Don't get me wrong – I'm not an android, no matter how often I wish I was.

The period immediately surrounding my abortion I stayed home and once called up my – how do you put it? – accomplice at one in the morning and demanded that he come stay the night, his 8am meeting be damned. But, swimming in hormones and Valium, I didn't say why: because my roommate wasn't home and I never would have survived that night if I'd had to spend it alone.

But after that, I'd had it. I hadn't left my house in almost a week, and was getting increasingly fearful of the outside world. So I changed out of my pajamas, pronounced myself cured, and went back to work. I chanted "I'm fine, I'm fine" to so many people I almost believed it myself. Two days later I woke up with a flu so bad I couldn't get out of bed for a full week. I think it was then that I started to get the message.