The shock was overwhelming: he found out I was pregnant and left me like a coward!
My name is Laura Smith, I’m 20 years old, and I live in Ashford, where Kent’s gray days are hidden in the shadows of forests and reservoirs. I hesitated for a long time about whether to write to you, but after reading the stories of other girls, I decided to share my pain. My story is a wound that doesn’t heal, a shadow that haunts me, poisoning every day of my youth.
It all started when I was 15. I fell for a boy named Jack—he was so handsome, like a hero from a dream. His eyes, his smile—all the girls at school secretly admired him. I couldn’t believe my luck when a friend whispered that he wanted to meet me. “Are you serious?” I asked, my heart pounding like a bird in a cage. I agreed without a second thought. At our first meeting, he gave me a red rose—I still keep it, pressed between the pages of an old book. That evening felt like a fairytale: his voice, his warmth—I was lost in it, not noticing how I was falling into an abyss.
I gave myself to him—and this turned out to be my fatal mistake. Soon, I found out I was pregnant. My world collapsed. My parents looked at me like I was a stranger: my father was silent, clenching his fists, while my mother cried as if I had died. I was terrified, trapped, with no way out in sight. And Jack, my charming prince, left me like a coward. Upon hearing about the baby, he turned pale, mumbled something unclear, and disappeared—vanished as if he’d never existed. I was left alone, with this fear, this shame, this weight crushing my youth.
At home, a silence scarier than shouts settled in. My parents turned away, suffocated by resentment, and I didn’t know where to run. Eventually, with my mother’s consent, I had an abortion. It was hell: pain, tears, emptiness. Afterward, I withdrew into myself, like into a tomb. The shock was so intense that I couldn’t look guys in the eye for years. Since then, I’ve had no one—no dates, not even a hint of feelings. Love became poison to me, sex a nightmare that wakes me in cold sweats. I fear getting pregnant again, afraid that if it happens, I’ll have to give birth, and this fear has frozen me.
I lost myself. My soul feels like a broken violin, playing only mournful tunes, echoing my melancholy. I live in solitude, in perpetual sadness, where there’s no room for joy. The sun has set for me, smiles turned foreign, and my shadow—a ghost watching every step. I’ve forgotten how to speak to guys, how to look them in the eyes without trembling. My voice shakes when someone talks to me, and my heart clenches in terror. I’ve become an ice-cold statue—chilly, frail, unable to feel warmth.
Sometimes I look in the mirror and don’t recognize myself. Where is that girl who laughed, dreamed, believed in love? Jack stole her, crushed her, leaving me only pain and fear. I walk around the streets of Ashford, see couples in love, and inside me everything screams: why not me? Why is my life full of darkness? I want to love, to live, but every time I think of it, his face appears before me—handsome, deceitful, cowardly. He left me at the scariest moment, and that shock still echoes in my chest.
I don’t know how to escape this hell. Fear has chained me: afraid to trust, afraid to open up again, afraid to repeat that nightmare. My youth should be full of light, but 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 me long ago, but I can’t forgive myself—for being naive, for being weak, for trusting him. My rose in the book is a reminder of the day I lost everything.
Please tell me how to go on? How to melt the ice that holds my heart captive? I want to break free from the past, but it grips me tightly. I’m only 20, yet I feel like an old woman whose life ended just as it began. Jack left, but he left me this burden—fear, loneliness, emptiness. How do I find the strength to believe in love, in people, in myself again? I’m tired of crying into my pillow, tired of being afraid. I want sunshine 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.
