CHAPTER FOUR- REALITY
ONCE A BLACKSHEEP ALWAYS A BLACKSHEEP.
TWISTED FATE
The sky is dark, with a small tunnel of light from outside, thunder is striking and with every strike the room lights up. I am terrified by the lightning, and the house seems haunted and I feel so scared. I look at my mother's terrified face as she lies in a pool of blood, with a huge wound on her stomach, not so far from her left lib. she put her hand on it and blood comes out like a river and off to the ground.
"H- help!" she says breathless as she tries to drag herself on the ground, making the blood spread even more. she lets out a cough which in turn causes a stream of blood come out of her left stomach.
"Real..." with a lot of struggling, she manages to call out.
"C-come here sweetie." she says as she opens her arms wide open, I go to her and she puts her palm on my chick, leaving a blood heart imprint on my chick.
"Sweetie, I don't have m-much time."
"Ma, I'm scared." I tell her almost crying.
"I-It's ok sweetie, mommy's here." She pulls me into a warm hug, I feel a kind of warmth, I have never felt before, I don't wanna lose her. I'm only twelve years old and God knows how much I need her.
"y-you're my strong girl, right?"
"But mom I don't wanna be a strong girl I-"
"Real, please, listen to me...I will always love you and I will never leave you alone, okay, and always know that God loves you. Tell Stormie, True and Tace that I will always love 'em." She said almost running out of breath.
"What you mean I should tell them mama, where you going.... y-you are not leaving me, are you?" I ask with a shaky voice. Mom looks at me and gives me the best smile on her dimply chicks and shakes her head.
"NO, dear, I would never leave you.... get me my purse." she says pointing to her bag which was on the floor the other side, I quickly rush to get it and I gently hand it to her.
"You know, you were the friendliest baby." she says digging her hands into the bag.
"y-you smiled on the first day." She says smiling at me and taking out a small pink diary.
"I want you to always be you and always be Real to others. I named you Reality because you were the best thing that ever happened to me." She smiles as she passes me the diary.
"Take good care of it, baby, I know you will and..." she suddenly starts coughing, there are large spaces in between the coughs. She puts her arm on the other where she is wearing a silver bracelet with a heart engraved on it, she uses the other hand, though shaky and takes the bracelet off.
"Ma!" I scream in horror.
"Gimme your hand." I stretch my arm towards her and she gently takes it and puts it around my arm.
"I- I never met m-my m-mother-this is the only memory I got of her" she says tying the bracelet around my arm.
"G-get me some water." she says almost breathless... I run to the kitchen...I open the cup draw to get the cup and draw the water from the tap. I can hear my own footsteps and I almost fall as some of the water splashes on the floor. I reach to the living room and I see my mother laying on the floor with my father kneeling next to her.
"W-what are you doing to her?!" I shout with a shaky but demanding voice.
"Real, I-" I ignore his words and kneel next to her and touch her. Her hand is no longer soft, and I can't feel the warmness I felt before. it's like I'm now touching a rock, her eyes are gently closed and she looks calm, just like Te fiti's statue. Her arm swings back and forth.
"S-she gone, Real, I'm sorry."
"Ma!" I let out a scream.
* * * * * *
My body heavy as a rock after the day I just had yesterday, I open my eyes to the blinding light coming from outside the window. If only life was a little better. I seat up, my eyes still heavy, I look at my phone and it's 09: 00. If only I still had the job at the diner. Okay, so here's the story of what happened and probably the reason Sneak and Trig were chasing.
It all started when I got to the diner, I was late, but made it up to them by cleaning the floors, they were marvellous. The boss paid a visit and I was left in charge of the register. All was well until Ryan and his two guys paid a visit. This was all new to me, mean he stayed in Louisiana, what was he doing here? He ordered some smoothies and put a big stash of cash on the counter.
"Hold this." He said pressing the stash on the counter.
"Come on, no." I said looking around to see if anyone was watching. I knew he would come back for it sooner or later, so I looked my left and right side just to see if anyone was looking, and when I noticed they weren't, I hid the money on my apron and by lunch, I secretly snuck it in my bag. All was well, until I met Agatha, one of my colleagues who isn't always so nice to me.
"I saw you putting sum in your bag, earlier." She said looking at me with this devious grin.
"Where did you get so much money, Real?" she said; her strangely warm hand around my arm and holding it in a grip.
"It's none of your business, now let go!"
"I'm not letting you go, Real." Aggie said with gritted teeth. Her look was like that of a villain in movies. Why did she always have to be so cruel towards me? Ever since I had gotten to Smokey's, I had never done anything wrong to her, all I had been to her was nothing but good and every time she was always so mean to me. I understood if she was going through it, but I had been through far more worse situations than she could never imagine. All I did was mind my own business, why was she like this? This hurt me a lot because I had been bullied all my life already.
"That's enough!" I finally gathered the strength to push her away and she almost fell down. She looked at me with her devious eyes, as she pushed her blonde wavy hair to the back.
"I'mma tell the boss you been stealing, then we'll see what'll happen to you." She told me.
That's when I decided to tell her the entire truth. She asked me to give her half of the money of which I refused and she just stormed out of the room. Moments later, I went to check my bag but it wasn't there. I asked my colleagues who only showed me resentment. I knew something off. I saw the boss come into the room with Aggie and Teddy the manager. Everyone was present.
"I saved you, Real." Agatha said trying to sound innocent in front of everyone.
"So, what, you don't get brownie points for that!" I told her.
The save she feels like I own her my entire life was shifting the boss's attention from me after he started asking me a lot of questions about work at the diner. She was trying to protect her lazy ass for goodness' sake.
She accused me of stealing money from the register and everyone believed her. Nobody was ready to take my side, nor was anyone ready to back me up. The money was there as evidence because I clearly couldn't make such kind of money, but I was telling the truth and the money wasn't mine.
"I-I can expla-" I began, but was cut short by the manager.
"Quiet!"
The boss picked up the money from the floor.
"The money belongs to my friend." I tried explain, but the boss didn't seem to pay attention.
The manager was about to call the cops on me but was stopped by the boss. The boss carried the money and was about to walk out.
"Sir." I called out almost crying.
"The money, it does not belong to me. Can you give it back?" I stretched out my hand to him, he just gave a blank stare at my hand. The manager started shouting at me for asking for the money, but I wasn't concerned with that. All I wanted was Ryan's money back.
"Oh and; you're fired!" That was the manager
"No, I quit." I said untying the apron and throwing it to the ground. With a heavy heart, I picked up my stuff and walked up to Aggie who seemed to be enjoying the scene, with her hand on her mouth to hide her laughter. She had no idea what kind of trouble she had gotten me in.
"I hope you're happy now and let's hope this happiness is forever. You've won Aggie."
I said putting my bag at the back and walking out the door. that was beginning of hell for me. I didn't own a lot and only leaved in a rusty trailer near the city mall. I had no one to turn to; the remaining options were to stay and find Erica or raise enough money to either leave the city or afford my own place. I tried a couple of restaurants, but due to their connections, the only saw me as a thief, yet it wasn't even mine. That's why I had to run from Sneak and Trig when we met at the subway earlier
* * * * *
Looking over at the curtain to the beautiful sky-blue sky with pure white clouds and the warm yellow spring sun shining abundantly on the beautiful green trees surrounding the area. Kids holding their mother's and father's hands. Dogs uniting with their friends and kids playing and chatting with their friends across the park. Then it hits me, I got no one and it will be by chance if I should find Erica. I feel my stomach rumbling from not eating anything from the night before and my almost swollen eyes from crying my eyes last night. My pretty boy last night crosses my mind again, I bet he has everything and obviously food and money to spend. I bet he gets everything that he wants.
I move to my small kitchen, holding a wooden handle, I open the draw, reaching for a yellow carton with cartoons on it, containing cereal. As my mom always said; "Creal breakfast is better than no breakfast at all."
I take a spoonful of my crunchy dry cereal. I get up to grab my guitar from under the bed. I put it on my lap as I gently move my hands to the strings of the guitar, producing a very sharp, gentle and calm tone. This guitar always calms me down since I lost my mom.
"That's it!" I think to myself.
"I can perform this on the streets of the mall and hopefully make something. Besides, I need to find something to eat, the cereal can't take me through the month.
I get myself all cleaned up wear my jean pants and wear my cream white breast holder and yellow crop top short sleeved hoodie. I zip it halfway, wear my usual black sneaker, carry my guitar and bag and set off for the streets
* * * * *
Walking down the road I had dropped my stuff; I search the place for my diary. It's gone.