hold your breath {count to ten} | japhera

sephera greene

and I'm not sleeping now
the dark is too hard to beat
and I'm not keeping up
the strength I need to push me

Waiting for the answer felt like an eternity. I stood there, my eyes still squeezed shut and my heart pounding so loudly, I was absolutely certain he could hear it. I couldn't wait anymore. I needed to know. Now. Yet he still didn't speak. I felt myself begin to shake, and finally, his voice quietly echoed through the ominously silent room, severing any chance of hope I had built up, and crashing all the plans he and I had made for our future.

"It says we're screwed."

Immediately I turned to face him, shock burned into my skin like a permanent scar. I snatched the piece of smooth plastic from him, my eyes frantically searching for the evidence to support his statement. They counted one line, then two, and my hand covered my mouth. No. No. No. I found myself on the floor, weak knees no longer strong enough to support my weight. My eyes were still glued to the two lines, perfectly straight, parallel, and they might as well have been knives once factoring in the stabbing sensation I felt deep within the pit of my stomach.

The realization of it all was about as subtle as a bag of bricks being slammed across my face, and I couldn't believe it, even when it was clearly so. My hands quickly clutched my abdomen, dropping the test to the floor, and suddenly I couldn't breathe. A baby. A real, growing, living person was inside of me. I couldn't stop the tears that began to poor down my cheeks, or the quiet sobs that left lips that had fallen numb. Only one thought kept replaying itself in my head. Why?

Why me? Why, of all the people in the world, had I been chosen to carry a child? It wasn't fair! Not just for Jamarion and I, but for the baby. I wasn't ready for this, to be a parent, to be a mother. I didn't know where to begin! I had grown up without a mother, as had Jamarion, who wasn't exactly fit to be a parent just yet either. I guessed nobody, even those that had wanted children for years, were ever truly ready, but with Jamarion and I things were different. Neither of us asked for this! What was going to become of this child? Would it be healthy? I would have blamed myself every day for the rest of my life if I got rid of it. I was stuck. I felt as if I was standing on the edge of a cliff with a killer drawing closer and closer with each step. The water at the bottom was cold and running swiftly, and the killer had a poisonous grin painted on his face. So what did I do? Did I take a chance, or did I give it all up?

I jumped.

Jamarion was there, no longer trying to hide the fright in his face, and I climbed into his arms. I didn't realize they could, but my sobs grew stronger, my tears bigger. "Jamarion, I can't be a mom! I just-" My voice was broken and strained between the violent gasps of air my mouth demanded. "What are we going to do?!" Try. It was all we could do. It was going to be hard, harder than anything else in the world either of us ever experienced, but somehow I knew we were going to make it. Somehow I knew we would be okay. We were having a baby, and that was that. I was going to bring life into a world were so much of it was taken. So, in a way, I was proud, but in others, sickened. Was this really my excuse? That all the death that occurred in our world was okay because I was bringing life in to take the place of those that once were?

Pathetic.

sephera greene

you show the lights that
stop me, turn to stone
you shine it
when I'm alone

Help.

That was a word I avoided at all costs. Not because my pride refused to let me receive any, but because I despised owing people. I hated always having it on my conscious that someone helped me out, and that I was forever in debt to them for it. I thought Jamarion felt the same, but I guess I was wrong. No, he had a fair point. No way in hell were we going to make it through this all on our own. I dreaded even telling his family already, but asking them for help? Lyana was the only one left in Jamarion's family that I had formed an actual relationship with. There was Hopper, sure, but I rarely ever saw him anymore. (I didn't think anyone did.) Klaus and I got along, I suppose, but he was always so busy, to and from the Capitol, and now with a child, something I would soon share the experience with him in. Marina? A psychopathic bitch that cared about nothing other than herself, which was a pity, because there wasn't a hell of a lot for her to admire.

Of his family, Lyana was my favorite at the moment. She was always greeting me with that flustered smile of her's, and always so eager to help, even when she was already cramped for time. In a way, she was already a mother in my opinion. She seemed to keep her siblings (Marina.) in check best, other than Jamarion, who chose to use aggression. I never had a problem with it, as long as it was directed at the little bitch that refused to even give me a chance, but that was beside the point. I decided I would tell her before anyone else, since she was so good at speaking, when Jamarion and I... weren't. If we were going to ask for help, it was going to be from someone that I could trust. I nodded my head, sucking in a breath of air, and trying to calm myself.

I was crazy seeing how much the boy I loved and I had evolved over the years we had spent together. From the moment we met, angry at the world and ourselves, to our first kiss in that dark-as-hell-closet Hopper locked us in, to the first time we said we loved each other, to now, when we found out we were bringing a child into our lives- somewhere along the way we had grown up. Maybe, just maybe, we were ready for this. I could already see bits of an image of Jamarion teaching a young boy to play catch, or wrestle with him in the floor of our living room. The small smile that formed on the edges of my lips wasn't enough to keep the tears away, but it did give me hope. I wiped the streaks away from my cheeks, trying to control my breathing long enough to talk.

"Shit. We have to tell your family."

I said, and surprised myself when a small laugh escaped from my lips. I could see them all sitting around the large table that sat in the middle of the dining room, Lyana already knowing what was coming, Hopper laughing, Klaus cheering, and of course, the one I dreaded dealing with, Marina being a complete bitch. Did she ever get tired of being herself? Everyone else certainly did. I wasn't entirely sure why, but the very thought of her was pissing me off. Shouldn't it have been Jamarion I took my anger out on? Yes, Marina was passed due for an ass kicking, but,for once, it wasn't her fault. Only Jamarion and I had caused this. Nobody else. Which also pissed me off, because I was supposed to be so responsible, and now look at me. Pregnant by a boy who, after years of being together, still hadn't asked me the one thing I had been waiting on for months. The one question I would always, no matter what, answer with a smile and a yes if it came from his lips. But that would change eventually. Maybe now that this was happening he would open his fucking eyes for a change. "I call dibs on not talking."