I had never felt that uncomfortable, that embarrassed in my life. The question the doctor was asking me was ordinarily not the sort of question he should be asking me considering my age at the time. Back then, it was considered almost like an abomination for a sixteen year old girl going seventeen to be talking about having had sex. You were expected to remain a virgin, not just throughout your s4econdary school, but also through the university. The expectation of most parents was for their daughter to remain a virgin till her wedding night. And here I was, fresh out of secondary school, already being asked the last time I had sex. Now, if I told this old school looking doctor that the last time a guy slept with me was actually a rape situation, would he believe me, if I told him I only had sex once before that incident would he understand? Looking into his eyes, I doubted it very much if he would believe me.
“I am waiting for an answer, Rosemary, I said when was the last time you had sex?” the doctor’s voice barged hard into my thoughts.
“It was…it was some weeks ago, sir.” I stuttered as I answered.
“Can you remember precisely when it was?” he probed further.
“I think it was…it was some six weeks ago, sir.” By now, tears had welled up in my eyes and before I could stop myself, I started to sob and weep silently.
“Why are you crying? Did you not know you shouldn’t have had sex at your age? You were enjoying yourself back then, weren’t you?” the man taunted me the more. It was at that point that I broke down inconsolably.
“I was raped! I was raped, doctor!!” I let the words out of my mouth. Since Bobby took advantage of me, I had never spoken a word of it to anyone. But today, I just let my biggest secret out.
“Raped? How? By whom?” the man asked me, apparently shocked at what he’d heard. But still, I noticed there was still a look on his face that told me he still wasn’t entirely sure whether he should believe me or not.
“I was raped by a friend who invited me to his house,” I explained all the same. “He drugged the drink he gave to me knowing I would not let him have sex with me.”
The man let out a heavy sigh. “So, who did you report this incident to when it happened?” he asked, his eyes probing into mine, as though he was searching for the truth inside my eyes.
I was quiet. I could not say anything.
“You mean you did not tell anyone, not even your mother?” he’d shot at me, his voice slightly louder this time. “But, if indeed you were truly raped, why didn’t you report the boy who did this to you? “
“I couldn’t, sir, because my parents would ask me what I went to do at his place! They will kill me if they found out that I actually went to see a boy,” I sobbed as I answered him.
“But before then, you were not a virgin either, right? The guy who raped you didn’t disvirgin you, did he?”
I was quiet for a few seconds. Then, I shook my head slowly. “No, he didn’t, I had sex once before he raped me,” I told him.
The man obviously didn’t know what to make of the situation. He just shook his head, looked at me disapprovingly and said, “Anyway, the results of your test shows that you’re already five weeks pregnant!”
Everything stood still. I couldn’t hear a pin drop. There was pin-drop silence. The only thing I could hear in the room was my heart beating hard, slamming hard against my chest. At some point, I feared my heart was going to jump right out of my chest as palpable fear gripped me. I took another long look at the doctor to be sure he was playing games with me. It didn’t seem so. There was a deadpan expression on his face that told he was as serious as a soldier getting set to prepare for the battle front. I had gotten to my own battle front, only problem is that there was no enemy for me to contend with, I was my own enemy…
“Sir, I don’t….I don’t understand you… I’m not sure I heard you well,” I began to stutter. My entire body was quivering, it was like my whole system was on fire.
“You don’t understand?” the man repeated. “What is it you don’t understand again? I just told you you’re pregnant, six weeks, and you say you don’t understand.”
“Doctor…doctor,” I rose to my feet as the reality of the trouble I’d gotten myself into gradually dawned me. “Please, sir, you have to help me, my father will kill me! Please, help me,” I began to sob uncontrollably.
The man seemed unmoved. He looked like a man who had seen hundreds of girls like me in that situation and really couldn’t be bothered because he believes they knew exactly what they were getting themselves into when they spread their legs wide open for whoever got them pregnant.
“Help you? But how?” the doctor threw back at me. “How do you think I can help you in this kind of situation? Did you not realize what you were getting yourself into when you were having sex?”
“I was raped, doctor, I swear to you, I was raped. Please, believe me….” I begged him. Still the man was unmoved.
“Listen, young lady, I have a lot of work to do, a lot of patients to attend to, so, if you don’t mind, please, go home, confess to your parents what happened and I believe they will decide the way for you.”
Like a zombie, I rose to my feet, and started shambling to the door. I was just about to open the door when I heard the doctor call me: “Young lady, come back here, let me see maybe I can find a solution for you!”
READ ALSO: MY SISTER’S HUSBAND HAS BEEN SLEEPING WITH ME!
Send Us News, Gist, more... to citypeopleng@gmail.com | Twitter: @CitypeopleMagz
