SARAAAHHHH!!!// By Abimbola Oladipupo

Hmmm…Sarah, like every other naïve girl on campus, was overwhelmed by her first taste of freedom from her parents who constantly kept watching over her like a hawk. Well, things could not have been better as she meets Deji, a statellite, whose good looks and charms could melt any girl’s heart. She thought she knew everything about him until she catches him doing things that were contrary to her faith, plus she could no longer bear the late night parties he keeps and the likes.

Therefore, she decides to stay off from him. Alas, she could not bear it as she waits constantly for his calls or texts and when she wasn’t getting the green light anymore, she tries to reach him. Much sooner on the other hand, she realizes that she was eight weeks gone. She could not tell Deji, her roommates or her parents…God forbid. Alone, confused and full of regrets, she decides to walk….

****

Eventually, I called the number the doctor gave to me and booked an appointment. On D- day, I didn’t eat breakfast like the doctor asked. I didn’t take any chances by eating dinner the night before either. As I sat in the waiting room, I suddenly caught myself mumbling words of prayer. Me,Sarah…I haven’t prayed since God knows when but there I was, desperate, praying and begging God to forgive me; that I had no choice and I would never have premarital sex again in my life. I struck a lot of deals I would not remember with God at the moment, clamouring that he spares my life so I would not die. Eventually, it was my turn to go in. I took a long deep breath which I hoped wouldn’t be my last and stepped into….

The sense of peace and relief I thought would embrace me after the procedure did not come. Instead, I felt like the abortionist took my life along with the baby’s. I laid on my back, staring at the ceiling of that hospital where I was being monitored in case of complications and reflected on my life, or tried to…. I wondered at what I could have done better, how I could have averted the deep waters that now threatened to drown me; but all I could think was how stupid I was, how I should never had got involved with Deji or if I had, I should not have had sex with him, or if I did…I shouldn’t have…I should have…I would have…aaaarrrggghhh God!

I could not sleep either, I thought a lot about the life I cut short. What if it was destined to be a president? Or what if that’s the only child I was destined to have? What if? What if? What if…? I drifted off. Then, I heard cries of a baby; I jerked upright in one frenzied movement and started searching for the baby whose cries got even louder. I looked everywhere in the room but I could not find it. I looked under the bed as the last resort, and the realization that there was no baby there made me fall to my knees. My eyes welled with tears afresh as I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. And, there was an infant swaddled in knitted blankets right crying its eyes out right on the bed I just vacated!!! I got back in, reached for the baby, clasped it to my chest and tried to rock it to silence. I fell asleep like that; with my empty hands clasped to my bosom and tears running down my face.

I got discharged two days later after a session that felt like some sort of pep talk with an amateur psychologist.

The lady kept saying:
“Maybe you feel really guilty or uneasy right now…you don’t have to be. You did the right thing for yourself and the…” she looked at loss of what to call it
“Okay.” Let me leave already plleaaase. My patience was waning rather thin by then.

“I want you to reassure you that that was the best decision you could have made, and you’re a very brave woman to have stood by your decisions to the end. Other women chicken out, you know?”

But I didn’t feel brave at all, I felt rather empty. I felt like the worst kind of coward and I wanted to slap the stupid woman who probably had never been with a child before for daring to call me brave.

Weeks that followed were harrowing for me. I could not sleep properly, I kept hearing babies crying and seeing mutilated babies in my dreams. I could not concentrate at all and I had eight exams which I was neither physically nor mentally prepared for. After the third one, I knew I had to do something if I didn’t want to compound my problems by getting tsunamised.

I told Princess that there was some sort of trouble ongoing in my family and I needed to forget because it was affecting me in all areas now, and I might fail this semester. At first, I munched sleeping pills like candy and I got to sleep, but it took a long time for the effect to wear off, and I still couldn’t concentrate.

One evening, I went over to Princess’ off campus domain. Her neighbours were mixing drinks and Princess kept going to their room to tell them to leave some for her when it is ready o. I drank out of curiosity from her share, and I started feeling funny after sometime. It was a good kind of funny, and while it lasted I didn’t feel anything. No guilt, no pain, nothing. It was like nothing I ever felt before. Princess later told me that was the infamous high feeling so many people were dying for these days.
I made friends with those boys in no time me and in no time I already knew what to mix. The boys always got the raw materials and mixed it for us. One cool night, while sleeping over, I tried weed for the first time. It wasn’t too bad. Besides, no sacrifice was too much for getting high. I may have been able to repress the memories of that which I had done when I was high, but after it wore off came a deeper sense of wrongdoing and guilt. So, I did what any coward like me would do, I did it more often than not.