There was no way.

And yet through her tears, and her dizzy, and her steady rising panic, her vagina pushed to vomit out more of an apparent human pushing out of her. She looked down at herself. And amidst alot of blood, she saw a mass that was moving. And seemed to be making noises.

"Oh God," Jana covered her mouth with her hands and looked down at her child who was still attached to the umbilical cord, who had just come out of her. Her breath became more and more uneven. She saw it had no arms, only two legs. Its mouth was twisted in a strange angle. She did not dare count its toes, there seemed to be far less than ten. This can't be real. It must be a nightmare, this one truly must be.

Jana looked at her child and woke up, knowing she was never asleep to begin with.

The end.