For Everything I Am | KTH 18+ ✔

Chapter One

"Go fuck yourself!" I huffed as I stormed out of the restaurant, snatching my purse off of the table and feeling completely turned off by the vile behavior that is the so-called men of my generation.

The audacity that they seem to have when it comes to the female species is just purely disgusting. Why is it that they feel they can do and say whatever they please and we're just supposed to put up with it all because they have a penis?

Like Jake, for instance. I had high hopes that this one would be different, at least that's the persona he portrayed through Tinder. It was an app that I did not have any desire to involve myself with, but my best friend since childhood had convinced me to give it a shot.

Long story short, I was more than ready to delete the application and storm home where I could give them an ear full of everything that I endured and why they give the shittiest advice ever.

Life was starting to go well up until a couple of months ago when I began dating again. I had scraped my way through college and worked my ass off to get to the position I currently held. My days consisted of two main things...

My work and my daughter.

During the summer before my last year of college and one drunken night with the guy I had been casually dating, we decided it would be just fine if we had sex that one time without a condom. It was only one time. The odds were slim, right?

Wrong! So, so, so wrong.

Once I found out that I was pregnant, I was scared out of my mind. I was grateful for the fact that I was close to graduating from college, but I wasn't ready to be a mother! My idea of taking care of myself was eating instant ramen at three in the morning after a night of partying and paying my bills only once the final notice arrived in the mail.

Not only was I disappointed in myself for being so naive and reckless, but so was everyone else in my life. My family did not welcome the news with open arms, my best friend didn't exactly go easy on me, and to top it off, the guy I was casually dating? Yeah, no one has heard from Miles ever since that day. He seemed to have fallen off the face of the fucking planet. It seems as if his birth name was fitting, to say the least.

Thanking the Uber driver for the ride and quickly giving him a five-star rating, I stare up at the gray brick building towards the lit-up window of my apartment as they drove away. Puffs of breath escape me as I sigh out, dancing along the starlit sky above. My place may be farther away from the city and my job than I would like, but at least there's a calmness about being out by the lake. Not to mention the cheaper rent. Stars were usually visible at night out here and the sound of the water occasionally hitting the bank eased my soul which was exactly what I needed before I walked back inside to rejoin the reality of my little world.

The crisp autumn night air cooled me down, literally and figuratively, as I walked up the two flights of stairs to get to the third floor. By the time I reached my door and pulled the keys out of my bag, I could hear my daughter's laughter and pounding footsteps across the floor.

"Isabelle James! It is way past your bedtime young lady!" I scold with a smile as she runs up to me, wrapping her small three-year-old arms around my leg the moment she sees me back home.

"Tae Tae told me I could stay up." She remarks glancing up at me with her big brown eyes.

Slowly looking up, I meet Taehyung's gaze as he bashfully bites down on his bottom lip and raises his eyebrows as if he knows I'm internally cursing him out for getting her off of the sleep schedule that I had been working so hard to maintain.

"It is a Saturday night and well, I was having fun." He pleas for my forgiveness while I shake my head at him in response, unable to keep a smile away from my face.