Mama never entered murder mode except when people pushed her buttons and I was walking on thin ice with her right now.
You'd think with how deadly that threat sounded I'd keep my mouth shut, yeah I don't have that required sense. I tried so badly to keep my mouth shut, I'm not lying here, I really tried but I still failed.
"Mom I'm not tryna go against your rules or anything, but I'm not going down for no dance lesson", I said taking a few bold steps towards her. "And before you bring down the house on my head, I'm also going to remind you that you chose this life for yourself, nobody made that decision for you, so please don't take away my right to do the same for myself", I said tryna make her see my reasons for refusing her cos if she don't see it, I'm as good as dead meat.
"I love you and I know you think this is a great opportunity for me, but I'm not interested. I don't want to be in no movie, fashion runway or whatever. I don't want it". She looked so shocked by my admission, I think all the fury just seeped out of her instantly.
Now that I had her full attention, why stop? I went further by adding, "I have enough I'm battling with and we've already gone down this road, matter of fact this was exactly what caused my issues in the first place. I've done all you've asked since I was a kid mom".
"Ballet, piano, hip-hop, modelling, I did everything cos you said so, but I'm done doing that. I don't wanna be you mom, no offense but I'm my own person. And I love the person that I am, I just need you to trust me to figure things out on my own".
"Baby I'm not doing this so you can become like me or anything of the sort", she said crossing the distance between us to hold my hands in hers. "I'm doing this because I hate the way you've withdrawn completely from life".
"You used to love dancing more than anything else, and you never did modelling for me, you did because you loved it and I don't know why you're letting all you've been through get to you. But baby you're tougher than that and I know for sure that three years is too much a space for you to know for sure how you feel about this, until you've at least tried it".
"Mom it's not….", I say tryna come up with another excuse only to be interrupted by her saying, with a pretty calculating smile.
"Baby listen let's do this, you go downstairs for today and take the first lesson. If you don't like it, we'll take a different path from there then. But please make an attempt for me at least", she said wiggling her eyebrows at me, yup my mom is definitely not normal.
I didn't even want to consider the option she was giving me but something about the smile she had plastered on her face at that moment told me that she knew I was tryna find a way out of this and she already had a few moves planned ahead, so there's no getting out of this.
"Alright, mom, I'll go just for today and you know that definitely…" I didn't even get to finish my sentence before she interrupted me by placing her forefinger on my lips and saying authoritatively, "don't jinx it. Now get dressed." She hugged me, then stepped back with a victory smile gracing her lips, she turned and walked out of my room.
It took me a few seconds to figure out what had just happened to me. I got played by my mom in my own room, damn Asha you messed up and totally played into her hands. Well scoreboard says I'm still winning.
I decided to wear black yoga pants, a grey Calvin Klein sports bra, covered with an overly large crop top and puma flats. Ha ha ha… y'all thought I was gonna wear shoes, I'm not about to take this seriously peeps.
I didn't even bother with my hair, just left it loose to finish drying as I stepped out of my room to go and face the challenge downstairs.
Few seconds later I was staring at the funkiest dance tutor I had ever seen, literally. He takes the whole funkiness to a whole other level, looking like someone taken out of a 90's magazine. He was dressed in colorful pants, a big t-shirt and funny boots with the weirdest hairstyle. He was cute, though I wouldn't count on him having female friends with that kinda fashion sense. From the way he looked, I was almost sure he wasn't a day over thirty.
My mom was laughing with him about something I'm not interested in finding out, when I cleared my throat to let them know that their prey has arrived.
He turned to me and I take back my first evaluation. I was right about the outfit, yeah duh!!! But every other thing, damn I was wrong about.
He was not cute, he was smoking hot. And forget thirty he freaking looked twenty five, with black hair sporting gold streaks, aqua eyes similar to my first Dad's and a face sculpted to perfection, which brings me to another failed evaluation. He definitely had women drooling even with his twisted fashion sense.
I just stood there at the foot of the stairs staring at him, until my mom walked up to me and shook me back to reality.
"Sweetie, hope you're okay", my mom asked snickering. Almost as if she had heard the prognosis in my head.
"Yeah yeah I'm fine", I said shaking my head to bring me out of my stupid mind. Well won't you introduce us mom, or do I need to take the higher road this time
"Well Devin baby, this is my pride Asha", she said while pulling me with her to the main hall, and "Asha dear this is Devin Myles, the baddest tutor in the game right now".
I almost…. almost missed the endearment she added to his name but I just decided to ignore it.
With introductions out of the way, Devin shook my hands and gave me a few compliments, talking about how fit I am and how my body is perfect for blah blah blah…. Yeah all that.
My mom left then to attend to something in her office leaving me all alone with Devin and that was the cue for my hell to start.
Devin pulled all manner of dance moves outta the bag and I had to literally chase him to catch up, now it's not like I don't like dancing, it's just been a pretty long time. After the first hour, we kinda got along and soon enough I was smiling and laughing like I got a free ticket to paradise. Boy did my mom totally get me this time.
A few hours later and Devin decided that the class was over. I was kinda sad happy. Sad that well the dancing is over, happy that my mom won't see how well she got me this time. My mom came downstairs almost as if on cue, said a big thank you to Devin and walked him out after I did the same.
Now left all alone I decided to just go for a snack and juice, then take it to my room. A few movies later and I was fast asleep, blame it on the exhaustion.
"I saw a girl dressed in white in an open area, a field of sorts, with bloodied bodies lying all around and some people still fighting in the distance. Sirens were wailing, animals were howling and all she saw was a catastrophic reality, the reality of war. She was screaming and trying to get the attention of those still fighting, but it was all to no avail. Suddenly, light poured out of the sky and everything went silent. She couldn't scream anymore, she had been drained of her strength.
As the light gradually faded back to night, she looked around and saw all the wounded and dead walking towards her, their bloodied hands all tryna reach for her, with deformed faces, restructured bodies that were beyond recognition, gruesome wounds on them all, pain and strife etched on so many faces, all tryna reach for her. She tried to move, to get her body to run from what was coming, but she was stuck, as if glued to the spot.
There she stood, wailing out of fear, shaking but glued, trying so hard to brave through it all, when a silky voice gently whispered in her ear, "run, run, wake up, WAKE UP!!!".
I woke up with a start, drenched in sweat, my bed a mess, almost as if I lived the dream in reality. I was shaking so badly, feeling so hot all at the same time. I normally had nightmares and strange dreams but not like this, nothing as vivid as this. I was so scared as I replayed all I just saw in my head, yet the only thought that crossed my mind was, 'my mom must not find out about this'.