#i found those pictures and i didnt remember how heartbroken he looked

[stew-magnetos-version]

[moonlit-imagines]

Stood Up

Peter Parker x reader

warnings:

a/n: this is for all the kiddos who lost prom (or just wanna read a prom fic) also peter is bi and we are all gonna accept him for it xoxo

prompt:

Peter showed up to the dance with his phone in his hand, not taking his eyes off of it. His prom date was supposed to meet him by the front doors, but they had yet to arrive, which made Peter anxious, to say the least. He was pacing back and forth frantically, it was hard not to stare. He caught sight of you and turned red in the cheeks, trying to avert eye contact.

You sighed and made a split-second decision and walked up to him. Peter peered over his shoulder and saw you approaching.

“Shit...” He mumbled as you walked in front of him.

“Everything okay, Peter?” You asked politely, trying to get him to look at you.

“Uh, yeah. My date’s just a little behind schedule.” Peter chuckled, scratching his head and messing up his hair. He was kind of confused as to why you were talking to him, the two of you were never really anything more than acquaintances.

“Oh, uh, who is it?” You kept the conversation going, wanting to keep him company before Flash found him and made him feel worse.

“It’s...Seymour O’Riley.” He finally decided to look at you and give you a smirk. Your kind facial expression slipped away for a moment and Peter definitely noticed it. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, shit, Peter...” You took a deep breath and crossed your arms. “Seymour is friends with Flash and Liz...they’re probably trying to get you back for homecoming.”

“That...” Peter slapped his phone into his hand and bit his lip, “makes sense, since he keeps leaving me on seen.” You frowned at Peter’s heartbroken expression. “Uh, I’m gonna go inside and find Ned. Thanks for...thanks for letting me know about Seymour.” He rushed off before you could say anything to comfort him. You almost felt guilty for crushing his spirit like that, but you knew it wasn’t your fault. You were just helping out a peer.

You headed back inside to find your group of friends that you had arrived with, a few of them had found someone to dance with, the rest of them decided to be cliché and stand next to the punch bowl.

“Hey, y/n, where’ve you been?” One of them asked as she poured you a cup of punch.

“Oh, I was talking to Peter Parker.” You took the punch from her. “Thanks.”

“Really? Why?” She and your other friends were now very interested in what you had to say.

“He...I mean it’s not really my place to say anything, you guys.” You took a sip of your drink and tried to leave it alone.

“Parker got stood up, didnt he?” Someone else chimed in. He waited for your response as your eyes widened. “Taking that as a yes.”

“Okay, fine. Yeah, he did. And I had to be the one to tell him.” You huffed with an eye roll. The two of them decided to make a short scan of the room to try and find him, they saw him sulking at one of the empty tables, watching everyone have a good time on the dance floor.

“Well, y/n. You don’t have a date, either. Maybe you could...” One of them suggested. You actually thought about it for a moment and set down your cup, walking towards Peter’s table. “Wow, I didn’t think it’d be that easy.”

Peter watched his friends on the dance floor, almost jealous of them all having dates. He couldn’t believe himself for actually falling for one of Flash’s pranks. You suddenly blocked Peter’s gaze as he looked up at you.

“Hey.” You greeted him, sitting in the empty chair next to him.

“Hey.” He repeated, crossing his arms and sinking into his chair a bit more.

“How’s it going?” You asked over the blaring music. Peter turned to you with a fake smile.

“I’m doing pretty good. Just another day in the life.” He managed a chuckle and clenched his jaw.

“Do you wanna dance with me?” You took him off-guard with this question. He thought he didn’t hear you right.

“What was that?” Peter leaned closer to you.

“Do you wanna dance with me?” You repeated and watched Peter’s face light up.

“For real?” He scrunched his eyebrows and you nodded at his question, then got up from your seat. “Come here.” You held your hand out for him and took him to the brightly-lit dance floor. The multicolored strobe lights were a nice touch. The two of you stood facing each other and Peter started to laugh.

“What?” You smiled with him and swayed to the music.

“Sorry,” Peter apologized, having to yell over the music now that he was closer to the speakers, “I’ve never danced with anyone but my aunt.” He admitted.

“Alright, I can work with that.” You took Peter’s hands and positioned them for him. “Okay, you keep those there, and I’ll...” You placed your hands on him and noticed his hair was still messed up. “I’ll fix your hair.” You giggled while you smoothed his hair back into place.

“Thanks,” Peter blushed and tuned into the music, “for everything.”

“Thanks for being a pleasant date.” You mindlessly danced and peered into Peter’s eyes. He was pretty, he genuinely was. You were almost glad he got stood up. Wait, that’s mean. You were glad you had the opportunity to ask him to dance with you. There, better.

After a few songs went by, Peter stopped dancing and leaned in to kiss you. His lips were warmly welcomed by your own and a few people were staring at you. This included Flash and his friends, who had just realized their plan had failed.

“I’m kinda bored of dancing, how about you?” You asked Peter, taking both of his hands into your own. He looked pretty flustered after that kiss.

“Yeah, just a little bit.” He agreed with you.

“Wanna get a pizza or something and go back to my house? We can take my car.” You pulled you keys out of your pocket.

“That sentence sent chills down my spine.” Peter joked, it seemed like he was a lot more comfortable with you.

“Great, let’s go!” You yanked him by the arm and rushed to the parking lot to find your car. “It’s that one.” You slowed down and pointed to your car. Peter got into the passenger side and looked at himself in the overhead mirror, making sure his hair was still okay. You climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door.

“We should take a picture together?” Peter suggested, pulling out his phone.

“Yes!” You answered a bit too overexcited. You leaned towards Peter and smiled at the camera. You can’t see it right now, but trust me, it was adorable. You took the liberty of being the photographer and kissed him on the cheek, catching his surprise in the next photo, then handing the phone back.

“Now we can remember this night forever.” Peter opened his camera roll and took a look at the photos. You peered over his shoulder and grinned at the sweet pictures you’d gotten. While Peter was distracted, you took a second to think over a risky option. Oh, well. You reached your hand out to Peter and gently grasped the collar of his shirt, pulling him towards you for a much longer kiss. Okay, you were making out with him in your car. He moved his hand to your cheek and deepend the kiss. Neither of you wanted it to end, honestly.

“You’re a pretty good kisser, Parker.” You pulled away and held his face in your hands. “Now, it’s about time for some pizza, huh?”

[delicioustrashlove]

To me : a honest open letter to my self. deep breath and open up and express 

What do you know . You went back there again and all though you held on super tight you couldn’t keep him could you? Of course not. You’ve lost your self every-time chasing him and you’ve never been able to catch him.

I thought I wouldn’t survive this one. I thought honestly I was not going to make something of my self . I whole heartedly was ready to give up . What ever happened happened and I could care less it’ll never be as bad as losing you. And I truthfully connived my self that my happiness only lied in your arms.

It took me so long to cry . Once I got back Colorado the reality of my new home, it was such a blur . For a while I pretended you died. To some how help my heart forget you. And thats all I wanted was to forget you. I deleted every picture and every single video .I blocked you on everything I could think of that youd have access to talking to me through . And for what . Just to black out once a week and tell you how much  I miss you and that I love you . I drank my self silly . I mean every event every party every outing I had to be there I had to be anywhere but in reality . Because reality meant no you. It meant what once was and will never be again,, reality meant excepting my feelings. And I wanted so badly to be tough and strong. I’ve gotten my heart shattered a million times by you , you’d think I would get easier . It didnt it was worse . I was so fully invested in you that life didnt exist with out you in it . I didnt know what that felt like anymore . I was so wrapped up In you so blind to reality . Loving you meant losing my self . I lost my self 4 times a year for 5 years trying to keep your heart. I broke my own heart letting you back in to my life so many times . I knew better . But the love I had for you was so much stronger . I couldn’t stay away . I also revolved my entire world around you , so when you where gone I felt so literally like the world was ending . I lost my whole life . I realize now thats not healthy . You have to always prioritize your health and well being before anyone . You have to love you before you love anyone. So wed break up id self destruct then Id put all my pieces back together the ones you broke. Id fix my self and I would get back on track I was moving on I was happy then just like that . One phone call at 10pm where you clearly to drunk to remember the conversation id be on a plane. Drop my job my home my family My friends … quite literally everything just to be with you . Just to love you. All I ever did in this world was so unconditionally love you. I thought I could hate you I did for a while . But I dont anymore . You where apart of my journey and it almost killed losing you but it was supposed to happen . It was part of the plan that god has for me. You coming int o my life brought so much love and bond that ill never feel with anyone else . I will never love someone the way I let my self love you. And when the lesson has finally been learned only then I can move forward to the next chapter. And your purpose in my life was love and lots of lessons and lots of growing . You think god doest hear your heart crying you think he gave up on you ya know , but he never did. In the end you’ll see there was such bigger picture. 5 years I spent going back to you and leaving you. Why did I always go back ? Because loved you but I clearly wasn’t seeing what god prepared for me. He wouldn’t believe his lessons or fallow his guidance so he kept bring ing me back to you so I could relearn and remember why I left and well you might be my soulmate your not meant to be in my story forever . Only a couple chapters . And once you’ve served your purpose to my life that god wants me to have experienced and learned I will be able to move forward. I first must let you go . And I finally am starting to. I got so unhealthy and so sad and so stuck and caused so many health problems to my body . So much that was almost to much to prepare. But I made a choice one day . I chose my self , and not you. I chose to love me and not love you anymore. I commented intently to my family and I mean really gave it my all. I learned that no matter what my parents wouldn’t never leave mom behind .and im going to everything in my power to be a good girl to them and build our love and our relationship . And I think that was gods purpose all along. You cant keep whats not for you . And I didnt understand that when we parted ways. I accept that now . And I know as I continue to stay on the right path god has such beauty waiting ahead for me… look how much I loved you and all I did for you imagine how much I will love the right man. I did alot. Every time we break up I have to fix my self . But I know now its all apart of the journey . All those trials with you just made me stronger it made me braver it made me wiser and it made men grateful for the good ones.  You breaking my heart was one of the best things to happen to me in the end. Because I never would stopped loving you I never would have left you behind. I would have always been your biggest fan and continued to love you till I ended up hating my self. You have the courage to set me free was the kindest thing you ever did for me. At the time I didnt get it but who I am now and what I ve accomplished for my self and how when you try really hard to be better and I mean really hard things kind of fall in to place. God smiles and says okay you deserve this you’ve learned you’ve grown . I manaaged to accomplish that goal of being close to my family . We are so close and we love trust and respect eachother so much . Our bond is very very strong . I managed to get my self too a doctor , I found out I complete sabotaged my health . And oh ya I have 14 allergies !!!!  And some of the effects of those allergies after time has caused a harmful build up to where I was 3 years away form being diabetic , my thyroid completely stopped working . Amplifying my anxiety and my depression . The last month. I was in az i would get sick a lot . Id eat something and get sick . The problem was I was so fuxking drunk all the time I didnt ever thing anything of it. I’ve destroyed my guy and its a blessing that wildly and randomly this doctor asked if she could test me . And we found a lot of issues and also got a lot of answers to a lot of my health issues. Im starting treatment for that . Ill be injecting my self every other day with medicine to help my body repair the damages I have done and it will also help fight allergic reaction and build immunity so this doesnt happen again . I also !!! Am taking my meds again . Different ones but im glad I chose to take this chance on them again . I figured if im going to  put my health and happiness first I dotn need to be drinking and If im not drinking a lot fo stuff is going to come to the surface and I don know how well ill be able to handle that reality. I also like I said thought. Was going to kill my self. I was so heartbroken so so so sad. I knew I needed help and I reached out and got. Now im happy and stable and I get out of bed and I have energy and im so present and to active. I work out everyday . I eat healthy and I lost some weight . My highest weigh t was 168 before our florida trip I got down to 147 , when worked for Linx I was 145 then after being with tj again my mental health went hay wire and I lost my self again . Completely lost. And when I got back to co I was 153 pounds …. I would shift from 145 to 147 … then I just stopped worrying about it and started doing something about it. I channeled all my sadness in to exercise . Im sad go work out im bored go work out im happy hey go work out get that good flow !!  Your angry you miss him what ever it was I worked out then it became all I could focus on cus I learned to love it so Much . I took on running again I put in the work . Things finally where falling into place . I was getting my self back and this time it was better then ever . Better then ever before . I unlocked this door and its been so beautiful. I one day weighed my self just to see assuming id be 145 I was 137 !!!! Wow !!! A week later I was 135 and today I am 133!!!!! Its so cool and feels so good to not be depressed not feel pretty in my clothes. And iliv Amy self. So much . I hope I start working at hooters soon and continue to have a great life. I finally got approved for unemployment and ally back pay and also and extra 13 weeks after mine runs out. Things are just happening . I wasn’t going to get any hadn’t outs . But I was at the bottom thats for sure and you know who was there ? Not tj not the guy you literally did everything for no not him . My mom and my step dad and my brother . They took me in . And it was hard and uncomfterable , but I just stopped going out stopped drinking as much . And did things for them no matter if they where mad at me or if it was awkward.i committed to being good fo them . And I knew it would take time . But little by little ive managed to accomplish all my goals . When I used to be the queen of quitting. I cant wait to see even more of what god has in store for me. And who I become . My skins cleaning up my body is losing weight I more active im healthy and im very in touch with my desires and my well being . I care and love and respect my self so so much. Its like a huge spiritual awakening. I love being alone . I dont feel like alone deserves me right now to be honest .Its gong to take a lot for me to love again but its okay . Not everyone deserves that form me anyway. I worked so hard to me this . To be who I am right now and I won’t let anyone take that away form me. You cause harm to my heart my well being just by !! If you disappoint me disrespect me or hurt me its done . You lost you dot meet my needs your not benefiting and there’s to many many and women on this planet . Ill never waist my time on the wrong one . Ever again. I respect my self to much to put someone over me! And I stand by that now and forever!!!  The new be is bette then ever and its gong to take a hell of a person to change my relationship status . And that cool im honestly not even interested . I dont care to date or hang out or hook up or even have sexual contact with anyone . Im so content with me myself and this beautiful transition im goin through I just want to focus on me and my family and my health. Because this is what its all about. This is what living is. this is life. This is beauty . This is whats important. I feel like im living . And im happy and im only going to get better and better. Thank you god for this life and thank you for giving me the strength to turn the page and start a new chapter on life. I fully trust you and the processs. And that brings me back to “god will never leave you behind” I needed to learn all those things that all may mistakes have taught me . And god has a way of constantly bringing things back Into your life if it has not yet served its purpose or taught you what you needed to learn.  I see that now. Positive mind set is very powerful . Loving your self is amazing and living through god is the best thing you can do . I will always you tj and I will always in some way wish there was a me and you forever .but I cant ever betray my self like that again. That door is officially closed.  See I thought my life was over when you said our relationship was over. But really it had just begun. Everything happened for a reason exactly how its meant to happen . Losing you meant I could finally find my self. It just lit up the path .  God bless <3 no angry  im happy and im I accept this and I forgive my self and you . Life is so Beautiful .

Some one very wise once said … -Life is not about how much you hurt its about how much your willing to suffer. ~VP

Im not willing to suffer any longer.  Except it feel it and then forgive and move forward.

[ikkleosu]

The mystery is where is Carol taking Lydia? If she is out with Lydia to expose her to the Whisperers, I can't see how fans ever look favorably on Carol again. But maybe Carol wants Lydia to be safe and is taking her to Hilltop, but they don't make it b/c of Gamma/Aaron. Lydia thinks she's being betrayed when she's not. Good intentions gone wrong and all that.

I'm sorry, what? "I can't see how fans ever look favorably on Carol again."

I can. Because some fans remember that Carol's son was murdered, she found his head on a pike and then the woman who murdered him taunted her to her face about it. And that same woman is orchestrating a campaign on several fronts to kill all her friends and family in slow torturous fashion. And no one seems to be listening to Carol about it. The only other person who really agrees with Carol is Siddiq, and look what happens to him.

Look, I am not saying I agree with what Carol does with Lydia. She isn't considering the girl's trauma. But she is doing it for the best reasons - not just revenge against Alpha, but to end the threat against them all. And she has form for that. Another storyline I hated - when she frightened Sam. She did it to try and protect him.

But for me the difference is this - I didnt see the motivation behind Carol's behaviour with Sam. I didnt see her fears and her trauma, nor did I see the end result of it.

This time I feel we are getting it all. And it's tragic.

Carol goes against Daryl because she thinks this war, ending the treat is more important than Lydia's feelings, even Daryl's feelings, and most of all her own feelings. If she makes Daryl mad at her that's the price she is willing to pay. And how utterly devastating is that?!

That Carol who loves Daryl more than anything, whose face nearly broke from pain at the idea he might not believe what she saw just days ago, is prepared to go against him knowing how hurt and angry he'll be? How much does that say about the state of mind Carol is in?

Couple it with what AK said about why Carol was asking about Connie, that she wanted to make sure he had someone after she was gone - and it makes a truly heartbreaking, scary picture.

Carol is preparing to die. In the very near future. Not in a suicide way, but in a way that she knows she will go to absolutely any length to end this. And she will keep on until it is over.

So, scared for Carol? Heartbroken for Carol? Understanding Carol? Yup, all of those.

Not looking favourably on her? Never gonna happen.

[softwonjunnie]

my thoughts of the final ep

this gets a lil long so click the button to read it all lmao

before the ep;

okay so i already know hyeongjun, yohan and eunsang will be in the top 11 but it will be fun to see where they place!!

also if dongpyo and donghyun dont make it in the top i will sue someone

and i am so not ready for this 4 hour thing lmaoooo its too long mnet why

during the ep (very out of context stuff);

aAAAAH HYUCK IN X1-MA

daehwi is so cute :(( chaeyeon too :(((

aaah wonjin u fit the center so well, pls get the center position!!!!!

donghyun fits the to my world concept to well pls center

“three months” yohan you’re full of bullshit!! he takes feedback so well aaaah so good

hyeongjun being scared of going to the front when it’s his time to be the center lmao so cute

keumdongie is 110% perfect for the center, plsssss guys vote for the right boy

wonjun & hyuck’s hand heart, help my heart

dongpyo legit describing himself as what the center needs, thats my boy

yuvin’s “i’m still growing” iM QUAKING

dongpyo’s satoori gets me every time help

YUVIN LOOSENING HIS TIE AAAH AND HANGYULS DEEP CUT SHIRT

kookheon looking so happy for yuvin :((

“boy” was supposed to be the non-sexy song...... as if

i need yuvin to do the music works-move if he gets into the final lineup

DONGPYO AND KEUMDONG AS CANDIDATES FOR 9TH PLACE AAAAAAH

KEUMDONGIE WHY ARE YOU SO SEXY ?!

EUNSANGS NOSE THING

eunsang tries out for center and all positions and everything all the time, pls just let him be center  

donghyun isnt even a candidate for center???? are these ppl blind or something

can i just say that i’m hella dissapointed at mnet for not making the boys sing live?? it’s super boring to look at them running around and lip-syncing

also thanks mnet for hiring your worst staff to cut the live performance of to my world lmao it looks awful

also mnet are great at slowing down the final episode to make it so long, applause for that?? no jk it’s horrible, it could've easily been cut down to like 2 hours or less... i’ve just watched both performances and it’s 2 hours and 45 min left.... they’ve been talking about the 11th place boy for like 4 minutes now.... what is this

guess if this bih didn’t just cry when they thanked seokhoon

dongpyo and yoonjung :(((((

dongwook is the best representative of all seasons, i love him

HYUCK AND WONJUN DOING HEARTS AGAIN WAAAAH

dohyun can play the piano?!!!!! i was expecting for him to joke around when they said “dohyun play” but then he did it so effortlessly

lee eunsang is a vocal legend !!!

dongpyo is crying, yuvin is crying, seungyoun is crying, (jo) yuri is crying, everyone is crying

WONJIN HAD A MULLET?!!!!

seungwoo’s message to dongpyo, kill me

aND DONGPYO MADE ONE TO SEUNGWOO TOO im crying too much already

hyungjun nations crybaby

jinhyuk didnt make a message to jinwoo...... :(

suhwan saying he’ll become a better main vocal than yuvin :)))

they’ve lined up now for the results.... i’m not ready...

omg i always say their names along with dongwook in my head, and when he counted up the boys’ names and he said “brand new music lee” my mind said daehwi?? omg

dongpyooooo :( getting major daehwi-feels here

seungyoun rising from such a low rank!!! gj!!!!!

wait a sec.... 4 places left and we have eunsang, hyeongjun, seungwoo, jinhyuck, wooseok AND mingyu left?....... AND YOHAN WHAT

nations crybaby yES

the only three month trainee who deserves 1st place

my baby boy in x position... darling.... guess if i cried even tho i knew about him debuting already?

after the ep;

well well well

its so sad how it’s ending already

it feels like yesterday when i first saw the videos of the ppl nominated for the x1-ma centers

time flies by so fast

i’ve gotten waaaaay more emotionally attached to these boys compared to any of the other seasons

idk if im happy or sad bc it makes me so sad to see the eliminated boys

donghyun :(((( you made it this far and im proud of you to make it into the top 20. you fought hard all this time!! good job!!!!! we love you

i remember picking out dongpyo, donghyun and hyeongjun as my faves from those first pictures that came out...

and i remember how i found the ep1 live stream on youtube and just wanted to watch a super small part - and i turned it on right at starship’s performance. and i was so heartbroken at hyeongjun performing so poorly because he looked so cute, but he fought back!! and he did so well and came in 4th (!!!!!) place! i love him

and i remember how i first saw donghyun and thought “ah! he looks a lot like donghyun from season 2!” and then i was gonna write down his name and..... wait a second

now that i look back at my list i wrote in the beginning with trainees to look out for...... im shook

i wrote down song hyeongjun, ham wonjin, don dongpyo, lee eunsang, lee wonjun (ah bby :/ ), keum donghyun, nam dohyun, kim yohan, cho seungyoun, kim sihoon and yoon junghwan

8/11 were in the top 20, 6/11 got into the final lineup and the others are hella talented and were eliminated too early

but i guess overall i’m satisfied with the outcome?? like i would’ve wanted wonjin and donghyun in it but i’m not too bothered tbh. it’s alright

i would’ve wanted jinhyuk and wooseok to change places bc i think jinhyuk would bring more to the group, him placing 14th is bullshit

the most saddening thing tho is that the starship boys are all split up now for 5 years so we probs won’t see a starship boygroup now for another 2.5 years so bye guys

conclusion i love pdx101

i love the trainees

and i love you guys who follow me and send me love and support, let’s all support our wonderful boys together!!! pdx101 fighting!!!!!!

[dimensionsblog]

Due to recent events, it's time I told my truth: So, we'll start from the beginning, when everyone knew me as the new affiliate on his cell phone playing Pokemon. At this point, I had been open about being transgender and bisexual. Right before I got the email saying I was affiliated, I met someone that went by the username AutumnLittleByte. This is where shit gets real. This is your one and only warning as I'm about to be fully honest about what happened. 2 weeks after meeting Autumn, she informed me to check my donations. Lo and behold, she sent me my first ever donation of $20, this was meant to go towards the PS4 or Steam games if I so chose. Whichever path I wanted to take to improve my streaming even further. In concept, this sounds like a kind and generous gesture, but in reality this was her way of "getting in". When I found out she'd given me this kind gift, I cried. I was honestly shocked someone would do that just to try to help. At the same time, she'd joined my old Discord. I'll get into why it's old later, trust. When she joined, she asked if she could add me as a friend so we could message each other. It seemed so harmless I immediately said yes. How was I to know any better? This was my first donation and my first real time properly using Discord. So what happened? Well, it started out harmless, as I said. She sent a picture of the shiny Mightyena she'd just captured on Pokemon X to me, helped me make a channel just to post shiny Pokemon in, and subsequently posted the same picture in there. Again, harmless at the time. Two weeks later, we'd been talking privately and learning more about each other. Apparently she was also transgender, but male-to-female. She claimed she was 19 and currently in her first year of college. Claim being the HUGE KEYWORD HERE. Seemed innocent enough, and she even sent a picture of hersrlf to confirm it. With no context she honestly looked 19. But did she act 19? Honestly, she was a bit immature. But I merely attributed it to how I am. I'm a bit immature and I won't lie about that. 2 more weeks of talking and she asked me out. Me. Me of all people. I was kind of floored as I had openly admitted I had a crush on another streamer, but it was just that, a crush. Nothing else came from it and that streamer and I remain friends. Especially in my heart, as she no longer streams or has been on Twitch in over 2 years. Now, being in this situation, getting to know this person and thinking what she claimed was the truth, she honestly seemed very sweet and I wanted to give her that chance. So I stupidly said yes. A few weeks into the new relationship and it seems to be going well. By this point, I had been gifted up to Stormblood on Final Fantasy XIV and was also gifted 6 months of subscription for the game. So that was extremely exciting and I chose to play and stream it quite often to hang out with my friends. Well, she started to get real jealous, real quick. It kind of worried me how quick. She basically didn't like my friend, who I previously stated I had a crush on, and claimed she knew 2 people that did not like her for manipulating others. Okay...? But where was the proof in that claim? I didn't really buy it either, but I let it slide. If we rewind just a bit, she'd done something that I was already weary of. So, my first game I ever streamed on the PC was Black Rock Shooter for the PSP, I did it using the PPSSPP emulator and my Xbox 360 USB controller. All seemed to go well and we had no problems. She even made me an overlay which my friends decided to have a little fun with after I set it up with my alerts. Well, Autumn upped the ante by continually donating with my friends, which started a donation war. Until she grew mad that she lost, stole money from her roommate, and called my friend a stupid slut on stream. All these donations, plus a very generous donation from my friend Chris later meant I could purchase Christmas presents for my family for the first time in a very long time. It felt nice to give back, but I also wanted to be a good boyfriend. How? By...spending $50 on Toothless from Build-A-Bear. He had chocolate scent. Toothless was apparently Autumn's favorite cartoon character and her favorite smell was chocolate. I had it sent to her and so in response, I got pictures when she received it and she actually gave me 2 $50 gift cards for my birthday and Christmas. Seems nice right? This is when things started getting noticeably bad. I was told I couldn't make any purchases without her permission. Nor could I spend any money on my mobile games. Nor could I get anything for XIV at all. And to me, that was a bit controlling and weird. But I let it slide. Remember? No one ever claimed to like me like she did before. So, I let her walk me through what she wanted it spent on. I got several Steam games I honestly wasn't interested in and....Minecraft. Yes, I had to spend $25 for the modded Minecraft. This way I could play with her on her server. This just seems controlling though? Some people are like that. Not in this case. I still haven't fully rewound so you guys would know more. I do this a lot so I can explain things. Let's head back to my birthday in 2017: The entire week, I had been told time and time again by my girlfriend that she had sent me a package for my birthday. She claimed it included a very personal letter, a ton of Reese's candies, and two large Treecko plushies she'd bought for me, as well as a Treecko poster. For those that know me well, Treecko is my all-time favorite Pokemon. Well, she promised and promised and promised it was coming, and so I was heartbroken on my own birthday to find out it never came. She claimed it was lost and sent me a tracking number. The tracking number didn't exist anywhere, I tried multiple places. So instead of getting angry, I knew I had problems with my bipolar depression at that point, I asked her what the letter was about. To try and get some insight as to why she nay not have sent it. She told me it said that she loved me. And that she was scared of how fast she'd fallen for me. And according to her, it detailed exactly how she fell and why she did. The last time anyone said that to me, I was being catfished for money. I was shocked and honestly I had some kind of feelings but I wasn't sure what they were. So I said it back to her, but I was honest and she claimed she was okay with that. Now we return to the gift cards and Minecraft time. Oh boy. You probably can already tell where this is going, but it's my truth and this is how I choose to tell it. Anyways, Autumn had become not only controlling, but very clingy at this point. I told her several times that I was going to sleep or taking a nap in the previous week and she'd begun to act like I was avoiding her or leaving her. It was this behavior that manipulated me to begin with. I did everything I could to reassure her that I wasn't leaving her and I cared about her very much. Well, one night she got very upset with me. This was because I refused to do 2 things: Let her control me on Minecraft so she could play with her apparent ex at the same time and flirt the whole time I was there doing basically nothing but continually mining for gems and dying to lava, and I also adamantly refused to take nudes and send them to her. She'd been trying to get me to do that for a solid 2 weeks and I simply wouldn't do it at all. And that pissed her off. She called me, on Discord, apparently crying. Telling me I made her feel like shit and it was my fault. I had to beg and plead for forgiveness, for her to take me back, because I was so manipulated at that point I thought she was as good as I was going to get. She finally caved after me breaking down on the phone with her. Her claim at the time was that she never had anyone fight for her like I did, and it made her like me more. Sure it did. Mhm. Anyways, we continued to have stupid little arguments since. Mainly involving me being forced into Minecraft with her and her ex once again, me trying to play XIV with my friends that she didn't like apparently before I was gifted the game and subscription, or especially me saying no to nudes. A week before our final fight, I was actually finally able to relax and spend some time with my friends that she didnt like, but we chose to do it off stream so she couldn't snoop. I even hid myself playing games on Discord so she wouldn't know at all. Both were concerned. I didn't seem happy, or myself. It kind of seemed like I was bending to her will and it scared them. Tbh it scared me too. I told them I was scared, and I didn't know if I could leave without more problems. More problems? What do you mean? Well, the night before, obviously Autumn and I had gotten into another fight. In that fight, Autumn let it slip that she wasn't transgender, and also wasn't 19. She lied about both things to get with me, she was really 16 and apparently gender fluid. Meaning she didn't mind being addressed as male or female. It scared me because I had just turned 24, I didn't want shit happening to me because she lied about her damn age. What was worse was that she actually sent nudes in the hopes I would send her some in return. Which is why we always fought. I deleted her pictures and when they weren't in our messages anymore on Discord she got pissed and cursed me out. She would attack all my insecurities and use my bipolar depression against me as if I was trash for having it. Then I would get the blame for her having to be mean and set me right when I didn't do anything to deserve that in the first place. I'm not into nudes, it's not shocking I don't want them. Both friends encouraged me to leave her, my mother even begged me to leave her and I just...I couldn't. I was stuck in this rut. She was underage and could use that against me. I wasn't going to do any better, I was going to feel like shit forever and never be happy again. I legitimately believed this. Well, everyone around me did what they could to help me try to be happy in this shitty situation. So a week after relaxing, I decided to stream XIV again, but I twisted it so I could include Autumn. She'd gotten a free trial, so this way we could play and enjoy ourselves....so I thought. Autumn was ADAMANT about barring my friend from even playing the game. No Discord chat or game for her, that's what she wanted. No, I want her to talk to me and I want to play this game with her. That popped into my head immediately, a clear light in a seemingly endless realm of darkness. So I did, I added her to the Discord chat and Autumn lost her shit. "Xion what did I just fucking tell you? I said don't add her to the call." Immediately came out of her mouth, she knew she'd been caught right then and there trying to bar me from my friends and manipulate me. There's still the clip of me being "dumped" by finally standing up for myself. Finally. And they were so concerned they did something wrong that when the breakup was finalized, they cheered. And did everything they could to keep me smiling and happy that entire stream. So why now? Why tell us all of this now? Because abuse of any kind, it's never okay. It's not okay to defend someone like that for supposedly changing as well, especially if they victim blame as I have seen. I lived through 3 months of pure hell, never again. You are not alone. If you are being abused, there's always a light in the deepest darkness. You can break free and be happy, I believe in you.

[gracedandelioninkmind]

Since it's pride month

For most of my time at school betweeb last september and febrary I had a crush on this girl. And you see Id been working through how feelings and sexuality work for me ever since the end of high school, because id been realizing that id never been actively interested in kissing or anything intimate with anyone. Id had plenty of what I call Sparks of Interests, where I just enjoyed looking at someone, talking to them, but more and in a different way than normally for friends. But all of those Interests were towards guys. I loved talling to my friends about guys and hypotheticals about them. I always envisioned myself in a man and woman couple and I loved that opposites pairing in every romance. But I wouldnt say that the ppssibility that I could be interested in girls hadnt crossed my mind. It didnt when I was little, and it didnt in middle school when I told girls that I didnt like boys, because they were stupid, and someoen asked if I was a lesbian. But in high school there was this awesome chick that transferred into our school. I woulsnt say I was overtly attracted to her, I certainly never had any fantasies about her, but I just thought she was so cool and I definitely wanted her to like me and to be friends eith her. Her twin brother was cool too. Oh oh and dont let me forget that one year I was apart of the schools journalism program and some of us were sitting around the classroom and I suddenly giggled at something I was reading, and this one nice tomboy girl was like omygod was that you that was the most adorable sound. I was so flustered, i will never forget that compliment.

But still i was straight. I fantasized about m/f relationships, not necessarily involving me because I cant often envision myself eith just anyone. I just think that romance is fascinating and enthralling and sometimes lots of things can be interesting.

And then I was reading a fanfic, and the girl was asexual, and Id been thinking about asexuality as an explanation for why I just didnt think i wanted to be sexual with anyone id ever met. But it didnt feel quite right because I know i mustve felt some attraction to some guys before, and definitely felt attraction to actors and such.

And then my friend gave me the term Gray Asexuality to research. Have you ever been putting together a puzzle and u put a piece in place, and it looks right and the picture doesnt seem to be wrong--but then you find another piece that looks so similar and you try it instead and it fits so much better, not loose or jammed. That was my feeling finding out that there was this complexity to sexuality and romance to explain why things just always feel so subtle for me. To explain why I can crave love but I really very often find that the very idea of kissing and sex is just awkward and weird to imagine for myself. It explained part of why my one week relationship fell through. Id had a crush on the guy since first meeting him at the start if the school year, and i had been so excited when he asked me out, and it was fun to hold hands and hug. But i hadnt wanted to kiss him, and it had bene so annoying when my friend told me i should kiss him, even just on the cheek. It just hadnt felt like there was a very big difference between my friendship with him and dating him.

So i got to thinking over all of my feelings towards all sorts of people. And if my sexuality and attraction was as rare and subdued as all that towards men, then I felt that maybe I hadnt wuite recognized any feelings id had towards girls.

And after discovering the asexual spectrum, i finally had some very interesting dreams, the likes of which id never had before turning 18 let me tell you. And they didnt only focus on men anymore.

And then i was in my second year at college, and i hadnt had many more dreams, and i hadnt found any real crushes my first year. But my second year i started working at the library, and one day this cute asian girl came through with a polite hello as she passed the front desk where i sat politely greeting everyone for my first week. I found myself memorizing her immediately. I would hope to catch her eye, catch a hello, a goodbye. I found myself glancing over to ehere she sat if she was in sight. And when she came to check out dvds i memorized her name immediately, all the more because id seen it on a study desk while doing rounds. See i hadnt knoem that if someone leaves something at their desk ee leave it alonenso id taken the open umbrella doem to the front desk and asked my coworkers and they said to put it back so i remembered the namr on the desk and returned it. So when i saw this cute girls name and recognized it from that desk, it almsot felt like fate. But that was silly. And i only thought she seemed nice and she was cute. That was all.

But then i was trying to capture her likeness on paper, ehich didnt go well those first few sketches because i hadnt gotten any good looks at her face. And after finding out her name I suddenly heard it cropping up elsewhere, and i was talking to my friends about her. My friends did not agree that i wasnt crushing. I insisted that i just wanted to get to know her was all. And then one day at lunch a new friend id made in class invited me to sit with her and her friends, and she mentioned an Eliza. Boy the anticipation, the excitement, the shy feelings, and the satisfaction when the very same girl sat with us.

Then that same friend invited me to a movie night at her dorm lounge with her friends, and when i asked who all would be there, anyone i know, she said maybe. I wondered to myself if She would be there. When i got into the dorm, lost and unfamiliar with the halls, waiting for my friend to come find me, I suddenly heard teo voices from upstairs. I knew one was my new friend, and with joy i recognized the other as Her. As it turned out She was the only other friend to join us. We 3 spent the night watching black panther and history of japan, getting to know each other, and I painted Her nails. It was different touching her hands then itd ever been with another girl. I found myself hoping for something. I hoped at least that she would like me as a person and wed be friends.

Every interaction after was a treasure for me. Moments we happened to be alone, when she offered to keep me company at lonely meals, when we had a big kdrama hangout and she did my hair, etc etc.

I had to acknowledge that it was crush of course. I told my closest friends about it.

And one day this crazy thing happened. I was sitting with Her and our friend and the two of us apart from Her were discussing dating apps and whatnot. And She asked why was i even concerned eith that stuff anyways. Id been thinking by then that she might be aspec because she never threw in her oen teo cents about interest in relationships whrn we discussed these things. I explained that i just wanted to try dating. I hadnt ever been on a real date.

While our friend was continuing with another topic, i heard Her say that She could take me on a date. My mind caught on it, but the topic had changed, and I felt that it couldnt have been serious. And so i gushed and whined about it to my friends. But the next day I brought it up as a joke with our group of friends, and she acknowledged that shed said it. Our friends supported it, because why not. Theres such a thing as a friendly joke date. I kind of messed it up i think though because when it was jsut us parting ways after brunch, she said she was going downtown, and i said That couldve been our date. And she agreed and invited me along. I wish id been dressed cuter. But it was fine, and it was a nice enough date, though i dont think she had any experience or interedt in how dates usually worked--it wasnt a serious date anyways, so i wouldnt get my hopes up. I wouldnt be invested. But wr passed a friend of hers, another cute girl maybe smaller than me, and She told her that we were on a date. That felt significant.

The next day i brought up that wed gone on the date to my group of friends, with Her sitting next to me. And she became so awkward, and after my friends congratulated us, she told me It wasnt a real date. On the outside i played it off casually saying Listen do you know how excited friends get about dates let me have this. On the inside i was so disappointed and heartbroken and a bit defensively angry with her. I announced to the table that she wasnt to make sure everyone knew it wasnt a real date. What i was really saying was hey friends she just crushed my heart.

But we were still friends. And after a while i got okay again. She hadnt even noticed anything had gone wrong.

At some point I told that first mutual friend about my crush on Her. Id been withholding eho my crush was on from her for a while and she hadnt even guessed Her. But when I told her she said everything made sense.

And then she set us up for a valentines day date. I couldnt believe it. She jsut randomly messaged me Would u want Her to be ur valentines date. And i was like Id appreciate any date tbh but yeah id like to go on a date with Her. And apparently She just agreed. I couldnt tell you why she did any of the things she did. But i can tell you that thru some conversations it became clear that my hypothesis was likely accurate. She didnt understand dates, she didnt see the difference beteren friend date and real date. This was just this nice outing with a friend. Part of me was okay with that, because i did simply enjoy Her. But another part of me felt unfulfilled and sad. But we had a nice date anyways. I learned even mroe about her and she made me this oittle clay blueberry because i would sometimes just pick out a blueberry at the dining hall and admire its beauty. It was a very nice date and i got to dress up cute for someone. I didnt let myself hope for much.

And then i was talking to more of our mutual friends about crushing on Her, and someone told me that shed asked Her out before and that her response had been something along the lines of not being interested like that. We all agreed that She likely just doesnt have any interest in romance or whatnot.

And so i began burying it away. My mourning period passed. She graduated, and its all over. My first ever crush on a non-man. It had been nice.

Btw her ringtone in my phone was Mindy Gledhill's I Do Adore.

[artificialqueens]

Here I Go Again! (Group Fic) - Epilogue - pureCAMP

A/N - important notice!! there is some smutty smutty smut smut in this, but i didnt write it!! plz send ur love to citrus aka @pianowired bc she wrote it and its absolutely excellent. plz enjoy! (and let me know if a part 2 is needed! <3)

Raja had seen a lot of action, in her time, both for her friends and for herself. She remembered her first was skinny and scrawny as most fifteen year olds are, and he hadn’t impressed her.  He was too excited to actually be inside a girl, and barely lasted two minutes. Of course, she’d told her girls all about it, how it wasn’t really worth the hype, but still worth trying.

  Then was her second, around her sixteenth birthday, and if she remembered correctly, Jinkx had gotten laid that night too. Her ginger friend had admitted that she could barely look the nameless girl in the eye when she awoke, but had enjoyed it nevertheless. In the meantime, they teased Sharon about her chastity, despite it not being her choice. The poor girl was convinced her religious mother had eyes everywhere, and she wasn’t too far from the truth. Whenever the three got up to no good, there always seemed to be someone to report back to Sharon’s mother and get her into trouble.

  For the next two years, Raja lived her life as a hoe and was thoroughly enjoying it. Her experiences ranged from poor to… satisfactory, at best, and she detailed each one to her girls, occasionally expressing her sympathy for Sharon. It wasn’t from lack of interest or trying, bless her, but her mother’s insistence on wearing that damn cross around her neck every day tended to keep boys away. Which was, of course, what the religious old trout wanted it to do.

  Both herself and Jinkx applauded Sharon when she dropped out of high school, all three of them knowing she’d fail regardless, and started to rebel a little more. Their music group was the perfect opportunity to do that - to dress up fashionably, ditch all religious memorabilia and dance away from her mother’s prying eyes. The island a little way off the mainland was their solace, and a great place to pick up boys.

  Around the summer, things changed. Their performances began to bring in more customers to the little tavern, resulting in more ‘fans’ and more guys and girls for Raja and Jinkx to have fun with. One night, she remembered seeing a young guy in the crowd, around their age, watching the show. Normally, Raja would’ve jumped him as soon as the set was over, but his eyes were on Sharon, and Sharon’s eyes were on him, and if this was her friend’s chance to get laid before she turned eighteen, then she’d have to let it happen.

  It was so much more than that in the end. Sharon, now glowing with this new life, detailed all of her experiences to them with her eyes shining. She didn’t retell the stories like Raja did, mentioning the rough movements and emotional detachment from the whole thing. It seemed as though she loved him. Of course, she told them all about going rough and hard and fast, but it always seemed to end with cuddling, with kisses, with romantic walks on the beach as the sun set around them.

  So now all three of them were living the hoe life. It was fun, but it didn’t last.

  After Justin left, Sharon became solitary. She was never around in the daytime like she normally would be, to laugh with Raja and Jinkx and listen to stories and just have fun. Raja shared with Jinkx and Jinkx shared with Raja, and they only saw her when they were performing and a few times in between. She seemed distant.

  Looking back, Raja knew now that it was because her sly dog of a once religious virgin friend had in fact been sneaking off to have rebound flings with two other guys in order to cope with her heartbreak. Back then, they’d just assumed she wanted to be alone.

  So, to cut a long story short, the last of their group to lose her virginity, and the first of the group to ever be in love with someone she’d had sex with, had fallen pregnant. For a good year after the news was revealed to them - through a skin-tight costume that wouldn’t zip up and a tummy that seemed just a little too round to be puppy fat - the hoe life died down. Raja didn’t feel like she could just run off to find a guy and fuck him when her best friend was miserable, heartbroken, hormonal and alone. Call her selfish, but she also didn’t want to be caught in the same predicament.

  With one of her best friends then busy with a newborn, Raja got back out into the dating pool, so to speak. At twenty one, she met her first husband. He was okay-looking, really, tanned with black hair and piercing eyes. Her father paid for the wedding, and he paid for Raja’s surgeries to enhance her bust, and he didn’t fuck too badly, but his lips were larger and faker than her own, and it started to put her off a little. One and a half years later, she divorced him.

  “You paying him back for those?” Sharon had joked, tickling her then-five-year-old Trixie with one hand as she gestured at Raja’s chest with the other.

  “Oh, please.” Raja had responded. “He paid for these and they’re still not as big as yours.”

  Husband number two was a little better, but not much. He owned an international cruise line, so combining Raja’s family wealth with his was pretty luxurious. For a couple of years, she hardly saw her friends, communicating mostly through letters from wherever the cruise ship took them. It was a time of expensive face creams that contained flakes of gold, designer shoes, and world tours to places she’d never even dreamed of seeing.

  But he was boring. Rich, handsome, and oh-so-boring. His every word was a drag, he was a complete drip, and he had the personality of wet toilet paper. He had to go, and two years later he was gone.

  “Gold flakes…” Jinkx had mocked. “And what else? Donkey testicles? Mashed up goats liver? None of my girlfriends have ever cared if I look a little strange.”

  Raja had shrugged and laughed. “If I want to day drink all year round, it’s the price I have to pay.”

  “God, I haven’t day drank in forever. I haven’t night drank in forever. I’m busy being an adult whilst you guys go off and single-handedly date the entire planet.”

  Husband three had taken a while to propose, which was getting on Raja’s nerves, but other than that minor flaw he was perfect. Handsome, well-off, and just the right amount of emotionally involved. He wouldn’t cling, he wouldn’t ignore her, it was just as close to perfect as she could get. That was her happiest wedding day, even if her father had drawn the line and refused to pay for it.

  It really seemed like this one would stand the tests of time and Raja’s ever-changing nature.

  “So you’ve finally found the one?” Sharon had asked, flipping through Raja’s years of wedding photos. In each picture from each wedding, Raja had a different husband and Jinkx had a different lady-friend (she wasn’t very into commitment), but Sharon had the same plus one - her daughter. It was no secret that her days of dating and sex seemed to be over already. She never expressed the feeling, but Raja could tell that it hurt her a little.

  “I hope so. You think your man is waiting for you somewhere?” Raja had replied.

  Sharon laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, he’s out there.” She’d said bitterly. “With someone else, telling her she’s his soulmate.”

  It really did last. Eleven years they were married, and Raja was pretty content. But it seemed that all good things came to an end, whether she wanted them to or not.

  Truthfully, it was her fault. He was kind and sweet and he wanted to be a father. Raja, having intimately witnessed a pregnancy, the birth and watched the child grow up, didn’t want to be a mother. Of course it was magical for Sharon, and she’d never bash her friend for her decision - not after so fiercely defending her to people, even all these years later. Besides, she knew it would be different for her than it had been for Sharon, considering she was thirty six, twice the age that Sharon had been, but she was still put off. She’d never wanted children anyway, and the whole process freaked her out. For others, she was supportive. For herself, she was an inch away from disgusted.

  It was just one of those differences that tears people apart. Their arrangement was no longer working, not really.

  The divorce was a painful one. As she sobbed into Sharon’s chest, Jinkx awkwardly rubbing her back, it seemed to hit her at once that her friend was something of a superhero. Now that she was experiencing heartbreak, she finally understood what Sharon had been through and how hard it must’ve been to carry on. Yet the way she so expertly comforted her showed just how incredible of a mother she’d been, and how she’d relaxed into the role and learned exactly what to do.

  Last time Raja had checked, even though she swore she wasn’t going to, his new wife - blonde, pretty, the works - was six months pregnant. Fine, that was fine. He’d moved on. Raja moved on too.

  Her tricks were getting younger, truth be told. In recent years, the younger men had become even more open about their admiration for older ladies, and whilst Raja was in no way old, she appreciated the attention. With a little bit of Botox, she was pretty much the young man’s dream.

  Still, hooking up with one of Sharon’s hotel slaves, as she so affectionately had nicknamed them, felt a little strange. Karl had told her that he was twenty one, so at the very least he was older than Trixie.

  Admittedly, he was one of the better ones. He wasn’t disgustingly hairy, like some men who tried to approach her, but he also wasn’t pre-pubescent and hairless. Clean shaven, the way she liked it. He was fairly muscular, Filipino, and had a strange streak of blonde in his dark hair. Whether that was a fashion of the youth or not, she didn’t care. Raja still tugged on it in bed with him after the hen party had been infiltrated by the stag do.

  He was skilled enough that, the next morning when Raja crept away so that she didn’t have to sleep besides him any longer, she simply went to beach and lay out in the sun to relax. Her energy was somewhat spent and she needed the ache to subside before she got ready for the wedding.

  “Hey, babe.”

  Raja didn’t even bother opening her eyes. “Babe?”

  Karl lay down next to her, getting sand on the beach towel. “You heard me. I called you babe.”

  “Oh, lord.” Raja scoffed. “Babe indeed. I could be your mother, near enough. Speaking of, where is she? Does she know you’re out?”

  Karl rolled his eyes. “You can’t ignore the chemistry between us, Raj. I know you feel it. I know you felt it last night.”

  He smiled, blindingly white teeth flashing in her direction. Raja hadn’t seen teeth that white since she’d flown out to the clinic to pay for a whitening herself.

  “You’re so cute,” She teased, watching how he tried and failed to compose himself. “I know what you want, sweetcheeks. But you’re playing with fire, and your fingers are gonna get burnt.”

  Karl seemed unfazed. “What if I’d walk through fire for you? What if I’m fireproof?”

  Raja laughed, surprised at his persistence. “I like your style, kid. Just make sure you let your mother know that you’re out, honey.”

  In one smooth motion, Karl rolled over so he was positioned above Raja, kissing along the marked spots on her neck and collarbone. He might’ve been young, but he smelled like sea-salt and he tasted like honey and he sent waves of fire rolling through her body. In all honesty, he was the first to actually make Raja feel young again. Like any minute now she’d be caught, messing around in the sand with a guy she knew almost nothing about. It was thrilling, but she couldn’t exactly let him win.

  “Nice try,” Raja breathed, flipping him over. “Take it easy, slow down. That’s no way to go, now is it?”

  Pinned underneath her, Karl smiled wickedly. “I don’t suppose you wanna show me how it should be done, then?”

  Raja considered it. She could teach him a few new tricks, that would be fun. Combining the young man’s stamina with the older woman’s expertise would definitely, definitely be fun. But on the other hand, they had all the time in the world. It wasn’t like Raja had a stuffy old husband to go home to anymore - she didn’t have anyone waiting for her. Right now, the only person who wanted her attention was Karl, and he seemed happy to wait.

  Besides; she had a wedding to get ready for. She’d wasted enough precious time fooling around in the sand. If she was going to look suitable for this wedding, she needed to start getting ready early. Plus, Sharon would throw an absolute fit if she knew that Raja was distracting one of her hotel slaves.

  “Meet me after the wedding reception.” Raja told him, extending a long, tan leg close to his face. “Maybe then I’ll dance with you.”

  —

  Night had fallen by the time Trixie was changed, packed, and down at the docks ready to leave. Sharon had been rushing around in a flurry to ensure her daughter had everything she’d need, and then some. Call her over-protective and paranoid, but her little girl was leaving home for the first time, going out into the world to find adventures and experiences. It would be nerve-wracking for any mother.

  Around the four of them, a chilly sea breeze blew. The sky was inky, the sea like molten silver as the moonlight glittered off the surface. Everything was still and silent, besides the bobbing of the little boat that would be taking Trixie and Brian to the mainland. Stars twinkled high above.

  “You sure you’ve got everything?” Sharon worried, shivering on the deck. She rubbed her arms to try and warm them, and only moments later, Justin’s suit jacket had been placed over her shoulders.

  Trixie smiled, humouring her. “Yes, mom. I was sure the first time, long before you triple-checked it all.”

  Brian and Justin shared a laugh, their matching grins widening as Sharon playfully shoved them both.

  “Alright, alright. Sorry. It’s a mom thing, I guess. Worrying so much.”

  Shaking his head, Brian smiled. “Sharon, I’ll take good care of her, not that she needs it.”

  Justin chuckled. “I’m sure after being raised by you, she could take on anything.”

  “You’re probably right.” Sharon grinned. “Well. Don’t let me keep you waiting.”

  Her tone changed; quieter, a little more forlorn. It had been the most perfect day ever, and there was no denying that, but goodbyes were always difficult. Sharon’s last goodbye had been tinged with heartbreak, and this one just felt like letting go. She’d always known, really, that the tiny baby who was lulled to sleep by her heartbeat and the gentle rocking of the chair would one day have to leave home. She herself had done it, albeit under different circumstances. Even so, as a mom, she wanted to keep Trixie wrapped up in swaddling blankets forever.

  Trixie threw her arms around her in a hug, squeezing tight the way she always did. Sharon blinked back her tears when she pulled away, offering a weak smile and leaning forwards to hug Brian, too. Her heart skipped a few beats when she noticed Trixie hugging Justin, planting a kiss on his cheek and whispering her goodbyes.

  It was like they were a real family.

  “Go, go on already!” Sharon half-joked, pushing the two lovers towards their boat and trying to ignore how choked up she felt. “God, you kids… Driving me crazy, I tell you. Go on, go and see the world.”

  Justin kissed the top of Sharon’s head and began to help Trixie and Brian loading their bags onto the boat. Before long they were waving goodbye, growing smaller and smaller in the horizon. Sharon didn’t stop waving until they were a mere dot in the distance, not visible against the night sky nor with Sharon’s rapidly-blurring vision.

  “Hey, hey… It’s okay. I’m here.” Justin’s voice was gentle, calming. He pulled Sharon against his chest, sparing her the embarrassment of crying in front of him, and soothingly rubbed her back.

  “My daughter just left home.” Sharon sniffed, muffled against his shirt. “I feel like the definition of not okay.”

  He leant down and kissed the tip of her nose, making her giggle. “I know. But she said she’ll write, and she’s so excited for this. She’s like how we used to be.”

  Justin began to walk away from the docks, one hand in Sharon’s, heading towards the taverna. “Remember? Life was so exciting. The world was this brand new place and we’d get to discover it all.”

  Sharon snorted in spite of herself. “Of course I do. But don’t you think we’re a little old for that now?”

  “Old? You make us sound like pensioners.” Justin laughed. “Babe, we’re both thirty eight. Not even forty yet. That’s not old. Some people call it the prime years.”

  He nudged his wife suggestively, to which she burst out laughing. “Uh huh, sure. You really think we’re better now than we were twenty years ago? I’m saggier, fatter, wrinklier… the list goes on.”

  “You’re so stupid. I don’t see any of that.” Justin defended her, squeezing her hand. “You’re curvy, you’re beautiful… you still have those slutty lips that I love.”

  Sharon gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, acting scandalized. “Slutty lips?! And you call yourself a gentleman?!”

  Justin shrugged. “So you’re saying that when we fuck, it won’t be as good as it used to be? You’re not slutty anymore?”

  “No! I’m not saying that!”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “I don’t know, it sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”

  “It won’t be worse! It’ll be better!”

  “Prove it.”

  The challenging gleam in Justin’s eyes sent waves of heat rolling through Sharon’s body. Fuck, she’d missed him. The taunts, the teasing, the dirty talk and the mischievous behaviour. It was ridiculous that she could still feel like she was eighteen even now, just being in his presence. He hadn’t changed a bit, and he was making her run wild.

  “We’re not going to make it to my house, are we?” Sharon asked, half-joking, half-sultry and narrow-eyed.

  Justin’s face was a picture of bliss. “Mmm… I don’t think so. But hey, I see our cabin is still standing. Maybe we should re-acquaint ourselves.”

  Sharon shook her head, laughing. “You… you’re the reason I’m so bad. Cabin it is, before I fucking explode.”

*

The two of them all but ran to the cabin, Justin’s arms flying to Sharon’s waist as she kicked the door closed. As soon as they were alone he kissed her, and it was everything and nothing like she remembered. It was the same passion, the same fire, but his soft lips were accompanied by scratchy stubble and his arms were stronger and more defined than they’d been twenty years ago.

  “Bed,” Sharon demanded as she broke the kiss, pulling Justin across the cabin and into the small, doorless bedroom. The bed was decently sized, fitted with clean white sheets that told Justin that Sharon had been taking care of the cabin even after all this time. He kissed her again, laying her down on the bed and slotting a leg between her thighs as her tongue dipped into his mouth.

  “Told you I love these slutty lips,” he mumbled against her mouth, hands pushing her skirt up her hips. Sharon chuckled, unbuttoning Justin’s shirt and shoving it off his shoulders before trailing a hand down his chest. He was softer than he’d been before, no longer skinny and gangly, and he shivered under her touch after twenty years of deprivation.

  “You’ve certainly aged better than I have,” Sharon grinned as he tossed his hair in mock vanity.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, babe, you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

  Sharon scoffed. “Sure.”

  “I mean it,” he insisted, moving the top of her dress down too so that the garment was bunched around her waist. “You’re gorgeous no matter how you look. Also, no bra? Really? It’s like you planned this.”

  Sharon laughed and shrugged, her giggle turning into a low moan as Justin rolled her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. “You’ll be happy to know I decided against going commando while we sent our daughter and her boyfriend off to travel the world.”

  Justin smiled, snapping the elastic of her underwear against her hip and grinning wider when she yelped in surprise. “You’re so beautiful.”

  Sharon rolled her eyes, pulling him in for another kiss.

  “Can you cut the crap and fuck me already?” she mumbled against his lips, pulling his hands down to rest on her thighs and placing her own hands on his hips. He laughed as she cupped his growing erection through his trousers, squeezing lightly and making him groan.

  “So needy, always so needy,” he teased, shucking off his trousers while Sharon freed herself completely from her dress. She let out a low moan as his long, slender fingers teased her through the fabric of her panties, feeling her beginning to get wet from his touch. “Shh, patience, love. I’m gonna make you feel so good. Just like old times, eh?”

  “I’d say a bit different. I’m not the skinny little slip of a thing I used to be.”

  “Sharon Needles, can you stop putting yourself down for a moment and let me worship you the way you deserve? God, you’re still so stubborn.” Sharon nearly protested, but then Justin’s fingers were pushing her underwear aside and grazing over her folds, and she could only let out a soft moan. “That shut you up, huh?”

  “Shut up and fuck me,” Sharon demanded, pushing his hand away and her panties down with it. Justin shot her one of those stupidly adorable grins of his as he slid out of his own underwear and kissed at her jaw and neck again. “Jesus, babe, age made you slow.”

  “If you want to get fucked, you’ll stop complaining,” Justin growled softly, one hand squeezing lightly at the sides of her throat. Sharon felt another rush of heat pass through her body; she’d always been a sucker for Justin showing dominance, and it seemed as though nothing much had changed in the two decades they’d been apart. His hand moved to rest at the base of her throat, barely even touching her, and she raised an eyebrow.

  “You’ve still got it,” she said appreciatively. “Thought you might.”

  “Course I do,” Justin replied, sliding his hand down her body to spread her open and press a finger into her, making her whine. “You drive me crazy, Sharon.”

  “More, Justin,” she complained, arching up into his touch as he added a second finger and his thumb found her sensitive bud. “Christ, fuck me. I’ve waited long enough.”

  “We both have,” Justin agreed as he drew his fingers out of her and lined up with her entrance. “You sure you don’t wanna change positions?”

  “It’s not gonna do my back any favors,” she answered. “Told you I wasn’t the kid I used to be.”

  “Shush,” Justin bade her, running his thumb across her lower lip and gazing into her eyes with so much love she thought she might melt. She hadn’t seen him look at her like that in all their years apart, and if she was telling the truth, no one could ever fill the gap Justin had left in her life. But he was here now, his hands on her thighs, his lips on her lips, and oh, how Sharon had missed him. He was hot and hard against her, and when he pressed just past her entrance she sighed.

  “More, baby,” she encouraged, pulling him down by the shoulders to kiss the corner of his mouth.

  “You sure, love? It’s been a long time and I-”

  “I’m sure,” Sharon promised, all but a whisper against his skin. He pushed a little further, and Sharon’s back arched to take him deeper into her warmth, kissing him deep and hard. She didn’t stop until his hips were flush against hers and he was buried inside her completely, and he panted against her neck as they both adjusted to the sensations wracking their bodies.

  “You… oh, Sharon, you feel so good,” Justin groaned, gasping when she clenched around him with a smirk. When he rolled his hips, she whimpered loudly, kissing him desperately.

  “I’ve been desperate to have your cock inside me for the last twenty years,” she mumbled roughly, “Memories are never as good as the real thing. I’ve never- fuck– I’ve never been this full.”

  “No one else,” Justin promised as he withdrew a few inches before pushing back in, making Sharon gasp. “No one else can do it like you, babe. No one else can take it like you.”

  “Please, baby,” she begged as he began to increase the pace and depth of his thrusts, his grip on her hips so tight she was sure there would be bruises later. “Fuck, J-Justin…” Justin was perfection, he always had been; he filled her so completely and took her apart effortlessly, making her feel like she was coming apart at the seams and melting into the mattress. She didn’t know his history after he’d left the island– there would be time for that later –but there was no doubt that he’d only grown more skilled with age. It was like he could see right through her and into the place where she kept her deepest desires; every single thrust was perfect, his steady rhythm sending waves of pleasure through her body unlike anything she’d experienced since their last time together. He knew exactly what she wanted, what she needed, and he kissed her with all the passion and sweetness of a first love that had never really faded.

  Desire coursed through Sharon like a wildfire, igniting every nerve in her body and setting her alight with pleasure. She could tell Justin was nearing the edge from the way that his hips began to stutter slightly, but he was doing an astounding job of keeping his steady pace. Sharon pulled her legs to her chest, changing the angle and allowing him to move even deeper inside her, speeding up and fucking her harder and faster. The bed rocked against the wall of the cabin as Justin lost his controlled rhythm and gave into his body, letting Sharon pull him down for a kiss as his hips slammed against her soft thighs.

  Sharon came first, a hoarse shout of ecstasy leaving her lips as every single thrust of Justin’s hips allowed him to ram against the spot deep inside her that made her see stars. Her nails raked down his back as she threw her head back and sobbed with the sheer pleasure of it all, drawing a hiss from Justin and resulting in him planting sloppy kisses all over her mouth like a teenager with poor aim. He finished with a rough cry of “Sharon,” and a final snap of his hips, coming deep and hard inside her and all but collapsing on her chest. The two of them lay like that for several moments, completely spent and trying to catch their breath, and Sharon’s lips lingered against Justin’s cheek, her fingers running over the angry red marks she’d created on his skin.

  “I’m sorry about that,” she chuckled, “I guess you really do make me feel young again.” Justin let out a breathless laugh at that, carefully pulling out of her and moving to collapse on the bed beside her. She nestled herself into his arms, slotting her thigh between his legs.

  “Just like old times, mm?”

  “Just like the good old days,” Sharon agreed teasingly. “I have to admit, I didn’t think you’d be able to do better than we used to. I’m impressed.”

  Justin smiled lazily, shifting slightly and kissing Sharon’s cheek. “Wanna know what pushed me over the edge?”

  “Sure,” she laughed, “But proceed with caution.”

  “I was thinking about how beautiful you looked under me, and then I just had the thought pop into my head that wow, that’s my wife. You’re my wife.”

  Sharon let out an airy laugh, snuggling into his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. “Mhmm,” she hummed contentedly, “Never thought I’d see the day.”

  “…Sharon?”

  “Hm?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, baby.”

  —

  Justin wasn’t an idiot.

  For his first move after the wedding, he’d told Sharon in no uncertain terms that she needed a break. After all, he’d witnessed how frantic she was for the few days that he’d been on the island. He could’ve sworn that she didn’t sleep, eat or relax at any point, just work work work. She needed a break, some time off.

  Of course, time had slightly altered his memories of just how stubborn she was. There was no way she was going to be leaving her hotel, not a chance in Heaven or Hell. She’d put her foot down and that was it, decision made.

  Only Justin wasn’t that much of a pushover, and so began their at-home honeymoon. The young men, guided by Raja and Jinkx, were in charge of the hotel for a while, whilst Sharon and Justin roamed around the island, enjoying their time together.

  It was nice to watch her relax, really. In the sunlight, with her hair cascading down her back rather than tied up, and her face smooth rather than pinched with stress, she could’ve passed for eighteen again. He’d forgotten just how captivating her eyes were, a deeper blue than any expanse of ocean they could see. He’d forgotten how funny her laugh was, the utter cackle that came out of her. He’d forgotten the beauty in her smile.

  Really, he could spend all day listing off the beautiful things that he started to remember during their at-home honeymoon, but Sharon wouldn’t give him the chance. She was as needy and desperate as the day they’d met, and he certainly wasn’t complaining.

  It wasn’t all sex, though. Sometimes they both needed a break, and they had twenty one years of talking to do.

  “Jinkx took this, about two hours after I gave birth. Look at her tiny little fist around my finger.” Sharon held up the photo so Justin could see. Heart squeezing, he wrapped his arms around his wife even tighter.

  “I can’t believe I never knew about all this.” He replied, refusing to take his eyes off his then-newborn daughter. “She looks so much like you.”

  Sharon chuckled. “She always did. I miss her so much.”

  That day, Sharon had taken Justin on her proper tour of her tiny home. He already knew what the rooms looked like, having stayed there since the wedding, but she took him around to the lumps and bumps and chips and cracks, naming each one as incidents that had happened when Trixie was little - all the parts of their lives that he’d missed. Now, he saw the house in a whole new light, full of life and memories and little remnants of the past.

  “This one is sweet.” Justin picked up another of the photos spread across Sharon’s - their - bed. “How old is she here?”

  The photo showed Trixie, cheesing at the camera from her perch on Sharon’s shoulders. Her blonde hair was in two plaits, with a pink cowboy hat on her head and a blue princess dress. Sharon was giggling up at her daughter, seemingly unaware that the photo was being taken, in a summer dress that matched Trixie’s.

  Sharon studied it, smiling faintly, then flipped it over. On the back, almost illegible writing read ‘Princess Trixabelle Parton (3) and Mama Sharon (21) go on an adventure to the marketplace to find some lunch (MS) and defeat some evil (PTP).’

  “Those were the days.” She murmured, biting her lip. “I used to wonder how different my life would be without having Trixie, but she made everything better. I’m sure drinking at twenty one is fun, but playing with Princess Trixabelle Parton was fun too. There’s no comparison.”

  Justin kissed her forehead. “God, you’re fucking magical, you know that?”

  Sharon’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, which she dabbed at in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent them from falling. In spite of herself, she giggled a little.

  “I can’t believe she’s all gr-grown up, I still worry about her so much. She better send me another letter soon.” She paused. “I really miss these days.”

  Unable to stand the sight of her tears, Justin pulled Sharon closer and closer until her face was buried in his chest yet again. Once he could feel her sobs gently deteriorating into laughter, he pulled her away and tucked the photo into his pocket.

  “I’ll tell you what. We should go on our own market adventure today. Let’s buy something weird and make a day of it. We could even take a boat to the mainland and see if Trixie’s sent anything for us. I asked the guy on the boat when he gave you the letter last week, and he said that he’s happy to pass on letters but we’ll have to collect any parcels for ourselves.”

  Sharon considered him. “You know what… that sounds nice! I’ll get dressed, hold on.”

  In a matter of moments, she’d removed her pyjama top with an extravagant flourish, causing Justin to burst into laughter.

  “I swear I’ve put weight on, this is your fault.” She balled the shirt up and threw it at Justin’s head, childishly blowing raspberries at him when he ducked and missed it. “Look at me!”

  She poked her stomach, puffing her cheeks out. Rolling his eyes, Justin threw her shirt back.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Put some clothes on, nympho.”

  Sharon laughed appreciatively. “Fair, fair. Do you think we could skip the market, though? Recently the smell of all the fish has been making me really nauseous, and I don’t wanna throw up on you in that shirt. You look good in that shirt.”

  It wasn’t long after their day out that Justin started to suspect. Of course, he’d never blindly say a thing out loud, for fear of castration via kitchen knives, but he was definitely beginning to notice a few telling changes, even if Sharon wasn’t. The nausea, for example. The breath-taking way she’d started to fill her clothes.

  In fact, he tried to mention it to her once. She was having none of it.

  “Nope. Where did you get that from?”

  “I just thought maybe-”

  “You’re crazy, Justin. I love you, but you’re crazy.”

  “I mean, we have been-”

  “It’s just not realistic, babe!”

  “It’s possible, I guess I just-”

  “Possible? At my age?”

  “You’re not old! In fact, you’re perfectly-”

  “You’re off your head, babe. I think the sea salt is getting to your brain.”

  “But don’t you think-”

  “Nah, it can’t be. Justin, I’m not pregnant.”

  So they dropped the subject. She wasn’t, because Justin was clearly crazy and seeing things that weren’t there. She continued to deny it even when he hadn’t brought it up, which made him laugh. Justin knew Sharon wasn’t exactly… bright. Eventually she’d catch on.

  ‘Eventually’ turned out to be a week from their debate. Justin was sprawled across the bed, half-asleep in sweatpants and a face-mask that she’d insisted they both try. He was forced awake as the bathroom door slammed open, revealing a distressed Sharon with a mouthful of toothpaste foam, a toothbrush in one hand and a pregnancy test in the other.

  “‘Ow did thi’ ‘appen?” She managed to say, leaning into the sink to spit and then returning. “How?!”

  Justin shrugged. “I guess someone decided that the best way to clean your teeth is with a little brush on the end of a stick, so you can really get in there and scrub.”

  Sharon dropped the toothbrush. “Not that, doofus. This!”

  “Did… Did you forget that we’ve been having like… a lot of sex?” Justin tried.

  She shook her head. “Well, of course not.”

  “And the fact that we ran out of condoms within a week?”

  “No.”

  “And that when I told you, you said it didn’t matter and we didn’t need any more?”

  “No.”

  “Well… that’ll be why.”

  Justin watched Sharon’s face, trying to gauge her feelings. She was almost impossible to read sometimes, what with years of hiding her feelings under her belt. He decided to tread carefully, pushing down the rising excitement that he felt inside him.

  “But… we’re old!” She protested. “I really didn’t think this could happen, if I’m honest.”

  Smiling gently, Justin beckoned her to come and lay on the bed with him. The sun was just starting to set, and as she nestled into his arms, golden sunlight filtered through the window and made patterns on the wall. Sharon kept staring at the test in her hand, encompassed by Justin’s warmth.

  “How do you feel about this?” He whispered.

  Sharon swallowed. “It’s… unexpected. How… how do you feel?”

  “I feel amazing.” He admitted quietly, his heart softening as Sharon smiled. “I can be here for you this time, every step of the way.”

  He placed his hand on top of Sharon’s, both of them on her stomach. For a few, peaceful moments, they lay there in silence.

  Sharon was first to break it. “God, I can’t believe those bitches were right. It’s like Raja and Jinkx can predict the fucking future.”

  Justin laughed. “Well. As I’m sure you’ll remember, I’m in if you’re in.”

  The nostalgia registered on Sharon’s face instantly. The first time they’d met - all those years ago - the two of them said it a lot. When faced with a freezing cold plunge pool and no clothes, Justin simply shrugged “I’m in if you’re in.” When coming up with a plan to cause some minor havoc, the two of them in pain from laughing so hard, Sharon managed “I’m in if you’re in!”

  It had been years since either of them had said or even heard those words.

  “I’m in.”

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Why I aborted 2 very wanted pregnancies

April held several anniversaries for me. The anniversary of an unrealized due date, the anniversary of an ended pregnancy, the anniversary of my birth40 years ago this year. All three of these dates gave me pause to reflect on the choices Ive made.

Choice. The word feels big and comes up often lately. When faced with my strong-willed 3-and-a-half-year-old son, Ive learned to give him only two choices or else Id lose my mind. On a larger scale, Im considering leaving a career Ive pursued for over two decades and whether or not to add to our family. Such choices are par for the course as we grow and enter new phases in our lives.

But more significantly, Ive been thinking about the right to choose in the debate over abortion, which is not only threatened under the Trump administration, but also often misunderstood. The nuances that can go into making a choice to end a pregnancy are often unseen, unspoken, and never casual.

Unfortunately, my husband and I were faced with this choice. Twice. We terminated two very wanted pregnancies. To put it bluntly, Ive had two abortions.

And as our government tries to strip us of our reproductive rights, I am reminded how lucky I am to have the financial means and to live in a state where laws didnt prevent me from the choices I made. My abortions left me heartbroken, changed, and grief-strickenthat is indisputable. But everyone should be granted those choices. Those are choices Id still make today.

. . .

Itd be easy to peg me as your typical pro-choice advocate. I grew up in a liberal household. Feminism was at the core of my progressive private Los Angeles high school education. I went to a super hippie-dippy college where grades were for eggs, not people. But while I was taught to think critically about various perspectives, I was primarily surrounded by politically and socially like-minded individuals. To be honest, I never questioned whether I was pro-choice. I just was.

Photo via World Cant Wait/Flickr (CC-BY)

And then I visited a Body Worlds exhibit. This particular show featured skeletal muscles, nervous systems, and healthy and diseased organs to demonstrate the complexity of the human body. It also included a wall of 42 embryo and fetuses preserved in a glass case.

These embryos and fetuses were humanized by Body Worlds. I saw their form and I saw their potential. I saw them as life. (Not so dissimilarly as I saw the meat that I no longer ate when I became a vegetarian 10 years prior.) I remember very clearly, standing over a nine-week embryo in a glass case thinking that I believed in choice, but couldnt imagine making such a choice.

Fast forward 10 years.

I became pregnant in the summer of 2011. In September, I went in for the routine 13-week NT scan, the ultrasound that assesses your babys risk of having chromosomal abnormalities. That day, we found out that our babys nuchal fold thickness was outside of the normal range.

We sat with the genetic counselor as we gave our histories (nothing outside of the ordinary) and was given a primer on statistics and chromosomes and karyotypes and various horrifying conditions. At that point, we still didnt know exactly what it all meant for our child.

As we drove home, my husband, through his stifled tears, said to me, We cant think of it as a baby. I remember feeling aggressively defensive at my husbands reality. I had stared at the doctors screen and saw a body. I had stared at my belly and saw it swollen. Of course, it was a baby. That was never a question for me.

Test results confirmed that our baby had a significant chance of having some kind of severe abnormality that could be fatal or would likely cause him to suffer. We consulted doctors, got second opinions, and endured more testing. We were candidly, though not casually, advised by doctors to terminate and try again. And at 14 weeks, thats what we did. We made our choice.

I grieved, I processed, I sat on the couch in therapy and tried to find meaning in my experience. I planted a letter in an olive tree that I had written to our son, explaining to him why we made our decision, and that it was ultimately a decision made out of love.

I became pregnant again, at the beginning of 2012. This babys due date was exactly one year after we terminated the previous pregnancy. I found solace in that kind of synchronicity.

But of course, when I went to my routine 13-week NT scan, I was still anxious.

As I lay on the exam bed, facing a flatscreen monitor with just my name and my estimated due date, the technician asked me, Would you like me to turn the monitor off after you confirm the information is correct?

She was asking if I wanted to see my baby. Without hesitation, I told her to leave it on. I did not take my eyes off him. Here was my baby alive and living inside of me.

Soon, though, my husband and I would be faced with the same godawful, painful decision that we had made just months before.

This time around, my babys NT scan showed that his nuchal fold thickness measured twice the normal size, putting his life at even more risk than our first. My husband and I searched for a medical explanation or any scientific data that could give us an understanding as to why this happened to us not once, but twice. I scoured medical journal articles and reached what felt like the end of the internet looking for affirmations that I could carry my baby to term and not feel like I was putting my child at a significantly abnormal great risk by bringing him into the world.

We sat with the facts, the data, the expert opinions as well as second and third and fourth opinions. I had a CVS, a microarray, a full counsel on recessive testing. We had ultrasounds with specialists at both Cedars-Sinai and UCLA. We reached out to various genetic and prenatal and neonatal specialists. We made it our job to find an answer.

Despite the extensive research on my pregnancies and all of the testing, every doctor we saw was at a loss to explain why this developed with our babies twice and couldnt come up with anything beyond compassionately telling us it was two strokes of bad luck.

We made our choice. Again.

. . .

I think about what our story would have looked like under different circumstances. In another state. With abortion restrictions. With fewer means. Fewer resources. What that trajectory could have looked like in a parallel universe. And it makes me realize that while others might not agree with our choiceand I certainly can understand why some do notit was our choice to make, not our governments. It was philosophical, it was personal, and it was ours.

The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a billin March that would ban all abortions based on genetic abnormalities. In other words, Oklahoma legislators believe that the agonizing choice that my husband and I made as a couple, both times, should have been theirs to make. Theyd get to make this choice for us even though they would do nothing to support the aftermath of that decision: setting aside funding for his medical care, holding our hands while he underwent a lifetime of treatments, alleviating our pain if he died not long after birth.

In Kentucky, there is only one abortion clinic left in the state. One in 40,400 square miles, and the governor just tried to close it. In that scenario, I think about the big-picture trajectory again: If my husband and I lived in Kentucky and we didnt have a car or have the funds to get to the closest clinic and subsequently had a child with severe and costly life threatening medical issuesa child whom may or may not have been even able to survive after being bornwhere would we all be now?

But in what could be the most damaging legislation given my situation, the Texas Senate just passed two obscenely restrictive bills: One outlawing dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedures, the safest and most effective abortion procedure for women in their second trimester and what doctors used to terminate my second pregnancy; and another called the wrongful birth bill that would make it legally OK for doctors to lie to their patients about fetal abnormalities so they dont get an abortion. Yes, doctors could make the choice to withhold my babys health issues from my husband and me, while we went on in ignorance, unable to have a choice in the future of our family.

The list of laws and states and circumstances that hinder choice goes on and on.

Photo via Shutterstock

While it may seem like what the Republican Party wants to do first and foremost with such restrictive legislation is prevent women from getting abortions, that motive is only secondary. Many studies have shown that women arent going to stop choosing to have abortions under strict lawstheyll find other, unsafe means to terminate their pregnancies that could put their own lives in danger. At its core, these laws are about controlling women and perpetuating feelings of shame and guilt for making choices over their own bodies.

Women have long lived with the burdens of shame; nevertheless, we have persisted. We do not shut down after making the choice to have an abortion. We do not go through with the procedureand never feel again. I have never felt so much pain, anger, sadness, grief, and confusion as I did after choosing to end my pregnancies.

Worse than the pain I felt in their absence, though, would have been not getting to make that choice at all. And to clarify: I understand why others would not make the same choice. But being forced into a life based on a doctors whim or a legislators personal ideology, being robbed of making the best personal choice for my family, would have been a pain I could not endure.

. . .

After that 13-week appointment, I decided to make the most of each day with my son while he was still in my body. We went to the beach. I showed him the ocean and the sand. We ate Indian food, Italian food, Mexican food, Mediterranean food. I read to him. I talked to him. I sang to him. I wrote him letters daily. We listened to a lot of Florence and the Machine. I explained everything that was happening to us as best as I could, as we went into each ultrasound appointment.

After considering and reconsidering all of the information we had collected over five weeks, we made the decision to go in for a D&E the day before my 35th birthday. He was 18 weeks. I woke up on my birthday longing for him and missing him terribly.

While my husband and I grieved together, I felt oddly alone in my experience. Simply put, there was a literal voidinside of me. Unlike my husband, I had pregnancy weight gain and pain and cramping and bleeding and hormonal mood swings that were constant visceral reminders of my baby whose life we chose to end. And so I took the pain pills prescribed with wine every night as I watched countless episodes of TLCsWhat Not to Wear to escape all the pain that was too hard to feel.

Because he was a baby, my baby, we had him cremated. Until we came up with the right spot to place his ashes, I carried him around with me. Some might think it weird or dark or sick, but I couldnt fathom leaving him home alone, and so he came with me in my purse to my appointments, my errands, and my work. We eventually found his spot.

My husband and I eventually tried again seven months later. I quickly became pregnant and gave birth to our son in August 2013.

I would be lying if I said I did not often see his two brothers when I look at him. All three are part of my fabricour son is here because of them. And one day, I plan on telling him about his brothers and our journey. A journey and a family we wouldnt have without choice.

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[thecapricorndevil]

Right Girl Wrong Time

I know i need to let her go But she might pop up And finally we'll get to talk Her man will be gone And he wont be a problem no more She was never a hoe See all these girls were a crush She was something more She was the purest form of love And me? I was the purest form of fear She'd love me and Id be afraid Hoping to be with her But slowly I walked away Thinking she'd be the same as all the other girls But she was never the same Now nothing was ever the same She was strong and had moved on I looked it but an empty hole where my heart once was Thats so far gone I just got my heart back After a year and a half of growing from the last ex Everyday she'd text me Not the ex the purest form of love Even if she said she needed a shower Even if she said good morning It was an excuse to talk to me On the outside id act like i didnt want it On the inside i fucking loved it I fucking craved it And when i ran away I thought she was just another artefact Another embarrassing crush If i knew she'd mean this much to me id never have left But truth is you never value something the most until you lose it After i ghosted and cutted her for christmas I completely forgot she existed Ghosting and cutting people off is my no 1 talent Art and writing aside This entire time i thought i was ghosting her This entire time i thought i was cutting her off But in fact it was her It was always her Shes always ahead The day came when i couldnt go a second without talking to her And from that moment on No from the moment i thought i ghosted her We were strangers I tried and i tried to contact her Messaging her I wrote paragraphs saying how sorry i was I wrote paragraphs saying how i want things to go back to being normal But i got nothing in return Well i did and all that was, was a bigger hole in my heart Id do anything and trade anything to be with her Everyday and every night i wonder Does she think about me the way i think about her Does she feel the same about me the way i feel about her. Everyone says leave her in the past Delete her Forget about her But leaving her means leaving those memories and leaving a lot of myself behind I was the happiest i had ever been at that point in my life. I thought it was just me but it was her all along man. Recently i saw her tweet "biebs in the trap<<<" and then "get the fuck out my head man" i got excited cause id been talking about that song all year and i thought she was thinking about me but then i realised i was overthinking it. Then a few weeks later she sent a snapchat of my favourite song at that time whilst i spoke to her. It was an indian song called "Tu Meri" and at that moment id never been happier. That snapchat made me realise she thought about me. I even replied "eeeeee you still remember" and she replied " of course i do" and let me tell you one thing i have never been so in love with a girl in my life. I was so happy because for bit of time i was on her mind i dont care even if it was a second. I had known this girl for what? 2 months and she had been the closest and most caring person id ever met. Id never eat at lunch and she'd always come shops with me to get food so i didnt go alone. She'd even buy me food or share with me. We were acting like kids for fuck sake. Talking to each other in justin biebers purpose song titles. Another thing, that album fucks me up. Its like it helped me get through my first heartbreak and fucked me over even more man. But i still reminisce about it and her. Every song and every movie and every picture and just everything reminds me of her. I see that long wavey black hair and that kylie jenner lookalike face and if you notice me smiling out of nowhere thats cause a memory of her or just her face popped into my head. And for that moment my heart will beat normally and feel like ive never been heartbroken ever before in my life. These moments come and go. To this day my friend told me just tell her how i feel. But the thing is she has a man for one. And my past tells me and experience that every time i do this the girl distances her self from me. And for her to distance her self even more than she already is. Im already dead on this inside and i actually think id fucking go insane. I make excuses to go back into my old school stpauls just to see her once more every time. But shes never there. I just pray before i walk in through those doors shes there and that id see even the back of her head. I HATE HOW SHE NOW TALKS TO OTHER GUYS AND SHES POPULAR BECAUSE IM SCARED SOMEONE MIGHT HURT HER MAN. If anything hurt her you dont understand the rage and pain id feel. Im willing to give my life for this girl just to see her smile. This sounds like im trying to be all romance movie type of shit but actually its my heart emptying out. The amount of times ive deleted her and re added her and the disappointment on my bestmates face every time makes me feel guilty but her pictures man omg. Have you seen this girls pictures??? Like i said shes love in human form. Her eyes and her lips are my favourite thing about her. And that cute little nose of hers. But yeah man i still have her on my instagram and snapchat hoping she messages me saying she misses me or we start talking again. Just one day. I dont know how much of this torture i have to take before that day comes. But imma wait. You might think im overthinking and its a stupid fantasy and that it will never happen. But everyone has a fantasy they wished happened. Some wanna be rich and some wanna be superheroes. I just wanna be with her i dont care if its as friends or in love. And whats wrong with having a little hope? Every guy has that one girl just like every girl has that one guy. Even guys go through emotional shit but we've so brainwashed by the idea that guys arent weak and that we cant cry it's ridiculous. Im here in my room and i write about her and you know whats amazing. I sing bryson tiller and drake and songs that are like emotional as if shes in front of me. I know i might sound off tone and pitch but in my head where my fantasy is i sound amazing and she loves it so fuck you. After a while of me realising we probably wont talk at the beginning stages of me and her not talking i went around looking for things to get that exact happiness and feeling she gave me. You know what? Its been almost a year and a half like my first ex and i still havent found it. I may forget when im with my best friend but shes engraved in my subconscious. I know the right thing to do is tell her and no matter how much it fucks me up ill have to move on from it. It'll probably scare me break my heart and fuck my head. Who knows i could be overthinking the fuck out of this thing. But do i tell her or do i stay in this same position forever wondering and holding onto that hope. I might just tell her. If it doesnt go well then itll be an amazing story to write and paint about. Every movie i watch ive replaced the hero and his girl with me and her like a fucking idiot and just zone out and dream. Fuck man this is it. I gotta do this. I have to move forward from this. I know i shouldnt have disappeared from her life like that it was wrong stupid selfish and she didnt deserve it. But you know what? Shes happy. Thats "all that matters" (another justin bieber song title reference) even if i messaged her and she ignored itd fucking kill but you know what fuck it. I did what i had to and ill always be there for her if she has a man or not or if we're speaking or not. No matter what like drake said "if i ever loved you ill always love you thats how i was raised".