The Single Mother

Chaper 1- Talla Knight: How It All Began

I try to never hold myself to my mistakes, but going to my boyfriend's party was my first mistake that I have ever regretted. I knew that Mum and Dad didn't want me to go due to a new family business partner that they were planning, but that made me want to go even more. Instead of trying to make their 18-year-old daughter, who wanted nothing to do with the business, sit through a boring dinner party, they should have let her be wild and make stupid life decisions- just like they did when they got drunk at a friend's birthday party and woke up the next day engaged to each other.

True to each other and to their drunken words, my parents, Casey and Phoebe Knight, played out their engagement- which ended up doing their attorney business a large favour due to all the press and media paying attention to them. My parents were engaged for three years before finally deciding to tie the knot at the age of 21, which was also around the same time that they were making headlines for Forbes Magazine for being the next big lawyer company, following Jaxon and Carmen King.

I should have stayed home that night and dealt with all the fake smiles and the polite jokes that the King's and my household conjured. Although, I have to admit, sitting through the partnership dinner between Knight's Attorneys and King's Lawyers wouldn't have been an adventure- or nightmare- compared to what I endured that night.

If I close my eyes for long enough, I can still hear the thumping music radiating from the DJ's massive speakers, I could smell the cheap alcohol being concocted from the makeshift bar beside my best friend's pool, could smell the mouthwatering finger food placed on the Bali hut's long table and could remember the shiny and spinning rainbow lights that reflected off the disco ball hanging from the roof of the pop-up gazebo. Victoria Smith, my best friend, had gotten permission from her parents to throw the most extravagant 18th birthday party the town had ever seen, and the whole school was invited.

The cheap alcohol was churning in my stomach and the blaring of the song Freaks by Timmy Trumpet was making my head ache. I knew that the burning in my throat wasn't from the inexpensive lacquer and instead from the vomit raising up my throat, so, clutching my stomach, I jolted for the bathroom which was inside Victoria's lavish house.

When my stomach was relieved of all the alcohol that I consumed and my mouth no longer tasted like vomit, I exited the bathroom and walked around everyone in the kitchen gossiping about how awesome the birthday party was.

A girl with long brunette hair came up to me, shouting my name. "TALLA! OH MY GOD. YOU ARE SO LUCKY TO HAVE VICTORIA AS YOUR BEST FRIEND. THIS HOUSE IS AMAZING AND I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT HER PARENTS JUST ALLOWED THIS!"

She mentioned Victoria, but I hadn't seen her since I arrived here nearly four hours ago. Or my boyfriend for that matter.

"Yeah, her family is awesome. I sometimes wish I was related to her just so I could say all this belonged to me too." I laughed, waving goodbye at the girl and made my way up the stairs to Victoria's room, eager to start my search for my best friend.

"Victoria?" I called as I pushed open the door to her bedroom.

The door flew open and my mouth fell to the ground. Standing in front of me, completely naked and tongues shoved down each others throats, was my best friend since I was six and my boyfriend of two years. It was in this moment that my worst dream became a reality- I was alone in a world where I already didn't fit in.

"What. The. Actual. Fuck!" I screamed, the tears already blurring and prickling my vision but it was enough for Victoria and Isaac to pull away in absolute shock. "You guys..." I was embarrassed at how my voice broke, but in the moment the pain at being betrayed was just too much to bear.

"Talla- Babe, please we can explain." Isaac reached out to me and Victoria stood there, not able to look me in the eyes at all. But I didn't want an explanation. I had seen enough already.

I could feel my mascara running down my face even as I tore through the crowd, Isaac chasing me while he threw a pair of boxers on, but his voice was fading which I just presumed was because he got caught in the crowd, but I discovered later in life, that he had just given up on the chase.

Crying and running is harder than it looks in the movies. So when I paused in front of an old tavern to catch my breath and grab my phone from my back pocket, the scream that should have escaped my mouth when the grubby man snatched my wrist should have been more louder and more powerful than what it was.

No matter how hard I shrieked or how much I flailed my limbs around, the man wouldn't loosen his grip on me or take the hint that I wasn't into the idea of what he was about to do. I was out of breath and huffing and puffing before someone from the tavern noticed the man holding me captive was raping me, and even then they didn't do anything helpful to me. They just hollered and cheered the man on.

I must have blacked out on the pavement, because I awoke, naked and shivering, surrounded by the police and paramedics and my mother sobbing with her head buried in my father's chest. My awakening caused some commotion and I was rushed to hospital, but I knew something was off- I didn't feel the same and I didn't know if it was from the later experience or the earlier one.

I was in the hospital for a week. So many tests were run that I had lost count after the sixth day. But one set of questions kept being asked whenever a new nurse of doctor entered: when was the last time you got your period? And every time I gave the same answer: like a month and a half ago- but I'm not pregnant.

On my ninth day in hospital a young woman knocked on my rooms door before entering. Unlike all the other doctors and nurses, she didn't ask when I was last on my menstruation cycle. Instead she said: do you want to be a mother someday?

I didn't understand what she meant but my parents obviously clicked onto what she was implying. I was still scratching my head until I head the words "abort it" fire out of my Dad's mouth.

"Wait. I'm... pregnant?" I chocked out, and it must have been me saying it that opened the floodgates for my Mum because she was crying once again.

"Yes Miss Knight you are pregnant. And because you're of legal age to be a guardian of a baby, you get to choose whether to keep it or abort it- not your parents." If I wasn't already broken from my experience a week prior- I was now.

No matter how much I wanted to be married and have a family- I knew that I just didn't have it in me to kill an unborn life. So I made, what my parents perceive the worst decision of my life.

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Author's note: In no way, shape or form do I condone rape and cheating. If you're offended by this or if it throws you off from reading further chapters, I can confirm that this is the only time rape will have gone in depth. I'm sorry if I disturbed anyone and I know rape is something that shouldn't be joked about or put into a positive light.