After eight months of long-distance relationship I saw my partner, whom I had been on and off for the previous three years.

I was about to turn nineteen that summer, and as neither of us thought we would directly come back together – after so many months, we weren’t sure if a strong friendship was all that remained – we went unprepared (no condoms) to an afternoon coffee hang out. We felt immediately back in love, we walked all evening around our old neighborhood and had dinner at my house. At some point we kissed, and we felt incredibly attracted to each other. We noticed that neither of us had condoms but we decided to make “the exception”: we hadn’t seen each other in so long! Early in the morning, we both went to buy the day-after pill, which I had barely six hours after having unprotected sex. He was leaving again the day after for a month, and I started working a full-time summer job, before I would start college the following September with a full scholarship. Two weeks after he left, my period was delayed and I noticed my boobs were suddenly becoming bigger. On my free day, I went to a family planning center and took a pregnancy test, they told me I was pregnant and I couldn’t believe it! I had had the day-after pill, I told them! It was only once! I had an abortion less than a month after the day we had had sex, and we spent the summer together after he came back. Afterwards we went to college in different countries and eventually we broke up. I am really happy to be studying now and that I did not give up the chances of learning I had.