Broken Beauty

by Chloe Adams

  “Contemporary. We went to college together,” Chris says.

  It’s political talk. “So the DA isn’t a friend at all.”

  “He’s a good man. Means well. In any case, tell me about the girls.”

  “He showed me pictures. Seven more girls got attacked.”

  “He showed you pictures when I wasn’t there?”

  “Yeah. They were awful.“ I drift off, not wanting to imagine the other girls. “Today was rough, Chris.”

  “Gianna says you did well.”

  “She’s really nice. Can we talk about the other girls later?”

  “If you’d like.”

  Good enough. He’s not pleased, but I’m feeling anxious. I leave quickly for my room, before he changes his mind. I have texts waiting from Ari. I settle in my closet to answer them before I write my journal entry for the day.

  Chapter Nine

  I arrive on time to hell two days later. It’s more depressing than I remember. Fabio – or whatever his name is – takes up his position inside the building, drawing the looks of the employees coming in. I go straight to my assigned cube. I tried to straighten it up the other day, but am still disgusted as I turn on the computer. I didn’t pass Gianna, and there’s no one around me yet.

  I hate feeling alone. The sounds from what one of the ladies calls the dorm area unsettle me even more. I don’t know anyone here. Even if I did, I have nowhere to hide, if they come after me. Crossing my arms, I walk back to the front of the center. Fabio glances at me, and there are members of the press peering into the front door waiting for that money shot of me mopping or something.

  “Where’s Gianna?” I ask the receptionist.

  “Car broke down. On her way.” The plump black lady’s name tag reads Wendy. I don’t remember meeting her the other day, but I really only remember Gianna. “Take this back to the clinic.” She hands me a file.

  I take it and walk down the hallway, past the scary dorms that smell like someone tried to cover body odor with a can of Lysol. I hurry past them to the medical office in the back. It must’ve opened early today; there are already women in the waiting area. The nurses’ assistants are triaging two women, one of whom is visibly battered. I clench the folder tighter.

  I reach the reception area and hand over the folder then turn to leave fast.

  “Hey, ah …” someone calls.

  I turn.

  “We need some hands down the hall. Come on.”

  Before I can object, the older woman ducks into a room and talks to someone else. I start down the hall, not sure I can stomach any sort of medical stuff. After my stay in the hospital, I never want to see another syringe or pill in my life. The older woman trots away and walks into another room. When she reappears, she’s holding a tray full of bottles of urine.

  “Take this to the lab,” she says, shoving it into my hand.

  Disgusted, I step back fast. They have lids, but I’ve got awful luck and I can see them all spilling on me. None of them do. By the time I look up to ask where the lab is, the woman is already down the hall.

  Irritated, I return to the reception area.

  “Lab?” I ask the woman there.

  “Two halls up, five doors down.”

  I follow the instructions, walking slowly. I so want to take a picture of this tray full of pee for Ari. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her how bad this place is. I reach the lab area and set the tray on the half door.

  “Hello? I have … um, bottles of pee here,” I call awkwardly.

  “Come in!” someone calls from the back of the room. “One minute and I’ll be out.”

  I enter. There’s a lot of lab equipment on one side, but it looks old. There’s duct tape around one machine. I set the tray down on a clean, stainless steel counter next to a deep sink and wait. One of the machines is on; I hear humming.

  “Okay, our first batch.” A trim, middle-aged woman appears from the back room.

  I don’t know how these people can be so cheerful. Wendy, the receptionist, is the only one who looks like she hates her job.

  “You new?” she asks.

  “Involuntarily, yes,” I answer. “I’m Mia.”

  “Ah. You’re part of the special program.” She smiles. “I’m Ricki. Who’s your sponsor?”

  “Gianna.”

  “A total sweetheart. Nice to meet you. Now, grab some gloves.”

  “I’m not like, trained for anything.”

  “This is easy. Gloves are on the wall.”

  I turn to see several different colors of gloves on the wall. White, green or purple. I go with purple.

  “You allergic to latex?” Ricki asks, gaze on my gloves.

  “No.”

  She smiles curiously. “The green and white are latex, the purple are non-latex for people who are allergic.”

  “They match my shoes.”

  She laughs. “I’ve never heard of anyone choosing gloves to match their clothes.”

  I’m not sure what to say. She points to a box on the counter. I grab it and hand it to her.

  “This is easy. All you do is drop one of these strips in each of the samples.”

  I frown. I don’t really want to mess with bottles of pee. She puts the box of strips on the tray then moves away, towards the machine I assume is humming.

  “What’s up with the duct tape?” I ask, noticing the magic tape helping to hold together a rack on the wall.

  “Limited funding. We push as much money as we can to those who need it. Sometimes, our equipment is the last thing we have money for,” Ricki replies. “But, we mainly do routine, simple check-ups here and refer people who need something more to the hospital.”

  “And what am I doing?” I ask.

  “Pregnancy tests. You ever had one?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Insert the test strips,” she instructs me from across the room.

  I grimace as I follow her orders. “Okay, I’m done.”

  “Set the timer for five minutes.”

  I do and stand back, watching her move a vial of what looks like tar from one machine to another.

  “Watch them. If they turn pink, it means they’re pregnant. Blue, not pregnant,” Ricki says.

  I look down. There are twenty bottles, and all of the strips are pink.

  “It looks like they’re all pregnant,” I say.

  “All?” Ricki crosses to me. “That means these are probably all bad. Throw those away in that bin then try them again.”

  I grimace and walk each of the dripping strips over to the bin with a biohazard sign on it. I put in new strips. Not even a minute passes when they start turning pink, one by one.

  “All pink,” I say to Ricki, who is buzzing around doing stuff I don’t understand.

  “There’s a new box in the drawer behind you. Try those. I just can’t imagine all the results are positive.”

  “Okay.” I do as she says, and I report back to her in a few minutes. “All pink.”

  “That can’t be right,” Ricki opens the drawer where the box was. “That’s the last one. I can’t imagine two boxes being bad. You pregnant?”

  “What? No,” I reply, surprised.

  “I might be, so mine may not help. We’ll test both of ours to act as baselines.” She hands me a bottle and wet wipe. “Use the bathroom around the corner. I have my own in the back.”

  Today sucks worse than the first day. I throw the purple gloves away and go to the bathroom. When I return, I put the bottle of my urine next to the bottle I assume is Ricki’s, on the counter beside the tray of twenty. With a sigh, I drop new strips into the twenty, one into mine and finally, one into Ricki’s.

  As before, the samples all turn pink slowly. Mine does, too.

  I roll my eyes. Figures a place that uses duct tape to hold itself together has defective test strips.

  Ricki’s turns blue.

  I stare then look at the strips to make sure I didn’t use some from different boxes. Puzzled, I remove all the strips t
hen replace them and wait.

  The same thing happens. Mine turns pink. Ricki’s turns blue.

  “Well?” Ricki appears from one of the back rooms, her arms full of boxes. She dumps them on a counter and starts to stack them.

  “I don’t know. I think they’re all defective,” I say, starting to feel sick.

  She walks over to me. “These are ours?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So I am pregnant. They’re working, if yours is blue. What’re the chances?” She grins. “I’m gonna be a mama.”

  A familiar sense of tunnel vision fills my head. The world is too big again; I need my closet. A sense of confusion and fear make me nauseous. Ricki is talking, but I don’t hear her. I don’t hear anything except buzzing.

  I lean against the counter then look towards the rooms in the back. Ricki says there’s a bathroom, and I’m feeling sick. I stagger through the lab and push open one of the doors. It’s a storage room with long shelves filled with supplies. The door to a bathroom is open on the left, and the light is on.

  I go into the small bathroom just as my legs give out. I push the door closed and huddle against a wall. I squeeze my eyes closed and try to steady my breathing. I’m trying hard to imagine myself in my safe closet, but all I can see in my mind is the test strip.

  Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I got my bottle mixed up with Ricki’s.

  But I know I didn’t.

  It has to be a mistake. Something was wrong with the strips.

  But if so, why did Ricki’s turn blue?

  I can’t process the thought that I might be pregnant. Daddy says it’s not possible. Suddenly remembering I have my cell, I pull it out and search the internet. What I find makes my hands shake. Thousands of women who are raped get pregnant every year! I drop the phone and start to cry.

  Ricki knocks. I can’t hear her voice. Rather, I can hear her, but I can’t understand her. I’m back to the night when I was raped, struggling to understand what’s happening to me. This must be a dream. This isn’t possible, even if the search results say it is. I thought I was done with Robert Connor. He’s leaving town. He can’t hurt me, if he’s gone. But now I know: he’ll never leave me.

  Someone tries the door knob. I hide my face. More voices outside the bathroom. I huddle farther into the corner. My tears stop after awhile, but I can’t move. I can hardly breathe. I feel like I’m dying.

  I want to die. That night almost six weeks ago will never, ever, ever let me go.

  Someone touches me. I wrench away and push myself into the corner. Whoever it is leaves. I can hear voices. The flashbacks are creeping into my thoughts. My fingers curl as I remember the pain of shredding the tips against uneven stone, until they were raw. I couldn’t escape then. I can’t escape now.

  “Mia.”

  I know this voice.

  “Mia.”

  I turn my head. Dom is there, like he was the night I should’ve died. He’s kneeling beside me, his large body taking up the rest of the space in the bathroom. He touches my arm lightly. The sight of him pulls me from the nightmares.

  “You know who I am?” he asks. His dark eyes are concerned. He’s dressed in his police uniform.

  “Dom,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  “I need to go home.”

  “What happened?”

  I shake my head. I can’t even say the words. My eyes water again.

  “It’s okay. C’mon.” He helps me to my feet.

  Ricki, Gianna, Fabio and a couple of others are outside the bathroom.

  “I’ll take her home, Gianna,” Dom says. “Fabio, come with us.”

  Dom’s arm is around me. I balance myself. My legs are working, and I step away from him. I feel numb. Dom glances at me then offers his arm. I take it, because I’m not at all sure I’ll make it to the door across the room, let alone the car.

  Gianna hands me my phone. I tuck it into my pocket after three tries. We walk out of the clinic and I climb into the passenger seat of Dom’s police car. I feel like I’ve been up for hours. Fabio gets in the back, and Dom drives us away.

  “You okay?” Dom asks, looking at me.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You need a doctor?”

  “No. I just need to go home. Please.”

  “We gotta stop meeting like this.”

  I look at him. His smile is tight, but he’s trying to joke.

  “I’m so sorry, Dom,” I say.

  “Don’t be. It’s lucky Gianna’s car broke down.”

  We say nothing else as he takes me home. I see Daddy’s car and chauffeur in the driveway.

  “Thank you, Dom,” I say, darting out of the car. I hear him pulling away as I burst into the house.

  I noticed Daddy’s car was running, an indication he’s getting ready to leave. Not before I talk to him. I run down the hallway to his study and open the door. He’s not there. Chris is and looks up. I go to the next door down, to Daddy’s official office, where he meets with important people.

  He’s seated at his desk on the phone. He glances up and waves me away.

  For once, I won’t be pushed aside or ignored. Hands shaking, I walk over and hit the button to hang up on whoever he’s talking to. Daddy looks at me, frowning.

  “Mia –”

  “No. You wait,” I say and draw a deep breath. My voice is shaking like my body. “You lied to me, Daddy.”

  “That was the vice president you just hung up on.”

  “You lied to me, Daddy!” I shout. “You said … you said …”

  “Chris, what is this about?” Daddy looks towards his lackey.

  “It’s about you not letting me take the morning after pill,” I answer, my anger rising. “Because you said a woman who is raped can’t get pregnant.”

  “That is not why I oppose the …” he starts.

  My ragged breathing is the only sound in his office. Daddy stands up. I’ve never seen him be anything but poised, wearing his poker face. But right now, he’s surprised.

  “You lied to me! You told me …” I can’t finish.

  “Mia, are you saying you’re pregnant?” Chris’s voice is hushed.

  “Y…yes.”

  They’re both silent for a moment.

  “Call Shea,” Daddy says.

  Chris disappears from the doorway. Daddy crosses in front of the desk and sits on the edge.

  “You’re going to be a mother.”

  “No,” I say. “I’m not.”

  “Our family does not believe in abortion.”

  “You don’t believe in abortion. I won’t live my life with –”

  “You cannot kill an innocent life, Mia. Minors need parental consent for an abortion in this state. I won’t give it.”

  “What about my life, Daddy?” I demand. “What about the fact that I was raped?”

  He’s quiet for a moment. “What happened to you is the thing of nightmares for a father. But committing another sin will not right what happened.”

  “It’s not –”

  “It’s murder, Mia.”

  I want to scream. The look on his face tells me he’s not going to listen. If I were Molly, he might. But I’m not.

  “Now, we need to assess everyone who knows so Shea can handle it.” He returns to his chair on the other side of the desk.

  Like that, I’ve gone from his daughter to another issue he’ll pass onto his team to handle. I feel empty and sick. I’ll never matter enough to him for him to treat me like another human, let alone his own daughter.

  I still can’t understand the concept of pregnancy. It’s too foreign to me. Just like being raped, it doesn’t make sense. But I do understand that Daddy lied to me and expects me to live with his decisions. I turn and walk out of his office. I expected … wanted a confrontation. But he’d have to care about me first to care about what I’m going through. Chris says something as I pass the study. I don’t hear it. I go to my room, curl up in my closet and pray to wake up from this nightmare. />
  Broken Beauty Novellas

  Broken Beauty (Sep/Oct)

  Broken World (Nov/Dec)

  Author Note: “Broken Beauty” is the first of six novellas chronicling Mia’s struggles and triumphs. The novellas will be released over the course of a year, tentatively every two months.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Forward

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine