3
His letter was like an unbelievable test result of a terminal illness you kept checking, hoping the result would somewhat change, but it kept staring back at you. That was how I felt as I stared at the letter in the corner of my little room, reading what I'd read already, over and over again. I wished he would have been nicer with his words. I wished his heart-wrenching words in the letter were lies. Furthermore, I got addicted to looking at those hateful words, always sobbing anytime I stared at them. I hated myself for being addicted to his letter.
Just like his mom, he called me a whore several times in the letter. According to his later, he left me in my cell for a while to reflect on my careless actions of entering a secret contract with an alpha and being a whore for the public. He left a credit card inside the envelope to make sure I didn't sleep with other male shifters for money. He wrote so many scathing words that I wished my memory could let go.
The creaking floorboard echoed through my small room as my mom strode towards my room to check up on me. She always checked up on me each time she was about to go out for work.
Quickly, I folded the letter, putting it in my bra. Leaning on my side against the wall, I curled my legs up till they were slightly touching my big bump, and then I covered my shoulders down to my toes with my only brown duvet. I patted my face dry and wrapped my hands around my shin beneath the duvet. Ready to receive my mom.
My village was for shifters who broke the rules guiding the Moon Vision Pack. Rule breakers were considered a threat to the alpha and the pack, so they were transferred to this small village to be monitored for the rest of their lives. No visitors ever come to visit. We all grew old alone. Breaking another rule set in the village would lead to death, which was why my pregnancy had been kept a secret from everyone, including my mom. My mom could have had heart failure if she had known about my pregnancy. To stay alive and to save my mom from having heart failure, I acted ill and stayed indoors.
When my mom entered my room, the little joy I mustered up for her dissipated; her droopy eyelids broke my heart.
"Mom, are you…" I quickly swallowed the lump in my throat after seeing what was on her hand. "Okay?" That last word sounded like it never left my lips.
She knew about my pregnancy, but not entirely, I guessed so.
"What are these?" she interrogated in a tremulous voice, her eyes glittering with tears, as she showed me the empty blister cards. There were two of them in her grip.
My heart skipped. Edgy at how the question made me feel, I clawed at my arms hard enough that I drew blood. Those were both varieties of abortion pills I'd used. But somehow the baby kept on growing inside my womb.
"Those are…uh, drugs," I managed to stay. What she knew was just the drugs, not the child.
"What are these types of drugs doing in your trash can?"
"I don't know how they got into my…"
I grabbed tight on my duvet as she started dragging it with me. I couldn't let her see my round stomach.
"Stop it, Mom."
"What are you hiding beneath the sheet?" she asked, still playing tug of war with me on my duvet.
"Stay out of my business…ouch." I fell forward on the wooden floor, and my hands quickly landed on the wooden floor, preventing my stomach from hitting hard on the floor.
Was that a mother's instinct or what? I just saved the unborn child from hitting the floor. My small, dotted-blue body-con gown wasted no time in giving my pregnancy away. I sat back on the floor, my legs stretched out.
Avoiding looking into her eyes, a pair of blue that would remind me of a disgrace I was to her, I gazed at her worn-out-lady-Jane-shoes.
"What have you done?" she muttered. The duvet dropped from her grip.
"It was a mistake, Mom," I said, the words reminding me of Alpha Rhys and the hatred I had for him.
The words in his letter scarred my heart. The pregnancy would always remind me of the part in the letter where he thanked the goddess that I didn't fake getting pregnant for him.
"Who's the father?"
I scratched the back of my ear, thinking of what to tell her. Telling her Alpha Rhys was the father would only sound like a cruel joke to her. All she knew was that I had a good job that afforded me her hospital bills, nothing more. And when I came back home two months ago, I told her I was wrongly arrested, and that I came back to the village immediately the matter was settled.
I would have told a better lie if I knew the pregnancy would stick with me to this very moment.
"Say something, Jas," she said, running out of patience
"I was raped," I lied and hated myself for doing so.
"Jasmine, look at me and repeat those words," she said, her voice very calm.
Tears already clouded my vision when I looked at her, blurring her out a bit and giving me the audacity to look at my mom after lying to her.
"I couldn't bring myself to tell you I was raped." I cleaned my runny nose and sniffed. "So much has been going on, which is why I kept the pregnancy to myself."
I cried the more, my chest heaving, my protruded stomach moving up and down. My mom was the first person to know about my pregnancy, and it killed me inside to lie to her. Seeing her face softening to what I took as pity, I felt like putting a bullet in my head and ending this shameful life I was living.
When she trudged towards me, I knew she bought everything I just said. It was easy for her to believe me because I was never this person with a big stomach, I never lied to her and never kept anything from her.
She knelt beside me, and gently, she placed my head on her chest. Her embrace still felt like other times, it suited me, even though I didn't deserve her kindness anymore.
"Did you report to the police?" she softly asked.
"No, mom." That was the dumbest mistake a rape victim should ever make, but I made the mistake because I wasn't raped.
She sighed. "It will be all right, I promise."
"You know it won't." I moved my head away from her chest and sat properly on my behind.
My mom would have made sure everything was all right if she had the power. But it wasn't in her power to keep me away from punishment.
Since I was little, as a low-class shifter, I had lived in the village. The village was like another prison, big enough to contain the lawbreakers of the alpha. Once someone broke the law, if their sins were too small to be pardoned, they would be sent to the village to live for eternity. The shifters outside the village were regarded as high and average-class shifters.
My only sin was being my mother's daughter. My mom had a one-night stand with a man she knew nothing about. She ended up getting pregnant by the anonymous male shifter. Any female shifter in my shoes right now would wish she was my mom. Unlike my mom, it was forbidden for me to get pregnant. One of the rules guiding the village was "no fornication." My mom was an average shifter before she got pregnant, and I was already a low-class shifter when I got pregnant. I wondered if another class would be created for my sins.
"I know it will, my love." She held my hands, lifted me to my feet, and gathered me in her arms. Knowing her warm hug was what I craved, we stayed in each other's arms for a while before she broke the hug and walked me to my bed.
"I love you, Mom," I said as I gently sat on my bed.
"I love you too, sweetie." She pecked my head. "I'll be right back. Your food is in the microwave."
The smile was still on my face as I watched her leave.
She got to the door and turned to meet my gaze. "There's more food in the fridge, just in case you need more."
"I'm sorry, mom." I lowered my gaze again, this time to the wooden floor.
"It's not my baby's fault." I heard her say before she jammed the door.
"I'm sorry, Mom," I mouthed and looked at my small wooden cupboard. More tears filled my eyes as a mental image of what I was about to do flashed before my eyes.