Amanda glanced at her mother from the mirror as she hugged herself. There was a worried look in her eyes as she just stood there, watching her mother sleep with her back to the bed, hair spread out over the pillows, her eyes closed shut, her chest, still- like she was a corpse.
The phone in her hand was evident that she just had a call from her brother who wanted to ensure they were safe. They were of course, after being sent to stay in this motel without any explanation.
She sometimes wished Steven could tell her what he was always up to, but It wasn't the same anymore like when they were kids. You could almost call them twins because they were born the same year, though he was older than her by several months- she'll be eighteen in a week.
But she still had vivid memories of when they were very close as kids. They told each other everything- they were each other's best friends. She couldn't stay a minute without him and he couldn't either. Even as siblings having very stark differences physically, they loved each other very much.
But the day he found out about everything from her father, Steven changed for good. He became cold, avoided her and sadly, after some years of struggling to know what went wrong, she just gave up and they turned strangers living in the same house.
And when they moved here, things between them only became worse. They couldn't stay in a room more than five minutes without quarrelling, so most times he wasn't even home and their mother was the last person he ever listened to.
He seemed to hate her after what he learned. He was angry that he had to find out about his true roots from someone else and not the woman that birthed him. He treated them both like outcasts and she was sure he was only giving them some money for upkeep for the sake of sharing the same blood as them.
Mrs Hallman always wondered how he got his money as they were sure he hadn't gotten a job yet, but Steven of course was as solid as a rock, he wouldn't budge and tell a word to anyone.
It was scary seeing Steven furnish their house, pay the bills and even buy a car, and none of them knew what he was doing. One time, she saw a gun while cleaning his room, and her heart had been in her mouth ever since then.
She kind of got an idea of what he was up to, but she was scared to confront him about It, not when after that same day he found out she entered his room, he had lashed out at her (verbally), and warned her never to step foot into the room.
That was when she knew she might find just more than one gun If she dared to enter there again and search, but before she could put her plans into action, he had actually bought a passcode lock for his door.
She finally gave up on him and just decided to focus on her life. At that moment, Steven was sending in enough money to take care of her and her mother and even pay her tuition and other necessities for school, but what Steven didn't know was that Amanda had stopped school a year ago.
After she wrote her college entrance exams, she bid school goodbye forever and proceeded to save up. The only money she ever managed to squeeze out was mostly for her mother's upkeep and feeding- sometimes even she went too hard on herself and wouldn't eat properly for weeks and only ate something when she was feeling faint and weak.
No she wasn't saving up to run away. No she wasn't saving to buy the new edition limited Louis Vuitton bag or shoes she sees her mates wearing when she's at work- a 9-5 part-time job as a waitress. It was enough to pressurize her into getting one for herself since they ridiculed her for wearing old scruffy clothes which she got at the thrift store or dollar store.
But she restrained herself, because she was saving the money for her mother.
You see, before they had even come back here to Steven's hometown, Amanda found out a secret their mother was hiding.
She didn't know for how long, but she couldn't blame her mother for hiding it. What could they have done?
Her mother had gone for a chest x-ray scan and echocardiogram test and had hidden the results all these while. But Amanda had found out that her mother was dying.
She had heart cancer.
With the look of things, the heart tumor had spread from her body towards the heart, and she had few years to live.
The cost of the surgery was ranging from about 500,000$-1.5m$. She would never have gotten to pay up for that surgery even If she saved up her allowance for two years.
Right now, she had gotten almost half of the money and still had hope that she would be able to save up before the angiosarcoma spreads out completely and reduces her chance of surviving.
She had lost dad and had lost her brother. She would be so alone in this world If she looses her mother and she doesn't want that to happen.
It was only she and her mother that knew about her condition but her mother had no clue that she knew.
Steven was out of the picture because Amanda knew he already had a lot on his plate to make him restless about mother's health.
Could she have just gone up to him and ask him for a million dollars? Where did he want to get that type of money from?
Each day she left the house feigning to go to school when in actual fact she was going to work. She worked as a waitress at a small coffee shop in the mornings and as a cleaner at clubs in the evenings before people began arriving to party away their lives without a care in the world.
She envied them.
But she might as well consider leaving both her jobs because she had been given strict rules to abide by which meant she wasn't supposed to miss a day off work. She was as good as fired.
And she had no choice... not when Steven had told them to pack some of their things without warning and had driven them to some part of the city where she could probably get lost If she attempted to find her workplace.
She had used an excuse of having a very important test, but again, It was like talking to a rock. He didn't even budge or care that If she really had been going to school, she might miss her test and fail the course.
She hated Steven. And It hurt her when she thought of how she hated him because she knew years back, she would have laughed in someone's face If they had told her things would be the way they were between she and Steven right now.
Looking at the time, she saw It was 8, close to 9pm. She wasn't getting any sleep, so she decided to just take a walk around the area. One thing about her was that she loved walking, especially in new environments, and even though Steven had warned them both not to step a feet outside, she knew better than to listen to someone who didn't even bother telling her anything.
In a few minutes, she had changed out of her nightie into joggers and a sweat shirt before pulling her hair up into a rough pony tail.
As she stared at her reflection, she was grateful for her dark peanut butter skin which camouflaged the dark circles underneath her eyes.
She wanted to wake her mom up and tell her she was heading out for a stroll, but she just decided to write a short note before placing It at the side of the bed where she hoped she would see it.
~Mom, I'm heading out for a stroll. Don't bother coming out to look for me and don't panic. I'll come back soon.
♡A