AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Because on account of you bein’ all funny looking and stuff, ya might need friends. Duh!”
“I don’t wanna be your friend, you’re mean!” She yelled then she kicked me in the balls and ran away as I dropped to the floor gasping for air.
Later on, I found out she had run because she thought I was dying from her kicking me.
I laid there waiting for her to speak and after a good while when I thought she was asleep, she began to tell me.
“It was hard being on my own after daddy passed away. I tried to maintain the house and work, but the mortgage was too high. They shut everything off and I had no choice but to leave, especially after the bank took the house. I didn’t have any friends that could take me in on account that most of them left Athens. So, I ended up living on the streets.”
She shrugged her shoulders as if it was nothing, I was fuming inside. Where the HELL was her sister in all of this? She continued as I drew lazy circles on her lower back.
“I didn’t know how to at first and I encountered a few things that give me nightmares til this day.”
“Did someone?” I shut my eyes not able to finish that sentence. I wasn’t even sure I was breathing in this moment as I waited for her answer.
She shook her head.
“No,” She answered, and I released a breath. “But some guys did try. It happened more than once, it’s really hard to be a female and live on the streets and as small as I was, someone would always try to sneak up on me, so I learned to carry a weapon of some sort or not sleep in open spaces. Finally, I found this all women’s shelter that accepted me because I was terrified to go to a co-ed one that was the first time in three years that I had a good night sleep. Not even the bedbugs were able to wake me up. I begged one of the head managers there to let me stay longer and I’d work in exchange for unlimited shelter and food. She agreed, and I was grateful because she didn’t take any money from the odd jobs I did.”
“Odd jobs?” was the only question I could get out without exploding with anger.
“Wash dishes at a restaurant then stay overnight to clean the area depending on the size of the place. Worked at a junkyard separating the scraps, bus tables and sometimes depending on if the manager is there, be a bartender. Walked dogs for hours, clean windows at some busy restaurants, clean boats, clean gutters, mow the lawn, and help move furniture. Simple stuff like that.” She shrugged.
I seethed as now I knew why her hands had callouses. I want to hurt something.
“Dom, you’re squeezin’ me too tight.” She quietly said.
I looked down and let go a little bit not realizing I held on to her too tight.
I kissed the top of her head and just stared up at my ceiling. I had nothing to say, no words could’ve come out of my mouth in that moment. There was just so much I wanted to say but none of the words were allowed to even pass my mouth. I was lost in all these thoughts. Thoughts of how I could have ever thought she didn’t want to talk to me when she was my anchor during the funeral. She told me she loved me, I should’ve known. For me, becoming friends with Essy was something that I thought would give me even a slim chance of learning about Monroe, but I was wrong. I was so wrong because here we were and there was nothing, I knew about her. Not a damn thing and there was no excuse for the way I handled things.
The woman that I loved in my young age had suffered more than she needed to. To be homeless and on the streets at the age of 20, while I was busy partying it up, drinking and sleeping with women. She was there, struggling to eat, trying hard to stay alive.
“Monroe?” I looked down at her waiting for her to look at me.
“Yes?”
I moved my hand under her chin maneuvering her to look up at me. Her big brown eyes looked into mine and for the second time in my lifetime, I fell for those sad brown eyes. She didn’t know that when we were kids, what made me always want to be around her was how sad those eyes looked. She always looked like she was on the verge of crying, so as the annoying kid next door, I made sure to put a smile on her face even if afterward she kicked me in the balls more than once. I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to have kids.
“Do you remember what I said to you that one time on your 12th birthday?”
A smile crept on her face.
“That if I didn’t stop kickin’ you in the balls then you’d become deformed and I’d have to be stuck with you for the rest of my life.”
I snickered as she lightly chuckled. I missed her smile and the way her eyes light up when she does smile.
“You know you are going to be stuck with me forever, anyway right?”
She scoffed,
“I couldn’t imagine us even being friends for longer than a day before you pissed me off and I had to try and hurt you somehow but then you grew taller and I was like nope.”
I threw my head back in laughter.
“I missed your laugh.” She admitted.
I looked down at her and shook my head. I missed her too.
