Fated to the Mafia

Chapter 1:

Note: Please comment if there are any grammatical errors.

Christmas Day, 2020

It has been almost three years since I vanished. Three years since I left my family, my friends, and my life behind. It has been a challenge, but it was necessary; necessary to stay sane, and for my daughter's well-being and safety. I should not have had to run, but no one would have helped me, not even my own family.

The only thing I haven't had to change is my daughter's first name, Joy. I can't drag her into my old life, my old mistakes. That wouldn't be fair to her, and she doesn't need to know about my past; at least not yet.

I close my laptop and take a deep breath. Dr. Turner told me at our latest session that it might be beneficial for me to write down what happened to me. I used to not listen to my previous therapists' advice, but this one gets me. She seems to know exactly what to say to get me out of the catatonic state my body goes into when I try to talk about what happened. I have no idea how she does it.

Maybe she's gone through some similar trauma?

Maybe she knows someone from my past?

No, no that doesn't make sense. I moved all the way across the country to escape them. I'm just thinking too hard about this, I mean, she is the best-rated psychologist in the city.

I carefully place my laptop back on the side table, lift up my favorite weighted blanket and push myself off of the small loveseat. As I walk towards my daughter's room behind the bathroom door, I begin to smile.

Joy is sound asleep in her still-new bed, tired from a long day of cooking fake meals for me in her new kitchen play set I got her for Christmas. She finally outgrew her safety crib shortly before she turned three this past summer, and it was time for an upgrade. Since she's old enough to express her likes and dislikes, I decided that I would let her pick out her own bedsheets and top cover as an early birthday present. She had chosen a dark blue sheet set with space rockets on it and was immediately enamored by it. In fact, she was so fixated on the sheets that she was confused when I asked what she wanted for the big blanket. She didn't understand that she needed a big top cover to go over the thin sheets, and she only wanted her "pretty rockets". I ended up strapping her into one of those fun-shaped carts with her sheets in her arms and carried on shopping, eventually coming across an oversized, fluffy blanket that I knew she would like.

I quietly back out of her room and close her door, hoping I didn't wake her up. She's typically a deep sleeper, but I think she became that way as a result of having only a thin wall separating her from the loud washer and dryer her whole life. I close the other door to the bathroom that leads to the living room, locking myself in while I get ready for bed; a habit I acquired when I escaped to make myself feel more secure.

My apartment is small, but it's exactly as big as I need it to be, thankfully packed with many pre-furnished appliances. As you enter the apartment complex from the South entrance, my apartment is the first door on the left.

All the apartments in this complex are the same layout, only they're mirroring each other. As you enter my front door, you see a small kitchen space with an annoyingly clunky sliding door about ten feet in front of you. To the right sits the washer and dryer with the refrigerator buzzing across from them in the left corner of the room. To the left of the sliding door is a built-in microwave with a stovetop oven underneath. The sink is between the stove and the refrigerator with a large window facing the street.

Going through the sliding door, you enter the living room. This room is my bedroom since I've dedicated the actual bedroom in the apartment to my daughter. Her room is the furthest room from the front door, since you must go through each room to get to it.