PROLOGUE
Patience
Whore. Liar. Cow. Trailer trash.
Their insults and laughter echoed in my head as I rushed—as fast as humanly possible in my condition—out the door of the local teen hang out, the smell of greasy pizza enhancing the nausea already swimming in my gut.
The distance I’d put between myself and them, along with the fresh air, did nothing to calm my tainted soul. I ducked around the corner of the building before crashing to my knees on the hard ground as sob after sob wracked my body.
Wrapping protective arms around my huge belly as far as I could manage, I whispered to my baby in a choked voice, tears clogging my throat.
“Y-You are the b-best baby. M-Momma l-loves y-you.”
Tears splattered to the ground as the torment inflicted on me by everyone in my life crashed into me like a tsunami, threatening to drag me to the depths of despair, a place so dark I may never have found my way to the surface again if I hadn’t shut off the noise in my head quickly.
Squeezing my eyes shut to stop the salty liquid from flowing any longer, I pulled in a much needed breath andbegan to talk once again to the only person in my life thatmattered.
“I’m a-always going to t-take care of you, s-weet boy. No m-matter what, it’s y-you and me against the w-world.”
That was what I’d been trying to do—care and provide for my little one, because I didn’t know how I could do it alone— by putting myself through what I already knew would not only be a lost cause, but also a humiliating experience, when I’d hunted Chaz down to plead with him to help his son and me.
Yet, I did it anyway.
I’d do anything for my child.
I squeezed my eyes closed even harder, willing the previous moment from before to disappear from my mind but instead it came flooding back, along with the tears pushing at my eyelids waiting to burst free.
“That is not my baby,” Chaz sneered. “You’re nothing but a cheating whore who got pregnant by some random guy and you just want me to pay your way.”
His friends had surrounded him, calling out hateful names and snickering about me as he spit out the load of bullshit. And they believed him.
I’d thought they’d been my friends too, but they dismissed me instantly when Chaz had dumped me like a bag of trash, denying the baby was his. I wanted to make him take responsibility, but my parents wouldn’t help me, and their insults were as bad as all my peers.
Trying for months to get my child’s father to listen to me was wasted breath. This had been my last attempt before I succumbed to having and raising my baby alone. Something that was just a week away.
I’m all alone in this.
How stupid could I have been to have lost myself, the person I truly was, just to fit in with the cool crowd? I’d eatenup the attention when Chaz—the notoriously rich jock— noticed me, molding myself into someone I was not, just to feel like I wassomebody.
“Stop your damn lies and take your fat ass out of here. Go find the real daddy and leave me the fuck alone.”
His soul-wrenching words played over and over in my head until the dam broke. Tears flooded my eyes, pressing them open with such force, I had no choice but to let them freefall down my cheeks.
I may not have been ready for motherhood, but this baby was mine. I was going to do everything to show it every ounce of love I possessed. I’d be nothing like my parents or Chaz, who abandoned his own child.
Kick. Kick. Kick.
Pressing my hand to where I felt my boy making his presence known, I let the tears out. I’d get through them, then I would concentrate on how we were going to make it on our own. It was only a matter of time before my parents tossed me out too, something they’d been threatening since finding out I was pregnant.
“Patience, are you okay?”
His soft, soothing voice floated to my ears and when I looked up into the bluest of eyes something shifted, the storm brewing inside me instantly calming.
He’d followed me out?
And he knew my name?
Vaguely, for just a second, my gaze had caught on the boy watching as the ugly scene had unfolded in the restaurant. I’d see him around school, but he kept to himself most of the time. I didn’t understand why he would be in front of me now. He seemed to see the question in my gaze.
