Elliott Miller is your average 23 year-old, only with a lost father and a resentful mother. When he goes back to his hometown to make amends, he inadvertently gets dragged into the activities of an illicit criminal group.
Enter Marcel Nixon, 25, wh...
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I was walking down the familiar streets while taking in my surroundings, constantly being slapped with nostalgia and childhood recollections. It had been over five years since I was here last but the feeling of the uneven asphalt and the nip of the cold winter air was something that I could never forget. It would have been a pleasant reminiscence had I not been so agitated about my forthcoming encounter. I wasn't here for nostalgia.
Growing up, I had been my mother's pride, her joy, her miracle. But that all ended the day my father disappeared. No warning, no note. Just absence. And with it, her tolerance towards me chipped away, vanishing entirely in a matter of months.
It didn't help that I was a carbon copy of him, standing as a living, breathing reminder of her lost love.
By the time I reached my junior year of high school, she had drowned herself in her work and we barely saw each other anymore. Even during our sparse encounters, she would shoot me looks of pure disgust and mumble incoherent nothings under her breath before looking away.
Why I decided to show up, five years after I had officially moved out was beyond me. But here I was, my car parked at the cul-de-sac right opposite my childhood home. I nervously made my way up to the porch, taking slow and deliberate steps. I was quite sure my mother was at home since her car was parked outside and lights glowed from every window.
I climbed the porch slowly, careful to tread lightly, as if I could somehow stall the inevitable.
I lifted my arm up and hesitantly pressed the doorbell, letting its shrill frequencies consume the silence around me.
The moment the door opened and I looked down, I knew this had been a bad idea.
