Sora grunted, in the best she could, and finally zipped up her uniform skirt. It was starting to get unbearably tight; she wasn’t sure how much longer she would be able to wear it. She sighed, turning this way and that, then buttoned up her sweater to cover the bulge her growing belly was making. 

There was a knock on the door. Sora started, as she had taken to doing a lot these days, and she quickly double-checked to make sure that her belly was covered. “Yeah?” she called out.

Her mother let herself into the room, dressed for work. She left the apartment very early most mornings, so it surprised Sora that she was still there.

“Hey sweetheart,” Dr. Cha said, sitting down on the edge of her daughter’s unmade bed. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Sora felt a knot of dread settle somewhere in the pit of her stomach. Was this it? Was her mother finally going to call her out on all the lies and deceitfulness?

“Sure.” She was having an awfully hard time keeping her voice steady. “What did you want to talk about?”

“You,” Dr. Cha said honestly, taking her daughter’s hand in her own. “You haven’t seemed yourself lately. You seem down about something. Do you want to talk?”

Sora sighed. “Mom, don’t pull the psychiatrist stuff with me. You know I can’t stand it.”

“I know, I know,” Dr. Cha said. “But I’m worried about you, Sora. You seem, I don’t know, sad.”

“I’m just stressed,” Sora said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. “This is my last year of high school, and I have to focus on what I’ll be doing once I graduate. That’s all, mom. Okay?”

Her mother smiled and pulled her in for a one-armed hug. “I don’t need to worry about you, do I?”

“No,” Sora lied. “I’m fine, mom.”

Everything was getting to be too much for her. All the lying and the sneaking around. And all the while, she continued to get bigger, the thing inside of her continued to grow. She tried to imagine what it looked like, all tiny and twisted. She wondered if it had eyes yet, or a heart, or a brain. She wondered about these things constantly.

“Ms. Kwon!”

Sora was in her calculus class, sitting with her head propped in her hands. She’d been wondering if her baby would have her eyes or Jongdae’s when it was born, but, at the sound of her name, she quickly jerked to attention. The whole class was staring at her.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Her teacher, Mr. Park, seemed thoroughly annoyed at her lack of attention. “I asked you to come to the board and complete this equation,” he said sharply. “Or, if you would prefer, you can go to the principal’s office.”

Sora quietly got out of her seat and walked to the board. She knew she was being paranoid, but it felt like everyone was staring at her stomach, looking at the little bulge her growing baby was making. How did they not know? How could they all not see?

But then she had her back turned and she completed the equation, scurrying back to her seat with her head down. Everyone looked at the board where the problem was written rather than at her. She sank into her seat gratefully.

“What’s with you lately?” Amber asked when they gathered for lunch later that day. “You’ve been out of it for ages.”

Sora forced a little laugh. “Pre-graduation stress?” she suggested. It had worked with her mother, but her friends weren’t going for it.

“It’s more than that,” Minseok said, frowning. “There’s something off about you. Your face is…getting bigger.”

“Minseok!” Krystal practically shrieked, hitting him in the arm. He flinched. “You can’t just say that to a girl!”

“That is pretty rude,” Amber agreed, taking a huge bite of rice.

Krystal turned back to Sora. “Well, you do look like you’ve gained a bit of weight. Nothing a few trips to the gym can’t fix, of course. I’m going tomorrow. Do you want to come?”

After finally managing to convince Krystal that she didn’t want to go to the gym, Sora was able to escape to her next class.

Things were getting out of hand and they hadn’t really even started yet. She needed to come up with a plan on how to deal with this and fast.

Apparently Mrs. Yoo seemed to think along the same lines, because Sora got a phone call from her the very next day.

“Sora,” she said in that gentle voice of hers. “Have you had a chance to look over the materials I gave you at our last meeting?”

Sora glanced over to where the pamphlets were hiding between her mattress and her box spring. She shuddered at the very thought of them. “Yeah, I looked over them,” she muttered.

“And have you had a chance to decide what route you’d like to take regarding your condition?” Mrs. Yoo pressed.

Sora glanced up to make sure that her bedroom door was shut. “No, I haven’t decided yet,” she said, rather more waspishly than she had intended.

Mrs. Yoo sighed, and Sora could only imagine the weary expression on her face. “Sora,” she began in that patronizing tone that adults used sometimes that Sora hated. “You are really running out of time here. If you’re going to proceed with the abortion, your window is growing alarmingly small. You’ve only got a few weeks until the doctors won’t do it anymore, and then that option will be forever closed to you. You really need to come to a decision this week, because if you choose to get the abortion-”

“I’m not killing my baby!” Sora snapped into the phone, much louder than she had intended. She quickly clapped a hand over , terrified, glancing over at the door to see if anyone would come barging in. Nobody did.

There was a long, tension-filled pause. Then Mrs. Yoo spoke again. She didn’t sound angry that Sora had yelled or frustrated that she was being so unhelpful. She sounded mostly relieved. “It sounds like you’ve made your decision, then.”

Sora let out her breath explosively. “Yeah…Yeah, I guess I have.”

“Good for you, sweetheart,” Mrs. Yoo said gently. “I’ll schedule you to come in for an appointment next week and we’ll discuss where we go from here. I know this must be very hard for you, making a decision like this. I’m not supposed to give personal opinions, you know, but…I think you’ve made the right choice.” 

Sorry it's so short! 

But Sora has decided not to go through with an abortion! Good for her!