Chapter 4

On the other hand, Jade had finally climbed down the big tree safely, protecting her stomach the whole time to make sure her baby wouldn't be hurt. The basic martial arts that she had learned as a child, although wasn't useful in protecting herself in a physical fight, still made her body nimble and quick.

When she managed to get on a bus heading to her parent's home, she breathed a sigh of relief and slumped onto one of the empty seats near the back.

The college she went to was in Elmrow City, North Carolina, an hour away from where her parents lived, in Perillion City. During her freshman year, she had stayed in the dorms since the college gave her no other choice, and near the end of the year she began dating Nell, a man that was in his fifth year of college. He had to take an extra year to finish his courses since he was triple majoring. At the end of freshman year, she began to live with him in his apartment since dorm life was very messy, and she wanted to be able to spend more time with him.

She had never expected that she would be raped one day at a party and become pregnant, and that Nell would turn on her in such a terrifying way. The most horrifying part of the whole incident was that she couldn't even remember who it was that had taken advantage of her on that night 3 months ago.

When she found out about her pregnancy a few weeks ago, she was disgusted and her first instinct was that she wanted to abort it, but after she began seeing a psychologist to help overcome the trauma that the incident had left her with, she found herself growing to love the life within her. The idea of not being able to mother this baby scared her.

She had told Nell about it because she was hoping he would support her and encourage her through this difficult journey, but he seemed to have other ideas. He hadn't even let her tell her side of the story. About how she didn't even know the father of her baby. About how this unknown man had grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in a room during a party and had put a knife against her neck to keep her quiet as he tore off her clothes and took advantage of her. About how she had been crying the whole time, because she felt guilty for having a man do this to her when she hadn't even let her boyfriend go this far yet. About how she had been traumatized from this incident and would instinctively kick anyone that held her arm without warning. And about how much effort it took her just to accept this baby as her own, and the courage she had been building all along to tell Nell about it.

He didn't care about any of that. Because he had already painted her as a cheating slut in his mind the moment she began speaking.

The hour long journey came to an end rather quickly, with Jade deep in thought the whole time. She was finally in Perillion City, where her parents were.