For Keeps

"This is where you will be staying at. We got new sheets and a new comforter than the last time you were here. No more fairy princesses. Oh and we painted the walls. No more pink."

My aunt Jenna tries to lighten up the mood as I walk into my old, well I guess now new, room. The last time I was here was when I was 11 and my grandparents were still alive. I believed of fairy princesses and noble prince's because that's what my mother wanted me to believe.

My father left my mother the split second he found out she was pregnant with me. She was just 18 years old and scared and needed a shoulder to lean on. My aunt Jenna was younger than my mom and was there for her like any sister would. My grandparents didn't like the fact that she was 'So naïve and fell for the low life scum from the bottom of the barrel.'.

I guess that's why she always told me stories of prince's. So I wouldn't have to face the harsh reality that my father wasn't one. He wasn't a prince. He was an abandoner, a fony, and I grew up despising the ground he walks on. But surprisingly, my mother didn't. She kept saying that he did it for us, so we can be happy. I think he was and is selfish.

Growing up, I was always told I was a blessing sent from God to my mother. But that was at the time when I didn't know where baby's came from. When I grew up to be about 14, she finally cracked and told me the truth.

He was apart of a rough and ruthless gang at the time where gangs were not common in London and she was completely smitten by him at first sight. The whole bad boy thing was her fancy and he played it to his advantage. They saw each other for about 2 months before she came up pregnant with me.

My mother thought he loved her, cared for her, wanted a life with her, but she was wrong. Word was spread that he moved to America with his motley crew and never came back. Got some girls there knocked up left and right and leaving. Doing the things he new best I guess.

When I was growing up here in London, gangs started to get even more popular by the year. My mom had had it though with even the idea of a gang. She couldn't even come out of the house because she didn't want to face the burdens of a gang, for that's how she remembered my father I figured out. For me, I thought it was everyone's life style here and accepting it was natural.

My mom and I moved North to Manchester to a town where gangs were banned and police force was top notch. My mom felt it was safer for me and for her to be in this environment. She didn't want me to be close to a gang ever in my lifetime. I think she didn't want me to end up like her, but I never dared to tell her or ask her about it.

I kept seeing these smiles on her face that made her eyes glow and I couldn't be the burden to burn that light in her eyes and spirit. Nothing should have to. I loved seeing my mother happy. It made me happy and alive.

The day after I turned 17, I saw the fire burn out of her. Cancer won. She battled it for 5 strait years. I had to watch as her body slowly died in that damn hospital bed by myself. I had no one there. My grandparents past away leaving, their fortune to Jenna and my mom, and Jenna was in the middle of college courses so she couldn't come.

I felt her pulse go blank in my hand as I told her it was going to be ok... that I was going to be ok. I guess I was trying to convince myself more than her though. I surely wasn't ok.

A week later and I am back here. The place I left so many years ago. The place my mother and I used to bash talk numerous times to where it came a habit.

I knew this was the last place my mother would of wanted me to go, but I had no other choice. I couldn't pay the bills since the money my mom inherited was put in the bank for me till I turn 18 and I never felt so alone in my life. My mother was always there for me, now she isn't. Jenna is my only family I have left.

Jenna lives in my grandparents house in the upper part of London where money wasn't a struggle to get valuable things. The house wasn't exactly big, but it surely wasn't small. The town over is where all the gangs were. The lowlifes who smoke and drink their lives away and get into fights for no reason.

"Thanks Jenna, for everything." I weakly smiled at her. She stood in the door way watching me check out my old room. She came up to me and engulfed me into a hug while combing through my hair with her fingers. I felt comfort. Real comfort. Not the tragic sympathy my neighbors had for me before I moved here. I didn't want their pity, I wanted something real. And this is a start.

"I know your mother wouldn't want this for you, hell I didn't, but I wouldn't have let you back here if I didn't know it was safer than it once was." She smiles weekly

"Dinner will be ready in about an hour. I need to go and prepare it so make yourself at home sweets." She left right after giving me a kiss on the forehead.

The room fell silent, just like my soul. The grey walls matched my mood, dull and lifeless.