The shock was overwhelming: he found out I was pregnant and left me like a coward!
My name is Bethany Miles, I’m 20 years old, and I live in Ashford, where the Kent countryside wraps its gray days in the shadows of woods and reservoirs. I hesitated for a long time about whether to write to you, but after reading confessions from other girls, I decided to pour out my pain. My story is a wound that won’t heal, a shadow that haunts me, poisoning every day of my youth.
It all began when I was 15. I fell for a boy, Jake, who was so handsome he seemed like a dream come true. His eyes, his smile—every girl at school secretly swooned over him. I couldn’t believe my luck when a friend whispered that he wanted to meet me. “Really?” I asked, my heart racing like a bird in a cage. I agreed without a second thought. At our first meeting, he gave me a red rose—I still have it, dried, between the pages of an old book. That evening was like a fairy tale: his voice, his warmth—I was lost in it, not noticing how I was falling into an abyss.
I gave myself to him—and that became my fatal mistake. Soon after, I found out I was pregnant. My world collapsed. When my parents found out, they looked at me like a stranger: my dad stayed silent, clenching his fists, and my mum cried as if I had died. I was terrified, trapped, unable to see a way out. And Jake, my so-called charming prince, abandoned me like a coward. When he heard about the baby, he turned pale, mumbled something incoherent, and disappeared—just like that, vanished. I was left alone, with this fear, this shame, this burden crushing my youth.
At home, a silence deeper than shouting followed. My parents turned away, their hurt suffocating, and I had nowhere to run. Eventually, with my mum’s consent, I had an abortion. It was hell: pain, tears, emptiness. After that, I shut down, retreating into myself like a tomb. The shock was so intense that I couldn’t face boys for years. Since then, I’ve had no one—no dates, no hint of feelings. Love became poison to me, intimacy a nightmare from which I wake up in a cold sweat. I’m scared of getting pregnant again, afraid that if it happens, I’d have to give birth, and this fear freezes me to the core.
I’ve lost myself. My soul is like a shattered violin, playing only sad melodies, echoing my melancholy. I live in loneliness, perpetual sorrow, a place where joy doesn’t exist. The sun has set for me, smiles alien, and my shadow a ghost tracking my every move. I’ve forgotten how to talk to guys, how to look them in the eye without trembling. My voice shakes when someone speaks to me, and my heart tightens with terror. I’ve become an ice statue—cold, fragile, incapable of feeling warmth.
Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself. Where is that girl who laughed, dreamed, believed in love? Jake stole her, crushed her, leaving me only with pain and fear. I walk the streets of Ashford, see loving couples, and inside, everything screams: why not me? Why is my life dark? I want to love, to live, but every time I think of it, his face comes to mind—handsome, deceitful, cowardly. He abandoned me in my darkest hour, and that shock still echoes in my chest.
I don’t know how to escape this hell. Fear has chained me: I’m afraid to trust, afraid to open up, scared of repeating that nightmare. My youth should be full of light, yet I’m drowning in despair. Friends invite me out, but I hide at home, in my room, where only the walls know my pain. My parents forgave long ago, but I can’t forgive myself—for being naive, for being weak, for believing him. My rose in the book is a reminder of the day I lost everything.
Please, tell me how to move forward? How to thaw this ice that grips my heart? I want to be free from the past, but it holds me tight. I’m only 20, yet I feel like an old woman whose life ended before it began. Jake is gone, but he left me with this weight—fear, loneliness, emptiness. How do I find the strength to believe in love again, in people, in myself? I’m tired of crying into my pillow, tired of being afraid. I yearn for sunlight in my soul, but I don’t know where to find it. Please help me, I’m drowning in this darkness and can’t see the light.
