Forever His Princess

-one-

AMARI ROUSSEAU

I woke up from my nap, taking a second to stretch out my body, pushing the tiredness from it. There were noises coming from around the house so I decided to check on my baby brother, Antoine, who was 2 years old.

"Hey, baby." I whispered, tickling his palm, making him giggle. "I thought you would be sleeping. Shall we go and see Maman (mum)? Yes? Come on." I said with a smile on my face as I reached down to pick him up, standing him up on his feet before taking his hand.

We slowly walked hand in hand, going down the stairs, taking our time so we wouldn't fall.

We made it to the living room seeing it was completely empty, the furniture and the tv were gone. "Where's the tv?"

"I don't know, Ant. Maman?" I called out, going into the kitchen to see if I could find her. I looked around to see all the things in the kitchen were gone too, there was only the food left in the fridge and pantry. "Maman?" I called out again, starting to get a little more worried.

I heard a door slam shut and ran outside to see a huge truck driving away from the front of our house. I walked further down the front lawn to see Maman loading her car with suitcases.

"Maman, what's happening? The house is empty." She didn't say anything but instead carried on trying to put the suitcases in her car, a lot quicker now. "Where are we going?"

"We are not going anywhere." She said spitefully.

"You can't just leave with all our things. What about Papa, does he know?"

"He'll find out when he gets back from work." She huffed as she tried forcing a suitcase into the backseat.

"Please don't leave us, take us with you." I said, tears stacking in my eyes as I realised she wasn't planning on leaving with us.

"No."

"Maman, please." I begged, going to hold her arm but she shook me off her, going to grab the last couple of bags from the doorstep. "Why can't you take us with you?"

Antoine started crying, his face turning slightly red as I picked him up, patting his back, trying to keep him quiet.

"Maman!" I yelled when she didn't respond. "Fine, please, just take Antoine with you, you can't let him grow up without his mother."

"You can take care of him."

"I'm 12, Maman, I have school."

"Elliott will help you." She said, referring to Papa. "You're not my problem anymore." Maman shook her head and I felt my heart shatter into a million pieces.

What?

"Don't do this, please." I begged when I realised she had finished packing everything into the car. I kept begging her to not leave without us, saying she couldn't leave Papa like that either.

She's really leaving us, just like that?

I could barely breathe between sobs as I watched her sit in the front seat and start the engine. I cried out her name one last time but she didn't even look back but instead she drove off.

I kept patting Antoine's back as he continued to cry in my arms and a sob left my lips. "Please, don't cry. I'm sorry, Antoine. It's ok." I whispered, kissing his forehead before walking back inside, closing the front door as I did so.