Elizabeth, sixteen years old, shuffled down the hallway, her curly black-brown hair tied back in a crimson ribbon.  Her dark eyeliner exposed deep cocoa eyes and freckles, a stark contrast to her pale skin in the halogen light.  The thick line of a choker adorned with garnet teardrop-shaped beads graced her throat, drawing attention to her overly-evident neck bones, remnants of anorexia.  Wearing an obsidian corset-like top and un-zipped-somber-hooded sweatshirt with a charcoal miniskirt she looked not sloppy, but graceful.  Paired with a large version of the fishnet stocking, her sooty lo-cut Converse produced a similar effect.

As her feet met the linoleum tiles, Elizabeth glanced at the cold, half-green-half-white walls of Prattville High School’s main hall.  Straight ahead of her, she could see a wall displaying the pictures of famed students.  To her right, the cafeteria appeared almost too lively for seven a.m., seeming to overflow like a bubbling pot of broth left on the stove too long.  Around her, several cliques littered the halls, but she had wandered purposefully far from her own.

Her eyes moved from unfamiliar face to unfamiliar face; a foreign feeling came over her:  loneliness.  Life was a stage and leading lady was the role she had known well, although today, Elizabeth was anonymous.  Someone important required her attention. 

Abortion was out of the question, against her beliefs.  Adoption would still be motherhood.  Her father would say so.  She had the choice to dissatisfy her father with an adoption, embitter her mother with her own motherhood, or compromise her own beliefs with an abortion.  There Elizabeth stood, determined to ascertain what fate would inevitably decide for her.  Her womb could be fruitful.  If so, giving birth seemed impossible; fatefully, her mother’s mistake would not be repeated.