𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 | 𝐏𝐑𝐍 ❦

𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞

. PRINCE .

january 15th, 1984
minneapolis, minnesota

°:. *₊ ° . ° .•

A gloomy, snowy day is what brought me over to the one place I avoided most. I had become too lost in thought after the conversation I had with Roxanne a few nights ago and it pained me that the words skipped in my head like a broken record. It was the first time I had been honest with someone about my feelings and truthfully, it frightened me. The way her eyes glowed in delight upon hearing me speak my truth gave me some sort of validation but with that, came the crippling openness I had strived so hard to steer clear from.

Before I could knock on the fiberglass door, it slowly trailed open. The sound of jazz music filled my ears and the sweet smell of freshly boiled tea hit my nostrils.

"Are you just gonna stand there?"

My mother's tone was dismissive as I expected it to be. It always was.

I took small steps as I entered her home. The family home was just as I remembered it to be; cold and lifeless. The only things that seemed to bring some sort of dynamism were the many framed photos of our family, which I was surprised she had even kept up. I took a seat on a nearby sofa and stared at my mother until she had done the same, but directly across from me. I broke eye contact with her the moment she took notice of my staring and licked my bottom lip, hoping to find words to say to her.

"Happy holidays," I uttered cheaply.

"Tch, you're somethin' else," she satirically chuckled before grabbing ahold of a news article and holding it upward, covering her upper body. "Happy holidays."

"Mom, I'm tryin'—"

"Well try harder," she snarled distastefully. "You shouldn't be around here anyway. Your brother could come back at any moment—"

"He's not my brother," I emphasized before bawling both of my fists at the thought of my stepfather. "Look, I don't have much to say. I don't even know why the hell I'm here. I just—I guess I just wanted to stop by and see how you were doin'."

"How I'm doin'? Prince, if you genuinely cared about how I was doin', you'd get along with Omarr—"

"Momma, why can't you understand that some people just aren't meant to get along? The guy has been a pain in my rump for the past decade and I can't seem to catch a break. Tch, I don't even live here anymore and somehow, I'm always caught up in some mess with that kid—"

"Well your sister Tyka doesn't have any issues with him so I'm startin' to think it's you causin' unnecessary drama," my mother exhaled.

"Tyka is also the type to bite her tongue and let things fly over her head because she'd rather 'keep the peace'."

"And maybe you should do the same," my mother suggested before flipping a page out of the news article. "It would do you some good if you'd just stop fightin' everyone and everything."

"There's a difference between fightin' and standin' up for yourself."

There was a lengthy moment of silence, leaving the jazz music to play in replacement of our bickering. The weeping shrieks of a tea kettle nearly made me jump as I watched my mother shoot from the comfort of her seat and out of the living room. I could hear inaudible words coming from the kitchen area before she came back with two mugs which had steam rising from both of them.