Emerald pov
" We will be back at your house , in about two minutes " .
Says Cooper without taking his eyes off the road. Hearing his words I do not react , I just continue leaning my head against the side window of the car . Looking at the passing , full of life streets , I can not help but notice my faint reflection in the window . Looking at my reflection , I recall the memories of recent years . Probably the only good memories I have .
How many changes have occurred in my life , how did I get to this point ? From a homeless , starving kid , for whom the only goal in life was to survive the next day . I have become someone who eats good food everyday , has a place to call home , I have my own things , I have people I am not afraid to entrust my life to , people I can rely on and not be afraid to interact with ..... Now I have someone I can and want to give affection to . Now I have a purpose in life , a purpose I want to live for .
In the past I had none of this . However , I have not always been homeless , I actually had a home and a family . But it was a Family and home in name only , because it lacked everything a family or home needs . The apartment in which we lived , was cold and damp all year round , thus making it full of mold and fungus on the walls . To this day I remember the stench of moldy wood combined with the smell of rotten bodies belonging to rats that died between the walls .
It was obvious that our house was in need of renovation , I honestly think that the abandoned den I sometimes slept in during my time on the street , was in better condition than my old house . However, we barely had enough to eat , so the renovation of our apartment was never possible . Besides, there was no point in renovating one apartment if the whole building was falling apart .
Of course due to the condition of our house there was no access to electricity and hot water , so my mother was always forced to heat water for a bath in a kettle . She did it on the only working thing in the house , in a portable dust stove , which more than once saved our " family " from the ice coffin that our house almost often became .
It was because of this poverty, that at a fairly young age I was taught by my father how to steal . Stealing wallets or stealing from market stalls was sometimes the only way to eat at least once a day. However, no matter how many times these skills save me ..... I still hate my father .
A former gangster , whose entire gang died in the purges caused by the war between the gangs . My father was the sole survivor of the entire gang , a gang that during its existence protected my father from paying the huge debt that had accumulated on his name over the years . To this day I don't know exactly how high that debt was and how exactly it was incurred . However, its implications , according to my mother , shattered our home and family . Unfortunately , when I asked my mother if it was this debt and the past that drove my father to alcohol , she was never able to answer me .
That is why I began to believe , that perhaps he was always an asshole and a failure . I just find it hard to believe that they were ever happy , I couldn't believe my mother's words when she told me about the happy times before I was born . I could not believe that there was " this great love " , through which of which my mother ran away from home to be with my father .
The only thing I believe , is that if my father really wanted , he could do something about our situation . He could find a job , hook up with a new gang ..... Whatever . But he wasn't interested in finding a job , he wasn't interested in sending me to school . He wasn't even interested in my mother's suffering , when she was forced to sell her own body on the street to feed us . He wasn't interested in anything ! Nothing that concerned our family , he was only interested in his alcohol .
That was his only motivation in teaching me how to steal . He didn't care that I was sick and malnourished . He was interested in the fact that I could bring money for him . Money for which he only bought alcohol anyway . However , I did what he told me to do , because when I did not bring him enough .... I ended up being beaten into unconsciousness . Left on the floor by my drunken father , I had to wait for my mother , who did not return until the evening .
' But at least I didn't starve to death '
Thinking of those moments when I lay helplessly on the floor , I am reminded of a faint flash of memories . Memories of my mother , the only person about whom I have any fond memories dating back to that time . She was the only one who was kind and gentle to me . But even that was under the condition , that she was not stoned . When she was after a few doses it was me who had to take care of her .
But the older I get the better I understand her , my mother did what she could to support the family and her addiction , which took hold due to the stress and living conditions in which she had to raise me . Despite her addictiont , sometimes she was able to stop herself from buying a dose to offer me some more food . And that's probably why , even though I knew she wasn't an example to follow I admired her .
She was the complete opposite of my father , who was a failure . My mother repeatedly did what my father could not do , she took care of me by giving me any chance of survival , despite the conditions we had to live in . That's why I'm not mad at her for taking drugs , because I understand why she took them . Mom did it to ease the humiliation and pain , she did it to be able to take care of me at least one more day .
I am not even ashamed to admit that my mother was a prostitute, because first of all she was not a prostitute by choice, secondly I lived on the money she earned . However, the only regret and distaste I have for her , is that ..... she never left my father . I don't know why , my mother never packed our things , took my hand and ran away from my father . I know it would have been hard for us , but wasn't it hard all the time ? .
Without having to give some of the money to my father for his alcohol, we could live freely . Of course there were people who regularly came to my father demanding money from him . It was these people who forced mother to work off his debt . However , was there really no way to escape them ?
Did my mother really love this useless alcoholic enough to let him beat me and herself ? Even if these people continued to demand money from mom , wouldn't life away from dad be better . Without the violence and without unnecessarily spending resources to support this asshole , mother could pay more debt without worrying about this drunken bastard killing me .
Fortunately, the problem that was my father solved itself . There was no need for my mother to take any action . Because just as she loved my father , despite the fact that he repeatedly beat her , almost taking her life in the process . This is just how the alcohol , which my father loved so much , took his live . I guess this is that famous " poetic justice " .
At the time I thought that after my father's " unfortunate " alcohol poisoning everything would work out for us . Unfortunately , nothing worked out , because my mother less than a day later disappeared , or rather to be accurate , she did not come home . Thus leaving me for certain death . Well at least it would have been certain if I were an ordinary child .
Despite my age , it was certain that I could manage on my own . Well to be honest , besides sadness and grief for what happened to my mother , I was quite well . Thanks to the teachings of my father I was able to eat something . I may have had to exert myself a little in the process , but at least I could concentrate on accumulating only food , which I did not have to share with anyone .
Because of the apartment , which despite its condition remained in my care , I did not have to worry about the roof over my head . Surprisingly none of our neighbors ever came to see what I was up to , but well what did I expect from people who lived in the same conditions as me . Alcoholics and drug addicts , they are the only people living in a moldy and rat-filled building . Or perhaps this is my unfortunate association .
The point is that no one ever came with bills , which could have made it clear to me that the building was left alone . There was never electricity or insulation , the building was not renovated . The only thing that existed was plumbing and access to cold water . However , even for this no one sent bills . As for me , a single child without parents ..... No one showed up . No one from the city or social services . Well , but from how could they know that I was alone ? I didn't inform anyone about my mother's disappearance . After all , why should I ? I knew that if my mother did not return after one day she was dead .
She always told me " If I did not return to you , take care of yourself and do not look for me .... I am a lost cause . You are resourceful and smart , you will manage . Just please ..... Don't make the same mistake I did .... don't trust anyone who doesn't deserve your trust ." Well , I followed her request and it was not so bad .
On the street I lived no one ever bothered me, except for the perverts , from whom I ran away. Apart from them my life was peaceful. In the neighborhood where I lived many men knew my mother, so they did not bother me, at most they asked me about her disappearance or threw in my direction bawdy comments about her. Questions were not answered , so people , stopped asking me after the first week of my mother's absence , apparently understanding that she had already disappeared forever . As for people uttering derogatory references about her , I ignored them .
The gangs also did not care what I did as long as I did not steal in their area , they were uninterested in me . After all, I lived there a long time, so most people knew me, so they also knew that messing with me was a waste of energy. I didn't have anything they could rob me of, nor did I have anything they wanted. I was even poorer than they were, so apart from a few nice words like "what's up, kid? " . Nobody bothered me. Well, there was one nice old lady who knew my mother. She was the only one who gave me free food every now and then .
I was also safe from the police , who only hung around the places where I stole food . However, thanks to my father I knew their habits , thus I was able to use loopholes more effectively to steal things from the commercial district . As for the people who came to my father because of the debt , they have not appeared again since my mother disappeared . This also makes this information a clue as to what might have happened to my mother . Tip that honestly at the time did not matter .
I did not think about looking for her , I was focused on survival. After all, I had no future, without school I had no education, which limited my ability to find a job. A job for which I was too young anyway. The way I was living was not healthy, I knew it. I had no way to get to anything in the future , focusing all my time solely on surviving a single day .
I lived on a timer , every day could be a day in which I had bad luck . I will not get enough food , get sick , get kidnapped , killed , caught ... I know I have a talent for stealing however even people with talent can have a bad day . In the end all it takes is one bad day , one mistake . However, being honest I would never have thought that this one mistake could fix my life . A bad day that turned into a bright future . A future that I hope to spend alongside the people I call family .