Story: When the Bow Broke

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Below are some chapters of a story I've started.  Feel free to leave reviews in the comments area. These chapters have only been edited a couple times, so they are rough.  What do you think of the story overall?  Did it grab you and keep your attention?  What do you think is missing? I know the characters are not developed. Look at this as sort of an outline.  How should it continue, in your opinion? Should character development start now, or should I shift this part of the story and write in the development first. I'm thinking that I may flash back in time to develop the main character.  Maybe tell about what led to her predicament below. How would you proceed?

 Chapter 1

Only fifteen years separated her and her fetus.  No one knew she was pregnant until she was six months into it.  "If you were my daughter, you'd be out in the street!  Only sluts get pregnant outside marriage!"  Grandma hissed as she stomped out of the room.  "Why didn't you tell me?  Is it because I said I'd make an unmarried daughter of mine have an abortion?"  Mom's voice shook with emotion.  "No, Mom," she whimpered.  "Well, it's certainly not possible now.  You are definitely too far along."  The reasons she had been silent rang so loudly in her mind that she grabbed her head so no one would hear.  "I'm NOT pregnant!  I can't, WON'T be!"

In bed that night, she remembered what she tried to do.  She puzzled, again, over how to end this awful condition.  Her belly moved as if defying her thoughts.  "I hate you," she screamed under her breath while trying to still the "thing" inside her.  "I won't have this, this, BABY!"  The word spewed from her as a curse as she struck her stomach with all her force.  She grabbed the same book she used before and jammed the edge into her middle.  She pushed harder and further until she thought it would come through the other side of her.  The infant lay still inside her.  She laid stiff and very still.  "Maybe it's dead this time."  She was afraid to hope.  After what seemed like hours, she felt her fear stir within her again.  "I'll find some way . . . I'll fall down a flight of stairs!"  Even as she thought of it she knew she was not brave enough to carry it out.  Repeating a nightly ritual, she cried herself to sleep.

The weeks crept on, and she grew larger and larger.  She never left the house now.  She was ashamed and disgusted by what she had become.  Her prison was complete.  Friends stopped calling.

The father (who said he didn't believe it was his) seldom came to visit.  He feared what a pregnant, fifteen‑year‑old girl could do to his life.  Because he was twenty‑three, and married, he couldn't afford many people knowing he was going to be a father - again.  She knew his visits were charity with a motive.  She adored him.  She would have, and had, done anything he asked.  Now, it was a matter of pride.  "If he doesn't want me, I would not force anything on him."

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Chapter 2

One cold morning, she awakened with a jolt.  She had dreamed of being stabbed in the back.  "Silly dream," she thought, sitting up in bed."  As she lay down again, the dull, throbbing pain returned.  "I'll never get back to sleep now."  She entered the kitchen as the room started spinning beneath her feet.  "Aaaahhhh!"  She shouted while grabbing at air hoping to catch something to break her fall.  Helplessly, she braced herself for the jolt.  "What happened?  Are you alright?"  They both nearly tipped over when she landed on her mother's lap.  "My back hurts, and I'm dizzy."  She showed her mother her lower back.  "You could be in labor."  "Labor?  But labor's in the stomach, isn't it?"  She tried desperately to will her mother into a positive answer.  "I'm scared," she whispered meekly.

She arrived at the charity hospital with every bump in the road causing her insides to jar.  As she reached the entrance, her feet became very heavy.  Fear swelled in her breast, coaxing her to flee.  "This can't be happening!  I’m just a child myself!"  Her steps halted and her body froze.  The reality of her mother's tug shook her senses and guided her through the door. 

She had not seen a doctor in all this time.  She suddenly felt ashamed.  All eyes seemed glued to her bulge.  A nurse ordered her taken to the maternity ward.  Her mother stayed behind to fill out papers and explain why her girl had not had prenatal care.

In futile hope, she told a nurse about the pains in her back.  The nurse looked blankly at her.  "Get out of ALL your clothes, and put this on.  Then hop up on the table."  She did as she was told, hoping her good behavior would grant her some sort of reprieve.

Because of her protruding stomach, the sparse blue robe did not cover her backside.  The room was solid white, and cold.  There was nothing on the walls but one huge clock.  She labored onto the examination table.  She was surprised when she felt tears falling against her cheeks.  In this tiny exam room, she felt the coldness of the decor and the people were part of her punishment.

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Chapter 3

She lay alone for what seemed like a very long time before a doctor appeared.  Being fifteen, she had never been examined in such a personal and intimate way.  She was terrified.  The doctor's fingers were just as cold as his attitude, and she felt he might shove his whole arm inside her.  She tried scooting away, but he grabbed at her pelvis as his words slapped at her. "Lay still!  I have to examine you to see if you have dilated."  Distaste shone in his eyes.  He sounded as if he hated her.  She wondered when, or if, this horrible day would end.

A nurse attached a device to her stomach with a belt that encircled her.  Someone came with a needle, hooking her up to an I.V.  Seconds after the clear liquid entered her veins, her first hard pain hit.  She let out a hushed cry.  "Don't be such a baby," the nurse replied as she turned and walked out.

From the next room, she heard a shrill, piercing scream.  Other voices tried to drown the scream out.  "You must calm down," they shouted.  "If you don't, we will have to gag you!"  As the scream grew in volume, her own torment returned.  She began shaking with fright.  "I can't scream!  They will gag me!"  The agonized shrieks subsided for short periods and then resumed.  Over and over the anguished wails from next door described her own suffering as it returned again and again.  It seemed as if her distress was being verbalized from the next room.  As each scream began, she braced herself for another pain.  The misery of the screamer was evident, and their pains seemed to return in unison.  Suddenly, she heard begging, and finally, muffled silence.  She was horrified as she thought of her neighbor being gagged and unable to express what she herself desperately wanted to.

Now she watched the clock's second hand.  She knew precisely when the horrible agony would start and stop.  "Oh God," she thought, "is this as bad as it will get?"  She knew she could not bear the agony the screamer described by her muffled but tortured whimpering.  She vowed she would not scream, no matter what.

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Chapter 4

Her pain was threatening to rip her apart.  Although she was not aware of time, ten hours had passed.  She had been abandoned to her own private hell.  She prayed for death and hoped it would be soon.  Her back remained the source of her labor, and she imagined it was broken.  Between long periods of isolation, someone would stick their head in the room.  "There must be something wrong," she said half questioningly.  "No, this is just your first baby," a nurse said flippantly.  She felt they all hated her and were enjoying her misery.  "This CANNOT be normal," she thought to herself. 

She had never been so exhausted in her life.  Between labor pains, she slipped in and out of consciousness.  Sporadically, groups of interns would enter the tiny room and stare at her.  They talked as if she did not exist.  When someone spoke of her age, others gasped.  She was afraid to speak, afraid of what they could do to her.

Two men, she assumed were orderlies, entered the room with a gurney. "You are going to x-ray," one sternly said.  The men, obviously disgusted, lifted her young body onto the gurney.  They tossed a thin sheet over her and started down a long hall.  Another pain sliced into her as she watched the ceiling moving above.  She dug her nails into the railing as she was slung around with such force she thought she was going to slide off onto the floor.

As she was pushed out of the elevator, she heard comments being made about her.  "See what you got yourself into, girl," a woman's voice mocked.  As she was rolled past a public area, someone murmured, "look at that," as others strained to see her face.  She heard joking and lewd remarks.  She knew she was truly in hell, as she was shoved into and then past the x-ray room doors.

She was told to move onto another hard, cold table.  She tried to get up, but her girlish endurance failed, and she collapsed.  She was carelessly lifted onto the table and molded and twisted into different positions for x-ray.  While on her hands and knees, she was naked from the waist down. From the corner of the room, she heard a deep male voice exclaim that she was in a good position for sex. 

"DON'T MOVE! HOLD THAT POSITION, OR YOU WILL NEVER GET OUT OF HERE!" Again, she prayed for death.  She would find a way out of this, she thought.  "There has to be a scalpel here somewhere.  Please, just let me find something sharp," she prayed under her breath. Just as her strength was totally depleted, she was thrown backward and back onto the gurney.  She again became an oddity side show as she was wheeled past the gawking eyes in the public corridor.  

The pains were coming faster now as she was returned to the labor room.  She searched with her eyes for something to end her suffering, but her body was too weak to move.  A nurse came and announced, "you are off to delivery now."  "What does that mean?" Her question was met with a cold, cruel silence.  She was too drained to even hope.

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Chapter 5

It was approaching her twelfth hour of torment before she was wheeled into the delivery room.  She did not know, but her hair was matted like a steel wool pad from continually rolling her head from side to side.  Her fright had sprung out of her pores to cover her entire face with bright red hives.  Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen into horizontal slits. If she had known about her monstrous appearance, she would not have cared. She cared about nothing, not anymore.  She wanted one thing and that was to die.

The orderlies carried her naked, limp body onto another cold, steel table.  She was told to bend over and hold her knees.  When she did not move, the nurse cursed and spat out, "do you want your baby to die?"  She would have screamed "YES," if she thought they would kill her for her insolence.

Someone held her in a bent position as another needle pierced her, this time in the back.  She was flipped back just as her pain stopped.  There was no feeling in her lower body! She thought they had punished her by taking away the use of her legs. She did not care.  It would be heaven to be paralyzed.

She assumed that a doctor voiced a stern, "push!"  Two others, one holding her head, and another pressing her abdomen, obliged for her.  Her stomach suddenly went flat!  “It’s out!   It’s finally out!  Good riddance if it's dead," came her thoughts.  Someone said, "It's a boy."  She heard a croak.  The croak became louder as the doctor laid the baby on her chest.  She suddenly realized that sound was the infant's cry.

She fought the impulse to look at the child.  She wanted nothing to do with the thing that ruined her life and caused her such pain.  She turned her head away.  "Take it away," she said with determinate strength.  As though they did not understand, she was urged to look at the baby before she went to sleep.  "It will be tomorrow before you will see him again," the doctor warned.  "Anything to make it go away," she thought.  She looked down at the thing that had been inside her.  Overwhelmed, she answered her curiosity by counting its fingers and toes.  She found herself saying, "Is he okay?"  Merciful sleep fell upon her as the doctor said, "Perfect."

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Chapter 6

The next day, she awoke to that same croaking sound.  The nurse commented, "There's no mistaking your baby, it sounds like a frog."  She looked into the nurse's eyes, searching for the hatred she had seen yesterday.  The nurse smiled and handed her the baby.

The croaking ceased as she held her son close.  He was so warm and smelled so good.  She put her hand to his face and he tried to suckle her finger.  Obligingly, the nurse showed her how to breast‑feed her newborn.  Mother and baby took to it as if they had been in the wild.  Instinct took over.

As she stared at her child, she felt strange and foreign emotions.  She knew he was the most beautiful baby ever born.  She wanted to call everyone she ever knew to tell them of her accomplishment.  But first, she wanted to just hold her son.  "This is someone who will always love me.  And I will always love him."

The world of yesterday was gone.  Her life would never be the same because of this tiny bundle and their great love.