Celeste Maiyan Montoyo was from a small town. Moving away from a unspoken past. 12 years later shes moving back with her mama and little brother and she doesn't remember anything, the bad memories washing away the good and happy ones. Despite this s...
She hurts and she cries, but you can't see the sadness in her eyes, because she just smiles.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Shh!"Mama pleads with a shaky finger against her quivering lips hoping for me to understand.
She smiles but it doesn't look like the carefree smile she usually gives me. The smile looks like she's pretending, pretending like when me and my brother Cade pretended to eat our broccoli when we didnt like it.
"Hey baby, we're gonna play a game alright? I'm gonna need you to be very quiet. Do you think you could do that for me and papa?" she whispered.
Beside me Caden nods, seeming to understand. Somethings wrong and Mama says If I don't feel alright I should talk about it.
I'm about to speak up but then remembered about the game. Caden always wins every game we play and I don't want to lose. Not this time.
Papa lifts me up and holds onto me extra tight, going up the stairs in a rush passing by my paintbrushes on the kitchen table. I wanted to finish my painting. I was painting a mickey mouse picture so Papa could put it up with the rest of my drawings in his office.
He's almost running, but Papa always says no running in the house. Silly Papa isn't even following his own rules.
I want to tell him about the rules but Papa sensed I wanted to speak so he put a hand over my mouth and smiles down at me. His smile isn't happy either like mama. His eyes are angry. So angry. I want to apologize but I guess I can't do that either so I just give a small smile.
I look ahead and I see Caden opening our room door. My side of the room has a bunch of colouring books while Caden has a pile of video games. I don't want to brag but I'm pretty good at playing video games. I start to smile at my thoughts but frown when I see tears in mama's eyes. I don't want mama to cry so I get down from papas embrace and hug her leg. I wish I didn't eat the last of the chocolate that our neighbour gave me for my 6th birthday last Saturday. If I had it I would've given it to mama because she has a sweet tooth just like me.
"Jay, what do we do?" Mama whispers to Papa. I know they dont want me to hear but I have pretty good listening ears, my teacher even said I was a good student and that I'm pretty good at paying attention. On the day she said that my teacher gave me 10 flower stickers.
Caden went up to Papa and whispered in his ear. I wondered why I couldn't speak? Maybe because Caden was 5 years older than me?
Whatever Caden said made Papa search his pockets frantically. With no luck he sighed and whispered. "My walkie is downstairs. I can't call the precinct."
"What are we going to do?" Mama says.
She bends down to my height and hugs me close. I love Mamas hugs. They make me feel warm and safe. This hug is the same as her smile though. Mamas scared. She's shaking and she's scared. Who's in our house that's making mama scared?
