Cast away

A few months had passed since the last time Raya had felt sane.

Her pregnancy came with a lot of ups and downs, mostly downs, rarely ups. She felt like she was losing her mind, like the ability to function and comprehend and remember things had somehow left her. She felt like her usually sharp mind had somehow been reduced into something as unstructured and mushy as scrambled eggs. 

She felt nothing like herself and that in itself was a problem because this was not the time for that chaotic confusion. Like most of her life, Raya only had herself to lean on. It was even worse now because the only other person she could confide in completely, her mother, was laying dead in the morgue as a result of delayed medical attention.

After the whole thing with Raphael, after he basically threw Raya out of his house, out of his life, everything took a nose dive.

Her mother's treatment abroad was at first stalled due to incomplete payments, and after the hospital management found out about Raya's indefinite split from Raphael they had completely pulled the plug on her mother's treatment. They sent her mother home, back to the states, a lot worse than she had been sent there. The money Raya managed to gather from her restaurant job could do nothing to keep her mother alive and now the woman was laying pale and stiff and cold in the morgue.

The thought of that and every other horrible thing that had happened since Raphael made Raya lose every bit of hope. It felt better to just push those things to the back of her mind and that was exactly what she did; push every horrible thought behind her and lie to herself that everything would get better even though it did not seem that way at all, even though it felt like the universe was conspiring to make her fold to her knees in tears.

It was six months into the pregnancy and Raya was still going through the horrible bouts of nausea that woman in similar conditions as hers usually leave in the first few months, somewhere within the first trimester of their pregnancy. 

She was finally starting to show and that had put her at the disadvantage. It seemed like that had brought much more horrible occurrences to her life. Raya felt like her life was spinning out of control and she could do absolutely nothing to stop it. 

She sat at the edge of her bed staring into the abyss, wondering how she…they would survive. She stared into the blank air wondering how she would take care of the child in her womb.

Raya rubbed her stomach as she thought back to the words that her best friend Mimi had said to her.

“You should have considered this possibility before spreading your legs for an absolute stranger,” Mimi had chastised as the tears ran down Raya eyes as she recounted the nerve wrecking ordeal she had had with her boss at the restaurant. Mimi rolled her eyes at Raya's tears before calling it out as one of Raya's sorry attempts at garnering pity.

“So you have no idea who the father of that thing is?” Mimi asked, Raya grimaced at the way Mimi had called her unborn child a thing. She furrowed her eyebrow in apparent anger.

“Oh c'mon Raya, don’t get all emotional on me! I'm just trying to help you figure out a way!” Mimi yelled looking at the bump in Raya's stomach with utter disgust like she expected some sort of slimy alien creature to jump out of it. 

“Yeah,  you're right, I'm sorry,” Raya quickly wiped off every trace of tears, feeling disgusted at herself for getting all mushy and emotional.

“Whatever,” Mimi rolled her eyes and smacked the gum in her mouth.

“So what are you going to do about that? It is clearly costing you every good thing in your life. First your chance of being with the wealthiest man in town, now your job and then what else? Huh Raya?” She glared at Raya's baby bump. Raya's hands instinctively went around her bump as if that would protect it from Mimi's pointed glare, as if that might defend her poor baby from the heavy accusations that Mimi was throwing.

“It's not my baby's fault, I did this and I'll fix it,” She muttered, more to herself than her friend. Mimi stood akimbo with her arms crossed accusingly in front of her. She had her eyebrows raised at Raya.

“Oh yeah? So tell me my friend, how are you going to fix it?! Huh?” it felt like a personal attack on her best friend that Raya had toiled with her entire life by getting pregnant for this unknown person. They had had all these dreams written up in their shared journals since when they were little, they had dreamt up all these ambitions of one day moving away from their shitty tiny town and moving to L.A.

Mimi was going to get signed by the biggest modeling agency, the same one that signed Kate Moss back in the day and Raya? Well she was going to become an actress but with the bump and the devastating movie that has become her life, there was no way she could see that coming to reality.

“God Raya! You should have used fucking protection you dummy!” Mimj yelled not minding that anyone in the busy mall could hear her. Raya's cheek turned crimson with embarrassment.

“I'm sorry,” She cowered, her head was bowed low as she apologized to her long-term best friend.

“I'll fix this. I…I will get a new job.” Raya nodded to herself, trying to convince herself that that would be possible with her limited experience and the over-saturated labor market.

“Whatever man, you did this to yourself so you might as well fix it!” Mimi walked away leaving her alone with the dark thoughts that she was trying so hard to ignore.

Raya gathered herself. Amidst the mean and disgusted glances and chatter of all the people who had heard what Mimi had said, Raya walked out of the mall to resume her job hunt under the hot angry sun.

Like the days before this one, and like the days after her boss at restaurant had humiliated and fired her in front of everyone, calling her fat and snobby, like every job search since that day, this day also ended in a long sigh as Raya alighted from the cab with no job and no sound prospects for her and her baby's future.

“Thank you,” She muttered to the more to herself than to the cab man as she walked out of his car and into her poorly lit street.

The tears ran freely from her eyes as she walked in through the gate of her apartment complex. Raya was so engrossed in her tears that she did not notice the belongings that were being thrown downstairs. She did not notice that the landlord was speaking to her until his voice became too loud to ignore.

“I don't run a charity foundation! This building's maintenance is dependent on rent so leave your sorry ass and leave my house if you cannot pay!” The man yelled and continued to yell much more obscene thing as he threw out the rest of her things.

Raya's heart thudded rapidly, the tears fell freely, rapidly. She begged and continued to beg but the door was slammed in her face, all her belongings, clothes, furniture and all were laid out shamefully for everyone who cared to look.

Raya's head started to spin as if she was going to faint as she thought about the fact that she would no longer have a place to live! What will happen to her baby?! What will happen to the both of them?!