Forbidden Baby

Chapter 7 – Explosive

Thia’s POV

It’s funny how easily little things can make a huge difference in small minded people’s lives. I smiled brightly at Sarah and Elizabeth as I handed them my notebook and took out my marker pen to start scribbling on the flip chart.

‘So, this is what I have so far, what do you both have so we can decide what options are best?’

Blank stares.

‘Sarah?’

‘Oh, I um, I’

‘Elizabeth?’

‘Well, I um’

‘Seriously girls, what was the point of this meeting if you have nothing to bring to the table? I thought you would have at least had something written down?’

Elizabeth twiddled her hair while Sarah started flipping through the notebook.

‘Oh my, Tabitha, you have been working on this for weeks!’

‘Well, since we agreed to take on the task yes! What did you think, I had done nothing?’

Sarah shot Elizabeth a look ‘No! It’s just you seemed uninterested’

‘I have had a lot on my mind what with my studies and all, I wanted to save our brainstorming and ideas for the meetings, it’s why we have them!’

I felt smug at how I had managed to turn the tables, and I thought to myself, I must remember to thank Gabe for the head up! He saved my ass.

We got through the rest of the meeting with them kissing my ass, and when I got home, I was able to talk animatedly at the dinner table about the progress we had made, for the first time in a week, I felt like I was a normal 16 year old girl without any troubles in the world.

After Thursday’s meeting, we pretty much had everything set, the girls were back on board with me and as Loretta was planning her exciting weekend away with Shaun, I had my own plans. Back to reality for me.

Freddie and I had still planned to meet, but we had arranged to meet on Saturday before I went into the city, I was hoping he would come with me, I decided it was better this way, we would be alone, and I could just tell him. He would have more time to digest it this way.

As I got up for school on Friday morning, I couldn’t believe how much my stomach had swelled overnight. I was now 20 weeks pregnant, 5 months, and this baby was a beast. I was going to struggle to hide this bump much longer in the clothes I was wearing.

I managed to get ready for school, but I was pushing it, two safety pins were now holding my skirt together and I had managed to find a jumper that covered the zipper and wasn’t too tight.  As I walked out my bedroom door, Gabe gave me a worried look.

‘what?’

‘Thia, you need new clothes!’ he whispered

I almost cried ‘is it that obvious?’

‘No, I guess because I know it seems more obvious, but maybe pick a few things up in the city tomorrow that are a little bigger?’

‘Yeah, ok’ He tried to reassure me, but it didn’t do anything for my confidence. My nerves were shot.

Mum threw me a double glance as I tried to hide my figure in the kitchen, and I practically ran out of the house to go to school. I just needed to get through one more day, tell Freddie, get a plan in place, buy some clothes that fit, and everything would be fine.

Only everything wasn’t fine. At all.

When Gabe and I walked through the front door, we were worried about telling Mum that Zeke wasn’t on the bus with us.

He hadn’t messaged Gabe to say why and so couldn’t lie for him. We were in the dark and we could do more harm than good making something up if he said something different.

On the walk on the way home from the bus stop, we had just decided to say he must have missed the bus and we didn’t know any more. Zeke was on his own. As per usual.

Gabe open the front door, and I followed in behind him. It was clear the minute we walked in that hell had frozen over. I was hoping it was because they already knew Zeke had missed the bus. My hope was in vain.

Both Mum and Dad were in the kitchen. Mum sat; Dad paced. Gabe took one look at me and we stood together.

‘Ezeke…’ Gabe didn’t finish his word, never mind his sentence.

‘Leave’ dad’s tone was so harsh and quiet it sent chills down my spine.

If I thought I knew what panic and fear was before this day, I was sorely mistaken. This was on a whole new level of terror. There was no exaggeration. I was close to passing out in fear.

Gabe left the room, not before sending me a glancing look. I didn’t look back; they couldn’t know he knew anything. I wasn’t sure what they knew, but I wasn’t going to risk his life and mine. This was not good.

‘Sit’ his voice was almost so low it was inaudible.

I did as he said, swallowed hard and tried to fight back my tears. I could feel the colour drain from my face. With a visible shake in my hand, I tried to stop it by fiddling with my fingers. It was a pointless exercise.

‘Well. Have you got something to tell us!’ my mother spoke this time, shrill and whining.

I wondered how to play it. Do they know about the baby, the boyfriend or just that Loretta and I are home alone? In my defence, any of these things could warrant this behaviour from them and I didn’t want to make it worse than it already was.

‘I um’ I continued to look at my fingers like they were the most fascinating tools of engineering and struggled to decide what to say.

They helped me out. Dad grabbed a bag from the floor, picked it and emptied it onto the kitchen table.

Fuck.

How could I have been so f*****g stupid.

Of all the things to give me away, it was the build-up of unused sanitary towel in the bathroom.

The colour drained from my face.

‘WELL’ Dad’s voice echoed through the room and I sat shaking in fear, not knowing where to look.

‘I’m pregnant’ I whispered; mouth dry.

My stomach flipped as the nausea took over and tears threatened to leave my eyes.

‘No, no, you can’t be! Tabitha!’ my Mum was in pure denial.

But Dad was raging. His face turned deep red, and his eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. His fists shook and he slammed them on the table with such force I thought it would break the table in half.

 ‘YOU SLUT!’ he stalked over to me with murderous rage in his eyes and grabbed me by my shoulders. He gripped me tight, pain shooting through arms as he lifted me from my chair in a fit of anger, I instinctively put my arms around my stomach to protect my baby.

He let go at my reaction and they both stared at my stomach, ‘You are NOT keeping that bastard baby’ he sneered, seething in pure hate.

‘We need to book you into a clinic’ Mum added, tears rolling down her eyes ‘I have never been more ashamed of anyone than I am of you Tabitha. You disgust me’ she was unable to even look at me.

‘You can’t’ I simply said.

‘We CAN and we Will! You WILL do as your told!’ Dad’s authoritative presence was not to be dismissed, and If I hadn’t already figured out a plan, I would have easily faltered and given in. I was petrified.

‘I am 6 months pregnant. I can’t have an abortion’ I tried to keep my voice steady and calm, but my voice deceived me, my words were weak and voice shaking.

‘NO!’ Mum cried out ‘I don’t believe you!’

Dad was almost puce in colour, and I thought if he clenched his jaw anymore it would snap. I reached for my bag slowly, so not to alarm them and opened the zipper, took out the envelope while watched in silence at my small, gentle actions.

I placed the envelope on the table and Mum took it, opened it, looked at it handed it to my Dad and started to cry ‘What have you done Tabitha! What have you done!’

Dad threw the picture back on the table ‘You are going straight to hell! You and that immoral heathen beast. WHO IS HE!’

His anger seemed to have levelled up a notch, I hadn’t thought this possible, but it seemed I was wrong. Here he was looking like he was about to burst into flames.

I remined silent.

‘WHO IS HE!’ he shouted again, and his voice cut through me like glass.

I remained silent.

‘I WILL FIND OUT’ he yelled, before his voice went deathly quiet ‘and when I do, mark my words, not even the devil himself will want him to enter the gate of hell’

I shuddered at his cold and calculating words, he had an evil glint in his eye and at that point, I knew he would murder Freddie if he got his hands on him in this state. I was glad I held my own and refused to tell him.

The phone rang, neither one of them picked it up. It rang again.

‘It may be Ezekiel’ I managed to speak, trying to deflect for a minute so I ad time to think.

They had seemed to have forgotten he wasn’t home yet, and as it sunk in, mum reached for the phone, spoke as if she didn’t have a care in the world, hung up and looked at dad.

‘Ezekiel got detention, he is making his own way home, he will be back in an hour’

Dad seemed to have calmed in the 5 minutes mum was on the phone.

‘What did I ever do to deserve such unruly, deceitful and disrespectful children’ he shook his head and them room fell quiet.

Unsure of what to do or say next, I remained seated and quiet, too scared to look at either one of them.

‘Go to your room Tabitha. We need to think’ Mum spoke, she was a little calmer now, having had to compose herself for the phone call, and Dad nodded.

As I left, I knew I had to tell them, it was now or never, and although I worried about angering them further, a small part of me hoped they may calm down enough to see this didn’t have to be a bad thing, I tried to appeal to their inner goodness, if they had any at all.

‘I want to keep my baby, your grandchild’

Neither of them looked at me ‘Leave, now’ I turned and walked out of the room and went to my bedroom. Gabe was waiting for me.

‘Thia’ I burst into tears, and he held me ‘I’m sorry, we’ll figure this out ok’

Mum walked up the stairs ‘Room Gabe, Now’ mum didn’t need to ask twice, he let go of me and went to his room.

‘We told you to go to your room, and you defy us again!’ Mum was on a roll.

I walked into my room, and I didn’t hear her go back downstairs so assumed she had stayed to make sure I stayed put and Gabe did too.

20 minutes later, Mum walked into my room and in complete silence she left some food on a tray on my desk and put a bucket by the door, which I thought was weird. She left the room and shut the door behind her.

As I was contemplating what that was all about, I heard the sound of a drill and before I had a chance to figure out what the hell was going on, I realised the sound was coming from outside my bedroom door.

I went to my door as I heard a click.  I tried to open my door and it wouldn’t budge. They had f*****g locked me in like I was a prisoner.

With nowhere to go but my bed, I sat down and sobbed, realising I had no way out.

I was trapped.