A Time For Love (A Time For Love Series-Book 1)

Mean

"Mama can I get you something to eat?" Frankie asks her mother as she had just gotten back from running for dear life away from Stef. She had gotten off at Mariana's floor and knew the girls apartment door was unlocked considering the girls grandmother never seemed to lock it. Thankfully she didn't that day and Frankie had waited for the cop to leave which she thankfully had. 

Of course she felt bad running from her but she didn't want her to see her mother or where she lived or anything because Frankie knew that since her mother was on drugs  that she could be taken away. Much like she had in the past a few times.

"Huh? What you saying?" LaDonna asks as she gets up slowly from the couch rubbing her face as Frankie finds  some cereal on the counter and grabs the few bags of chips out of her bag that she had stolen from the store earlier.

"Do you want something to eat Mama?" She asks again as La Donna grabs her smokes and rubs her forehead again looking at her daughter and feeling how dry her mouth and throat are.

"Why aren't you in school Bird? Ain't it a school day?"

"I stayed home to help you Mama." She says pouring some cereal in a plastic cup for her mother and adding a bit of water to it. "Here, have some." A smile forms across the little girls face as La Donna takes it but hands it back to her daughter.

"I'm gonna get myself together Bird. I ain't gonna keep doing this, I'm not. I just need a bit more time you know."

"It's ok Mama, I know you are trying." LaDonna smiles at the girl as she leans back on the cracked cabinet lighting her smoke and puffing it as she scratches up her arm.  She wasn't a bad person, she wasn't but she had gotten caught up badly with drugs well before Frankie was born and she had just not been able to break free of it.  Especially now with this new drug her boyfriend Randy had been bringing home which was enough to make her sell anything she could get her hands on.

"Bird, you know you too big to be riding a bike right? I mean you real big right?" The woman asks as Bird munches on the bag of chips she had stolen looking her mother in the eyes as she starts to clean some of the dishes that were piled in the sink. "I mean I could use it to maybe get you a new shirt or something. Even a new basketball, right?"

LaDonna scratches her arms again eyeing the bike in the hallway for it had been a gift she had given Bird when she turned 9 and when she had been clean for about two months well before Randy had stayed and moved in with them. But that had been almost a year ago and things had changed for the worst.

"I mean, I could get you a better one baby. I just need a little money right now and I'm kinda running low."

"Um sure. I walk mostly anyway." Bird says sadly as LaDonna smiles widely pulling her daughter in for a hug as the little girl is oblivious to how badly she smells. But she does for the woman no longer showered or does much of anything to take care of herself only a handful of times. Of course it makes Bird sad for she knows how different her life is when her mother is clean and how much she loves being with her. But this version was the version she knew most and it never got any easier. It just didn't  as the two hear the front door open and in walks Randy who was over 6'5, violent and had a temper that put the fear of god in LaDonna.

She had experienced a good amount of his abuse on a sometimes daily basis and so had Frankie as she pulls away from her mother seeing the man head to the couch and take a seat. It was just last night that he had knocked Bird against the wall and dragged her out of bed feet first threatening to throw her out the window for her mouth and for dumping drugs in the toilet.

"If you not going to school you need to fucking do something little girl." Randy says lighting his smoke as the girl glares hard at him. "You can't be fucking sitting around here all fucking day looking at me."