18 Years of Bonnie & Clyde

[2] Southside Roots

"He wasn't the one. Maybe you are." Charles said meaningful, giving his father a wink. The seed was planted, but it was up to them if they would let it grow.

FP smiled slightly, his mind wandering back to how it all began between two Southside teens who didn't know what was ahead of them.

19 years back in time...

FP Jones was sitting on the small wooden stairs that led up to his trailer. He was lucky it didn't break every single time he sat foot on there, as it was rotten through and through. However, life on the Southside meant that money was always tight, making that bad stair the least of their problems.

He deeply inhaled the smoke of the cigarette that he had just lit, before shoving his hands in the pocket of his black leather jacket. Sometimes silence, fresh air and a smoke could be everything he needed. For a little while, he looked at people who passed by. It were either people from the trailer park that were on their way to work or had just gotten home.

But then a familiar girl passed by, her boots crunching the gravel under her feet. It was one of his best friends, Alice Smith. She lived in a few trailers ahead of him and they had known each other ever since they were toddlers.

That the two little kids were drawn to each other wasn't a surprise. When they were six, they had to learn each other how to ride their bikes because their parents simply didn't care to teach them. And when they were allowed to walk to school by themselves at a very young age, they'd rather chose to walk together to feel a little safer. All those things were practical. They naturally reached out to one another because there simply wasn't anyone else around.

But then in their early teen years, something changed their friendship for good. A fourteen year old Alice had punched a Northside boy in his face as payback for insulting FP for having a second hand clothes. Ever since then, the two had an unspoken pact to always stand up for one another. It was the foundation of their friendship. No practically played any role in Alice's motive to stand up for each other. She just simply cared.

Throughout their teen years there had been times where they didn't see each other much, but as soon as the other knocked on each other's door, they were there for each other without a second thought. It had always been like that. They looked out for one another, even on times where they lived in their own little bubbles.

Something was different about her today, which he noticed when she passed his trailer.

"Al! You finally got your jacket?" He smoothly jumped from the stairs to walk her way as his voice made her stop in her tracks. She turned on her heel to see who had called after her.

Alice smirked when she saw that it was FP. She had to admit, she was indeed proud of her new jacket. For a few months now she had tried to become a Serpent. Which usually, wasn't a hard thing to do when you followed the initiation rules. However, Alice had been arguing all this time with the Serpent King, because she refused to strip in front of a bunch of old men. Still, she managed to finally get her jacket, something she would definitely show off.

"I thought you didn't want to do the dance?" He asked her, his eye brow confused. The last thing he knew was that she had confronted his Dad about wanting to join the gang, but she hadn't been willing to follow tradition.

FP remembered when she had told him about her plans to join, something that immediately created doubt from his side. As song of the King, he didn't really have much of a choice but to join, but he didn't want her to go through with something that she wasn't comfortable with. The thought of her doing the Serpent Dance in front of all these men was making his stomach turn and if she had really done it, he wondered why she hadn't asked him to come for support.