© 2014 Emma Norman. All Rights Reserved.
NOTE: I have made changes to Braydon's character. Beforehand, he was the sweet and loving boyfriend, but I decided to change that and give him a slightly more controlling side; a slightly more aggressive side. Therefore, the chapters after this one, Braydon will be different because I am still to edit those chapters, but by the end of this book, Braydon will be complete different to how I first envisaged his character.
[chloe]
The room around me suddenly fell into total silence as my parents processed the words which had slipped from my mouth. My father looked as though he was about to keel over from a heart attack and my mother, for the first time in a very long time, was actually speechless and that was never thought I would ever actually see—my mother always had something to say and, to see her lost for words, was actually somewhat amusing.
I would have laughed had it not been for the fact that we were discussing my unplanned pregnancy. If I was to laugh now, regardless of how hilarious it was, I would simply land myself in even more trouble than I was already about to find myself in.
"How many months?" My mother, it would appear, finally found the ability to speak and, from her tone, I knew that she was suppressing the anger which she wanted to release.
"Almost two," I shrugged. Sure, I was petrified of both my parents and I was terrified about what they were going to do to me, but I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of knowing that's how they were making me feel.
"Who is the father?" My father asked, not beating about the bush and getting to the point, as usual.
"It doesn't matter. He has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with the baby and that he would prefer for me to abort the child," I fought back the tears as I remembered Matthew's words and just how deeply they affected me, especially now that I knew for certain that the baby was real and there was nothing hypothetical about the life which was growing inside me.
"If it doesn't matter then you won't mind telling us. It's Braydon, isn't it? I told you that—"
"I am going to my room. I'm really not in the mood to be dealing with this right now," I put a stop to my mother before she could tell me that Braydon wasn't the right person for me and that my relationship with him was volatile. I knew that Braydon and I had argued, it happened a lot recently and both of us had said things which neither actually meant, but we loved each other and he was the closest thing to happiness that I had actually had in my short life.
"Did you cheat on your boyfriend, Chloe?" I thought it was hypocritical of her to care about when I had done something wrong, but even then she wasn't actually concerned about me, she was concerned about someone whom she hated even more than she hated her own child. "I can't believe that you would be that selfish, it's not fair to the poor kid, even if he's not necessarily my favourite person, he still doesn't deserve to be cheated on—"
"Mother—"
"He will also be joining us for dinner tonight, so that's the perfect opportunity for you to tell him the truth," I knew that there was no room for argument in this conversation, my mother was going to be the one who had the last word and I was simply going to have to accept what it was that she told me.
"Wonderful. Is there anyone you haven't invited?" I remarked sarcastically.
"The father of that thing you're carrying," she didn't miss a beat when she answered and neither did I miss the coldness of her tone when she spoke, but she wasn't going to force me into a decision which I didn't want to make, and she sure as hell wasn't going to force me into ending the life of this child.
I wanted to tell her just how wrong she was with that statement and that father of the baby was going to be sitting across the table from her, smiling and laughing as though he had done nothing wrong. He was going to sit there, and he was going to get to continue with the life which he had made for himself, because he had made his opinion more than clear during our earlier conversation.
"Yeah. Him," I muttered as I walked off up the stairs, ignoring the shouts from my father as he demanded to know the name of the boy I had slept with, because he wanted to ensure that he didn't get another girl pregnant in the future. I knew that would solve nothing and it would only make this situation worse than it already was, and that was something which I wanted to avoid right now, given that my father had invited Matthew's family around for dinner.
I couldn't believe that my mother had invited Braydon over as well, the very same eighteen-year-old she had sworn was never going to step foot in this house while there still breath in her body, because neither of my parents liked him and they didn't like me with him either. They had, more than once, told me that our relationship was toxic and they would never accept him as part of the family—I guess that was what pushed me even closer to Braydon, because he was never going to be seen as part of the family, not in the way Charlotte was, but then I wasn't seen as part of the family either and that's why it worked.
I knew that I loved him because, if I didn't feel anything for him, then the thought of losing of him wouldn't hurt as much as it did right now. I knew that I had cheated, and that was wrong and I would understand if he did never want to see me again, but I was almost in tears as I thought of what my life would be like without Braydon around.
I honestly didn't know what I was do if he was to leave me. Despite the constant arguments which happened between us, usually over the smallest of things and because of something which I had done, he had still been there for me when I needed him. It didn't matter what the time of day was, he was there when I needed him, because he loves me and I know that he loves me.
"Clo?" I heard him before I saw him, the rough and broken voice of Braydon, and all I wanted to do was cry. I watched as he walked across the room, the piercing in his left ear glinting in the little light there was in my room and his hair, which I kept telling him he needed to get cut, was all over the place and as messy as it always was. "What's happened, baby?"
"I'm sorry, Bray, I really am. I never asked for this and I didn't want it to happen," I hoped that begging would be enough to make him stay. I didn't care how pathetic it made me, or even how low it made me feel, begging was the only way I knew how to keep Braydon in my life and hope that he would be able to forgive me for my foolish mistake.
"What the hell are you talking about? Why are you apologising?"
"You are going to leave me, and I don't want you to leave me. I would never be able to cope without you," I gripped at his arms, sobbing into his shoulder, knowing that I was broken. I was pathetic and I was broken, and it was a wonder that anyone wanted to be in a relationship with me.
"Tell me what's happened, and then I can tell you whether I am going to leave you," Braydon sighed, though I am sure he knew what was coming before it even happened.
"I slept with someone else while I was drunk," I barely whispered the words out and Braydon moved his arms from around me, pushing me away from him by my shoulders so that I was now looking into his eyes, and I was faced with both the anger and the hurt which I had caused as a result of my careless actions, "and now I am pregnant with his baby."
I understood now why I was despised by my parents. It was because I broke the things which meant the most to me and I was the reason for so much pain, and after overhearing many a conversation between my mother and father, I knew that I was reason for the currently failing marriage. I was the mistake which pushed the both of them over the edge and, since the day I had been born, a rift had appeared between my parents; I was the reason they were now discussing divorce as an option to end their misery.
I had never meant to have that effect on people. And I had never meant to damage the happiness of those around me, which is why I kept to myself, and why I never bothered to question my parents when they blamed for every little thing which went wrong in this family; I simply took everything they threw at me and never once argued with them.
And now I had done the same thing to Braydon. I had hurt him, angered him, and I had ruined what we had shared for a little over a year now. It was my fault, as it always was, and I had accepted that from the moment I knew that I was going to have to tell my boyfriend what I had done.
"When?" Braydon finally spoke.
"A couple of months ago. I threw a party to piss my parents off, but I had too much to drink and it just happened," I knew that it wasn't a proper explanation and that it was never going to make up for what I had done, but it was the truth and that was all I could offer him right now.
"Who?"
"That's no important, Bray. It was a mistake and he had made it clear that he wants nothing to do with the child. In fact, he wants me to get an abortion and get on with my life, but there's not a chance in hell of that happening."
"I need to know, Clo. Just tell me who it was," I didn't miss the angry edge to his tone, nor the way in which his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and it was side which I had only ever seen a couple of times. He had never laid a hand on me, even when I thought that he was going to, he would walk out and come back a couple of hours later with bloodied knuckles, and he would never tell me how it happened when I asked him.
"Why is it so important to know who I fucked?" I was the one in the wrong, I was the one who had cheated and not the other way round, so I don't know why I was getting sharp with him. Because, had he just told me that he had gotten some girl pregnant, I would probably be acting the very same way that he is and I would need to know who it was that he had slept with.
"I just need to know and I need to be able to understand. So, just tell me, who the fuck was it?"
Alcohol. Alcohol is the reason people do anything most of the time, and it always makes people do seriously stupid things which they only end up regretting for the rest of their lives once they have remembered what happened as a result of said alcohol.
"Matthew. Matthew Jenkinson," I swallowed as I said his name, the sensation of needing to throw up everywhere was overwhelming, and that was just from the mere mention of his name.
"Seriously? You had sex with the jerk?" It sounded so much worse when someone else said it aloud, and it sounded even worse when it rolled off the tongue of the person you were supposed to love, though the knowledge of who had slept with apparently did nothing to quell the growing anger within Braydon because he had a murderous glint in his eye and looked as though he was just about ready to punch someone. "Of all the fucking people in the world, why did you have to sleep with him? I don't understand."
"I am sor—"
"You're sorry. I know. But sorry doesn't change the fact it happened and it sure as hell doesn't change that you're pregnant with his kid," Braydon finally snapped and I was actually terrified about what was going to happen, it was as though he was a completely different person and, if I said one more thing to piss him off, then he would lose his temper with me in a way he had never done before.
"Braydon—"
"Sorry. It's a funny word when you think about it. You can it and you can actually mean it, you can be genuinely sorry for what you did, or you can say it and then do the exact same thing again," I knew that this was the end and that I was probably never going to see Braydon again. Not that I blamed him, I had broken his heart and cheated on him with the one person he hated more than anything, and then I had tried to beg for his forgiveness without actually telling him what I had done.
I would have been more surprised if he hadn't have run a mile, if he hadn't have lost his temper with me and shouted at me, so at least I knew that he felt something for me as well and I knew that he now hated me. In this moment, Braydon Sanders hated me, and I was one pissed off teen, which was never going to end well.
"So? This is it? This is where we end?"
"I would never be able to trust you again and there's no way that I can bring up a baby which contains half of his DNA," disgust laced his tone and, even though Matthew didn't give a shit about his child, I still gave a damn and I hated the way that Braydon spoke of the child as though it was the worst thing to have happened—I may not have been ready, I may never be ready, but I was going to give it my best shot and I was going to hurt anyone who dared to get in my way or anyone who dared to speak a negative word about my child.
"I would have been more surprised had you stayed with me," I managed to say, hiding the pain which was ripping me apart from the inside, because Braydon didn't need to know how weak I was in this moment.
"Goodbye," I listened as Braydon walked out of the room and slammed the door behind him, emphasising his anger and showing that he really wasn't going to be coming back any time soon; he was gone for good and I would never be able to win him back.
My parents were disgusted with me. Jason was lost for words and didn't know what he was supposed to say. Abigail had made everything a thousand times worse. Matthew just wanted me to murder the child. And Braydon hated me.
This is why I had no one. This is why I was alone. I was the screw-up and I fucked everything up, and that's how it was always going to be.