Never Knew I Needed

Chapter 1- Freedom

Andréas

Eighteen Months Later

Freedom. 

After spending one excruciating year in juvenile detention center and six, long months at a boot camp for adolescents with mental and behavioral health issues, I am free.

 I am currently riding in the car with my Aunt Cecelia, my father's older sister, who had picked me up from the boot camp grounds about twenty minutes ago. She had been so happy to see me when she pulled up into the parking lot and helped me load my duffel bags into the backseat. She told me how amazing I looked and how much she missed me, then gave me a tight hug that made my whole body tense up. I hadn't been touched in such a long time that I didn't know whether to embrace her or push her away. But it was Aunt Cecelia and I knew she was genuine, so I let her hold me while I stood there awkwardly and wrapped one of my long arms around her. That's the unfortunate thing about my family; we've always been huggers. We were headed to Sacramento, California, my new home. During one of her visits to me in juvie, Cecelia informed me that after my arrest her and my Uncle Rico decided it would be best to move their family out of Compton, California for a fresh start. They even brought my dad along with them. According to Cecelia, dad had become really down and depressed after I was taken away, which I wouldn't have known because I hadn't heard from him following me being locked up. He moved in with Aunt Cecelia for a year before finding a stable job and getting his own apartment just fifteen minutes away from them. Now, her and I were on our way to his home- my home- so that I can be reunited with my dad. While I have to admit I have oddly missed Abell, I was dreading this moment.

My father and I didn't have the ideal father-son relationship. We had this love-hate thing that went on between us, especially during my teenage years. Yet, my father was the only present parent I had. And he never let me forget that, either. Back before everything happened, he prided himself over the fact that he was the only parent of mine who actually stayed around and took care of me, which I always acknowledged and appreciated him for. But the one time I actually needed him in my life, he abandoned me. I guess I could understand why, though. I let him down. Now, I am supposed to come back like nothing happened and everything was normal when it wasn't. That's what scared me the most.

As for my lovely mother, Maria, she hadn't wanted or cared for me since the time I was born. Surely enough I didn't receive any form of communication from her while I was locked up and most likely wouldn't ever again. That woman was the most selfish, heartless, and spiteful person I had ever met in my life and the very reason that I was in the situation I was in. Well...not exactly. It just made me feel better to convince myself that she and her snooty-ass husband were to blame. She was cruel to me during the five minutes of interaction I had with her a year and a half ago, and I couldn't forgive her for that. But it was me who acted upon my feelings and it cost me everything. 

Last year, on the day of my sixteenth birthday, I visited Maria's house because I thought that maybe, just maybe, she was ready to have a relationship with me. My dad warned me, saying I was making a mistake by going. Yet, I was determined to go and no one could change my mind. For support, I convinced Ortiz to go to her house with me. Later that day, him and I caught a Metro from Compton to her mansion in Pasadena, California. When we arrived, we were met with a woman I hardly recognized. Granted, I only knew my mother from old pictures stored away in my father's closet that I snuck from him when I was ten, but physically, she had changed drastically. A once petite, natural dark brown, curly-haired twenty-two year old tomboy was now an intimidating, reserved, honey blond, straight-haired nearly forty year old millionaire's wife. When I showed up, she was in an all black satin gown that would have been touching the floor had she not had on red-bottom stilettos with a matching red Prada clutch. Our first exchange consisted of me uttering the words "Hi mom" and her reply being "Andréas, what are you doing here?".