Bulletproof // h.s

05

harry

i took the chits from avaline's hands after she was done reading them. she went through many facial expressions and gasped a couple of times while reading. i had closely studied and examined her face while she read the story to herself and i saw her small lips saying the words below a whisper.

she didn't show much emotion on her face when she looked up except for giving me a small smile and an encouraging nod telling me that it was okay to read it. so i opened up the first colorful chit and read the introduction, smiling through my tears at how well she knew me to know that i would pick the colored first and how much faith she had in me that i would make the right choice. 

chit two - this is the beginning of the story. your father and i, we had met in a bar. a highschool party when he was a senior and i was a junior. the normal story, i know. there was the usual alcohol and drugs, but i had promised myself i wouldn't take them. as you know, we are from a very christian family that had very strong beliefs and even if they weren't my beliefs, i did not want to disappoint our family. so then, of course, your father's friends got me drunk and then your father and i did the deed. 

chit three - i didn't even know what had happened because after waking up the next day, i had forgotten since i had woken up in my own home. i knew i had gotten drunk but i had enough trust in your father that he would not have done that to me while i was drunk. so i was wrong. but after two months, i found out i was pregnant and all the pieces immediately fell together. i was far too scared to tell my parents so i told my aunt, her being more modern than the rest of the family. she did not judge me, but she couldn't keep the secret either.

chit four - soon, the whole family knew as news got around pretty quickly in our family. i was starting to grow a belly and my parents would only talk to me when i needed something for the baby or i needed money. i felt like a burden to them. so after the baby was born, which is you, and the father left, i went away from home even though i had no idea how i would support the both of us. 

i choked on my tears as i read about all the pain my mother went through. i felt extreme sadness for not being able to see this story through my mother's lies. she always told me that she was happily married when she had me and that my father died when i was very young in an accident at the factory where my father worked. i thought it was typical, and believed her. 

chit five - after that, i moved to new york. away from our home in the country in south carolina. i wanted to get away from those memories and i did. for a couple of years, you and i, lived a cozy, undisturbed life in new york. i would go to work at a local grocery store in the mornings when you went to preschool and then i would work from home for a small company when you came back. our life was nothing too lavish but it was enough for me. 

chit six - i spent about four and a half years doing that. but you know what they say, good things never last too long. you were about five and a half, going to kindergarten in new york's cold weather. one day, while i was working from home and you were at school, i got a phone call from my mother. i went crazy with joy. did she finally accept me for who i was and my deeds?

chit seven - of course not. i picked up the phone and i could already hear her screaming in the background to my father. i mumbled hello, my smile faltering. she started yelling at me about how your father, whose name was ethan sarkozy, had called them and threatened to tell the world some secret. she was demanding for me to tell her what it was, what i had done again. i was shocked and though i knew what it was, i didn't tell my mum. i didn't want her to know. she didn't know till her last breath but i do want you to know harry. because your life depends on it. 

my eyes were as wide as the grand canyon that i had never visited before. this sounded less like my mother's life story and more like an intricate suspense film's plot. i took a deep breath as i put the seventh chit back in the box and reached for the eighth chit. 

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suspenseeee oooh :)