Saving Cleo

Chapter One

5 years later...

“Momma, get up! It’s time for school momma!”

A heavy bundle fell on top of the bed and Cleo let at a grunt. She wrapped her hands around the bundle and started laughing as Max tried to get away. Hearing Max laugh made Cleo’s heart fill up with so much love it felt like it was going to burst from her chest.

“Stop mom I can’t breathe!” Max was laughing so hard. He tried to get away from his mom but in doing so he fell off the bed.

“Max are you okay?”

Max was still laughing and got up from the floor and gave a big grin to his mom.

“I’m okay. You need to get up though and feed me!”

“I guess I should. Sorry I must have forgotten to set my alarm. Go into the kitchen and I will be there shortly.”

As Max ran off towards the kitchen Cleo got up and grabbed her robe before following him.

She loved mornings like this. It hurt to think that Max was now four nearly turning five in a few short months. He wasn’t going to be her little man anymore and that scared her. He was her rock and her reason to keep going. If she didn’t have Max she would have wasted away a long time ago.
No in fact she would be dead. She knew that if she didn’t get pregnant with Max then she would never have left the clutches of that evil man that was her husband and would have either been killed by him or she would of have killed herself.

Shaking away the dark thought that was about to enter her mind she went to the fridge and got all the ingredients to make Maxes breakfast.

After dropping of Max at the school she left to go to her happy place.

Cleo owned a little store in the town they now live in. It was her greatest achievement. It was called Cleopatra and in this little store Cleo made shoes.

She was a very good designer and everyone in town loved her shoes. Cleo always wanted to own her own shoe store, to make all her designs come to life, but she never could, but now it was possible and she had done it.

After unlocking the door and turning on the lights she went out back and took of her jacket. With a bend of her head she swept up her long dark brown hair and tied it up in to a ponytail. Cleo looked at the clock hanging up on the wall and saw that it read 9:30. She knew that her best friend Sophia was going to arrive anytime between now and 11 so she got the surprise she had for her from under the work desk and wrapped the shoe box with a cute pink bow.

Coming out to the front of the store she flipped the close sign to open and began her day.

As it was a quiet town her store was not as busy but after being open for a year Sophia suggested doing online orders. Cleo wasn’t so sure about this since she didn’t want her name anywhere online to make it easier for her husband to find her. Obviously no one from the town, not even Sophia knew who she was. She had changed her last name from Williams to Thomas but she couldn’t dare change her first name.

After some persuasion on Sophia’s side Cleo agreed to make an online store profile. She never would have thought that she would have so many people wanting to order her shoes. After just one month of spreading the word to other towns her website was a hit. After a while Cleo knew that with this many orders that she was doing she had to hire extra staff for the store. Luckily for Cleo, Sophia’s younger Sister Mary just finished school and was desperate for a job. Even luckier Mary went to school for designing so she even helps making the shoes. She wasn’t due to come in until this afternoon. They decided since Cleo has to pick up Max after school at three, Mary would do the closing shift and a day on the weekend.