Savage

Chapter 11: Retail Therapy

Ronnie was a fairly tall woman, 5 ft. 9 inches to be exact. A 27-year-old with Afro-Indian features. She has been my best friend since the day my mother and I moved to Canada to be closer to my father's side of the family, who insisted that we migrate from Jamaica for a better life. My father was not as kind as his family had been to us. I mean I haven't even seen him for the past 22 years. He only sends money to me and Soraya's accounts every Christmas from a British account. I only know this because of the transaction details. I guess he thinks he was doing me, Soraya, and my mother a favour by paying us off for his freedom from fatherhood. In the end, I hated the fucker and despised anyone who breathed his name in my presence. Mommy made sure that Soraya went to therapy when we fully assimilated into our new environment. Soraya and her made amends for his absence. I, on the other, was trying to fix my daddy issues in other ways. Soraya, Mommy, and Ronnie, all told me that I was being stubborn. They said seeing a professional would help my healing journey. I went once and didn't like the asshole. He only stared at my breasts for the entire hour when speaking to me. Looking back on the experience, I saw that it was my fault for booking an appointment so hastily with a random therapist. I have yet to book an actual appointment with Soraya or Ronnie's doctor. I'm working up to it. I need a little more time.

The first time I saw Ronnie was at the park with her dad, he was dark-skinned and handsome, towering over Mommy and me, as we approached the swings. His British accent captivated me as he introduced himself and Ronnie to us. Ronnie and I exchanged glances and it seemed at first that she was afraid of me with her big charcoal, doe eyes, which gave anyone the impression that she was a shy girl – we had something in common from the start–full eyes. Those black-as-coal eyes held a shade of darkness that would scare anybody. I shook a little getting lost in their depths. Mommy and her dad left us to bond while they became acquainted with each other over curried chicken. Mr. Beauchamp boasts about his wife's and Jamaican mother's recipes. I heard him tell the story a million times about being indecisive about which was his favourite.

Meanwhile, on the playground, I had decided that I loved the swing set too much to have to share it, so I proceeded to push every other child who dared to play on my swing off. By that time, Ronnie had moved from the swings and was playing on the slides. This particular routine became a thing every time Mom accompanied me to the park until it spilled over into the school that I started attending. I was the swing-set bully at school. Until one day when I was pushing everyone off Ronnie decided that she would enjoy my swings in peace. I was head-strung and she was not moving. I kicked her in the back which had Ronnie flying head-first into the sand pit. She was mad and wasn't moved until I felt a stinging sensation in my eyes that wouldn't let up. Tiny sand grains danced across my vision. She threw sand in my eyes! I still couldn't believe it. I screamed and Ronnie was crying, this alerted a teacher who pulled us off each other by our ears and had us placed in detention for a week. During this time, we agreed on the case of the swings. By the time detention was over, no other child could get on the swings if I couldn't. Ronnie agreed to man the sandbox instead, and we would exchange the sandbox and swings each week. We bonded over this and became great friends. As we got older, our bond deepened because our families were close due to our culture.

Here we are now cuddled up, in bed, crying, watching The Notebook for the millionth time. Ronnie was the movie fanatic more than I was and I enjoyed the majority of the movies she picked out.

"If Mr. Heinrich turned out to be like Noah I'd be so shocked."

"Roman is nothing like Noah. He's too hard and Noah is in tune with his emotions."

"That's deep, S. In other words, not an asshole."

"Yup."

"I'm sorry he hurt you like that. He seemed so into you and he wasn't even trying to hide it in front of us. You know?"