Theresa’s father sat straight up, rigid in his chair, across from his daughter at the kitchen table. There was an air of calculated anxiety about him. Bags under his eyes indicated no sleep from the night prior, having waited up for his pride and joy to come home.
Pale in the face, Theresa sat across from him. Her sweaty palms attempted to grasp onto and hold the story she was rehearsing in her head. You were at Anne’s, she thought to herself, You were at Anne’s. Breathe.
“Where were you last night?” The man finally spoke.
Trying to calm herself, Theresa consciously stopped bouncing her leg. “I was at Anne’s, dad. We watched movies until I had to leave to meet curfew.”
Part of the man didn’t believe his daughter, while another part desperately wanted to. There was something there, right in the pit of his gut, something that urged him to prod further. Theresa had lied to his face all summer without him even knowing it, and he hated the fact that he couldn’t tell the difference. She was good at it.
“Theresa, I’ll ask you one more time. Please don’t lie to me. Where were you last night?”
Theresa could sense her father’s faltering patience. She loved him, and the idea of lying to him again - after everything - put a knot in her stomach. But there were just some things he didn’t need to know.
Keeping her voice even, she countered his subtle accusation with a confident retort, “Come on, dad. We can’t go through this every time I come home a few minutes late. That guy, the one you went to see about all of this, didn’t he say that we just have to go back to our normal lives? I-”
Something flared inside him. Not anger per se, but something akin to anguish, almost. Frustration. His voice threatened to rise, but he instead he came back curt and sharp: “No, Theresa.You were almost an hour late. Five minutes I can understand, but you were forty-five minutes past your curfew - a curfew that you are lucky to still have, I might add.”
She swallowed the lump that appeared in her throat. She didn’t know how to respond. He was right, of course. After what she put her family through in the recent months she felt like she didn’t deserve a damned thing from any of them - especially their forgiveness. She destroyed the trust her parents had so blindly placed in her; took it and shattered it into jagged smithereens.
Theresa shoved her shaking hands into her sweatshirt pocket. “Dad, I know. I’m sorry, okay? I just lost track of time.” She didn’t offer anything else.
Her father glanced at the clock. “Fine,” he said in a small voice. “You should get going or you’ll be late for school.”
Theresa rose from her chair and threw her backpack over her shoulder, anxious to get into her car and into school. “I’ll text you when I get there. I love you.” She bent and kissed her dad on the cheek, and he grabbed her hand and squeezed it before she walked out the front door.
He knows, she thought, He must know.
Still sitting at the table even after she was gone, Theresa’s father stared at her empty chair. She made one mistake, he thought, I have to trust her again. I believe her.

The ride to school is only a blur in Theresa’s mind. How could she live with herself? How could she look a person who loved her so unconditionally in the eye, and lie to him, after she promised she wouldn’t? She used to be someone she could be proud of, someone who wasn’t full of s*** all the time.

First period. Second period. Third period. All a blur. Lunch. A phone call. Theresa ducks into the girl’s bathroom, and before she even secures the stall door shut, she answers.
“Tom,” she said.
“Good afternoon, you. You don’t sound right,” Tom observed.
Theresa didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until it all came out in a long exhale. She closed her eyes and laid her head in her hands.
“Hey,” he said, “You okay? Did I call at a bad time? You’re on your lunch, right?”
“Yeah,” she managed. “Yeah I’m okay. And yes, I’m on lunch right now. What are you doing?” Theresa kicked absently at some rubbish on the floor.
“I’m at work. Stepped out for a cigarette, and I wanted to hear your voice. Figured I’d check in on you.”
Theresa hated those stupid cigarettes. The smell always clung to her clothes and made her light-headed. She hated a lot of things about him.
She paused before she answered him. “Thanks.”
There was a silence. “Theresa, tell me what’s wrong.”
She wanted to tell him she was fine, but what was the point in lying to him, too?
“I’m worried my dad’s on to me. I’m feeling extra guilty lately. You know, Tom. Just the usual.” Theresa kept her eyes to the floor. She heard some other girls enter the bathroom. Closing the toilet seat, she sat down and hugged her knees to her chest. Tom’s voice soothed the anxiety she could feel coming on.
“Listen to me,” he said softly, “Anne’s your best friend. She’ll back you up if you need her to.” It was true. Anne was one of Theresa’s closest friends. She offered whatever support she could to Theresa, even when she didn’t know what to say. The two girls had been friends since they were about thirteen, and there they were - still side by side four years later.
“That’s the problem, Tom,” Theresa interjected, “She shouldn’t have to.”
Tom sighed. “I know, but it’s like you said, Theresa. We have to lay low for a while. It won’t be this way forever. We’re going to be fine. Don’t get too nervous, okay? I know how you get,” Tom scolded softly.
She couldn’t help but smile, at least a little bit. “I’ll try,” she replied.
“Good. I love you.”
“I love you, too. Now get back to work.” Theresa hung up the phone.
She hated those three stupid words. Why was an “I love you” enough to satisfy her? How could one simple phrase compensate for all the things she went through at his expense?
Fourth period. Driving home. Still blurry in Theresa’s mind. Theresa drove in the direction of her house, but something was nagging at her. Guilt, as usual, but something accompanied it this time. An emptiness.
She pulled over and dialed her mother’s number. Her mother answered on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi, mom. Mind if I head over to the library straight from school? I’ll be home before dinner.”
“Oh, sure, sweetie. That’s my girl, never giving those books a break. Let me know when you get there.”
“You got it,” Theresa promised. “Love you.” Theresa hung up the phone and merged back onto the street.
She felt a pang of guilt for lying, again, but she wasn’t going to see Tom. Theresa had someone else on her mind. Someone she never got the chance to meet - not really.
That empty feeling echoed throughout Theresa’s whole body as her car sidled into the clinic parking lot. Lucky for her the institution was closed on Tuesdays. She was glad. It was a relief not to be gawked at and ostracized by protesters. There were no old people here today telling her that she had a choice, and asking how could she - she knew it had a heartbeat, right? No one trying to force church pamphlets onto her. No one here to tell her she was a killer and that she would surely burn in hell for all eternity.
Theresa stared at the empty building from the driver’s seat of her car. She could remember everything about that day. The tapping of nails on a clipboard. The fluorescent lights that irritated her eyes and illuminated the dingy back room. The unspoken understanding between all the women there. And the vacuum sound. That she couldn’t forget, no matter how hard she tried.
It was hard for Theresa to understand how five minutes could erase the boy she pictured in her head. He had Tom’s green eyes and olive skin, and her curly hair. He would have been smart, and happy, and loved. Theresa’s mother pointed out to her once that it was much too early for her to know if it was a boy or a girl, but Theresa just shook her head.
“No,” she had told her mother. “It’s a boy. I can feel it.”
Theresa hastily wiped away the tears she hadn’t even realized had fallen that had pooled on her cheek. She tried to hold them back, but she couldn’t. She felt so stupid. She was the one who messed up. She deceived her parents and she still was. She didn’t deserve sympathy and she knew it. Why was she crying? It was her fault.
“What was I supposed to do?” Theresa screamed aloud. She was sobbing now, her hands white-knuckling the steering wheel. “It was one time. I didn’t want to. I’m sorry.” Her screams faded into repeated whispers of “I’m sorry.”
Theresa sat in the parking lot for over an hour, screaming to no one in particular about mistakes she couldn’t take back. Still, she composed herself. She had to get back home soon.
Theresa pulled into her driveway a half hour later - she was on time. Her father greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and asked how her day was.
She smiled at him. “It was great, dad,” she lied. “Thanks for asking.”