Forbidden Baby

Chapter 2 – Denial

Thia’s POV

I was lucky to be the only girl in my family to a degree. I have my own room, which meant privacy, something I was eternally grateful for. Zeke and Gabe had to share. I was glad I didn’t have too.

My parents didn’t treat any of us any differently with regards to rules and regulations, pretty much everything was a no go! But with my award-winning acting skills and dedication to the cause, I was in better stead than the boys.

Even Gabe, who wasn’t in their bad books ever, was always one step behind me. He didn’t mind, he had his own way of getting what he wanted, and sometimes it was a real drag having to be so f*****g perfect all the time, but it worked for me. I was sticking with what I knew.

When I got home, I told Mum I wasn’t feeling great and hid in my room. It was unlike me to be unwell, so she allowed me to abstain from my chores to rest. I lay on my bed and instinctively put my hands on my stomach. I couldn’t quite believe the events of today.

How did this even happen? I smiled to myself, what a stupid question, I knew exactly how it had happened. Images flooded my memory and I found myself imagining my life with him and our baby, being happy and content living our lives together in peace.

The reality was, however, the baby changed everything. I knew I loved him, but I had never told him, I didn’t want to seem needy and pathetic. He had never told me either, I wasn’t so naive to think that I could just be a booty call.

I hoped not. It didn’t feel like that when we were together, but there was always a small doubt in my mind when I thought about it. It was complicated, and he was either just as apt at acting as I was, or he really didn’t care for me.

I wasn’t sure If I was ready to find out which was true.

I had some major decisions to make. Get rid of the baby, and no one finds out, keep the baby and run away, keep the baby and hope my parents have a change of religious values and beliefs (I laughed out loud when I thought of this one). Tell him. Don’t tell him.

It was giving me a headache.

My quiet demeanour didn’t go unnoticed at dinner, we always ate together as a family, but with my being ‘unwell’ I was given a free pass and went straight to bed when it was over. I was strangely exhausted. Perhaps from the emotional unrest.

I tossed and turned and had strange dreams and woke up the following morning feeling worse than when I had gone to sleep. I had decided, for now, I would just ignore my predicament and worry about it when I had too. Denial seemed like a good option right now.

I packed my bag with my overnight things for Loretta’s and made my way to the school bus with Gabe. Zeke followed shortly after with Hannah, his best friend.

‘Are you feeling better?’ Gabe asked, not entirely sure if my illness was genuine or not. My acting skills, albeit not entirely fake in this instance, seemed to have even duped him this time.

‘Yeah, thanks, just a little off kilter. I feel okay now’ I smiled, not wanting to give the impression anything was wrong.

Zeke got on the bus first and split off from Hannah, who sat with her girl friends. I didn’t mind Hannah, she seemed pretty cool, but we didn’t really speak. I tended to stay out of the way of Zeke and his friends.

Zeke went straight to the back of the bus to sit with his other friends.

Lewis, the gobby one, was being a d**k as usual and the rest of them weren’t much better. Freddie was the class clown, he was clumsy, and an i***t and Jenson was a know it all, only he didn’t know anything at all. He liked to cause trouble and stir the pot.

They were all quite derogatorily about girls, except Zeke. I admired him for not being sucked into their remarks. But it also had me wondering if there wasn’t more too it than meets the eye.

I shook my head at them and sat next to Elizabeth.

‘Ugh, they are the worst aren’t they’ Elizabeth drawled, noticing my distaste ‘I don’t know why your brother hangs out with them!’

‘Neither do I’ I agreed, ‘nor do I care’ I found my mind wander slightly with how much she was boring me.

She started talking about the harvest festival and I just seemed to nod and smile along with whatever she was saying. When Sarah joined us, Elizabeth repeated everything, and I found myself wanting to be sucked into a black hole.

‘What do you think Tabitha?’ Elizabeth said in earnest. I had zoned out and had no idea what she was talking about.

‘Um’ the bus came to a stop ‘Let’s discuss it in detail at the meeting’ I had escaped! I grabbed my bag, got off the bus and went straight to find Loretta leaving them behind opened mouthed.

I tried to keep them close, it helped my cause no end to have them on side, but today I wasn’t in the mood. Sometimes I felt bad about ditching them, but they used me as much as I used them, so my guilt was only short lived.

Soon enough school was over, and I was getting into the car with Loretta.

We made it to her house, the secured wrought iron gates beeped open, and we were driven down the drive and right to the front door of her ridiculously large, whitewashed stone home.

‘Thanks Austin’ Loretta and I said in unison, to the driver, as we stepped out of the car and made it to the large wooden, double front door.

I still never could get over how huge her house was.

‘Why do you even need so many rooms?’ I laughed.

It had 5 double bedrooms, all with their own bathroom, a large kitchen, breakfast area, dining room, drawing room, library, office, lounge, snug and in the basement a games room. They even had a heated pool.  

‘I think they had always hoped for more kids, but they just got stuck with me’ she shrugged ‘And well, Mum loves to throw a party, so they never bothered to downsize’

‘I wish my parents where more like yours’ I sighed.

‘Maybe, but it has it’s draw backs Thia, they may let me do pretty much what I want, but they are barely here. It can be lonely here on my own’

‘I guess. It can be just as lonely in a house full of people you can’t talk too as well though’ I sighed.

Our lives may be completely different, but we both had our own issues.

We grabbed a snack and a drink from the kitchen before going up to her impossibly neat and ridiculously large bedroom. We dumped our bags down and got comfy.

‘Ugh, that Spanish test was such a drag’ she was so overly dramatic sometimes, she made me laugh.

‘It wasn’t that bad!’

‘It never is for you!’ she chuckled and threw a pillow at me that just missed my head.

‘So, what time are they going?’ I asked.

Her parents always went out on a Friday night for thier date night. They were cool, and knew my parents were tyrants, so agreed, if we stayed out of trouble, they wouldn’t let my parents know we were home alone.

We stuck by the rules, kind of! They were always home by midnight, so whatever we were doing, we were always home and in our Pj’s before they got back. Tonight, was no different.

‘They should be home soon. They are leaving at 6ish’

‘Awesome’ we had plans, and I was looking forward to it.

‘You seem better today’

‘Yeah, I’m good’

I had had decided not to mention my predicament to Loretta just yet. I wanted to figure out what I was going to do first. So, for now, I was happy in my denial. I didn’t want to ruin tonight because of the bomb exploding.

‘Good. I’ve told them to come over for 7 as Mum and Dad will deffo be gone by then’

‘Doesn’t give us long to get ready. We’ll just have to be quick’

We plotted our evening. I had clothes at Loretta’s, so my parents didn’t ever know I was not at all into the twin tops and plaid skirts they kept buying me. I couldn’t wait to get out of these vile, stuffy things.

I grabbed a pair of ripped skinny jeans, put on a racerback vest top, and teamed it with a lightweight oversized blazer. Later I would do my hair and make up and put on my jewellery.

‘So, I was thinking, food, movie, chill and then some alone time with our guys?’

‘Was hoping that would be the case!’ I laughed.

You see Loretta and I; we had a secret. We were both in relationships that no-one knew about. It was easier this way because it was complicated, but we were happy. We were both seeing guys we shouldn’t be.

Her boyfriend was from another town. She met him at a party she shouldn’t have been at, and he was a few years older than her. He was in college and didn’t know she was only 16.

I wasn’t happy she lied, she told him she was 18, the same age as him, I guess it could have been worse. She looked and acted older than her age, outside of the school environment, so he was none the wiser. He seemed to accept that her need for secrecy was because she had overbearing parents.

This of course wasn’t true, and she used my parents as a template to keep her deceit. I tried to get her to be honest with him, I didn’t think it would end well basing her relationship on a lie, he was going to find out eventually! But she wouldn’t listen, and as her friend, I stood by her decision. 

My boyfriend was, well, an equally problematic situation. He was one of my brothers’ friends, yes, one of the boys I pretend to despise. Zeke had NO idea, and neither did his other friends. It had to stay this way for both of our sakes.

In fact, I hadn’t even told Gabe who he was, although he knew I was seeing someone. It would cause a world of pain for me and him if they knew.

You see, despite being my brother’s friend, we both knew Zeke would never approve. I was Zeke’s only little sister, and well, my guy acted like an ass! Zeke would kill him for being with me.

He played his role in his friendship group, a little too well. I asked him once why he did it and he admitted it was just for a bit of fun at first, but now, it’s how they viewed him. It was a difficult situation to rectify.

The problem now, was, if he suddenly stopped being the way he had always been, they would ask too many questions, and those guys were relentless, they never gave up. No one could know he was seeing me, so, he continued to be a d**k.

I often look at back at the night I found out he wasn’t a complete jerk. I had disliked him for so long, I just wanted him to leave me alone, and forget what had led us to be in each other’s company, but fate has a funny way of throwing you a curve ball.

We started talking, I was confused by his kind and caring demeanour. I tried to remind myself he was an ass and was probably just trying to get into my knickers like the rest of the i***t boys our age, but there was something about him that kept me intrigued and I couldn’t help but want to get to know him.

That one night, a little over 10 months ago, was the start of the chain of events that led to my current situation.