Just My Luck

Prologue • In the Beginning

13th May, 1985.

There was a young girl once. She had been eighteen and had learned the harsh lessons of life too late. Now she was paying the price. She ran on that wet soggy night through the pouring streams of water, carrying the weight of the world in her heart, and the weight of her baby in a basket. She was running from Time, but she knew Time would find her, and when it did, she knew that it would not be in her favour. So she ran, her red sneakers squelching with every step, her arms shaking with the weight of her newborn, and her determination unwavering. For she was a marvellous young woman, with brains, beauty and long locks of dark brown hair. She loved the world, and everything in it, loved it enough to let her daughter go into it, because she knew she had no other choice.

She ran for the black dumpster on 16th Revoir Street - the one that held so many memories. It was the poorer side of the town, but the part of the town that held and showed the most love. She had always thought that it was because the people didn't have much that they gave everything into their love. This was where she wanted her daughter to be raised. Not some orphanage full of cruel people like she had been raised. She was lucky, but not lucky enough, and she did not want the same fate to befall her daughter.

She reached the dumpster which was coated in many layers of graffiti. Graffiti which had inspired her in her darkest moments, and had given some light into her life. She remembered everything that had happened at this dumpster, from meeting her lover, to telling him nine months ago that she didn't love him anymore. She had been a coward, she knew that. But she hadn't been selfish.

She could never tell him the truth and bear to see the look on his face. She couldn't let him raise their daughter and be reminded every single day of what he had lost. She knew what he would do if he found out that she had lied. How he would feel. She didn't want that. She hoped and prayed to God everyday that he would never find out. She had reminisced enough. It was time to let her infant go. Time to let her dark-haired angel change the world with her beautiful smile and let her make her mark on the world.

That night, the skies had opened, rain and hail had poured down, and thunder crackled above with the occasional flash of lightning. She felt like even the skies were pitying her and trying to share her misery. She knew that she had to say goodbye one day, and looking at her baby, her lucky charm and her responsibility, she did not want that day to be today. She didn't want this life anymore. She would have done anything if it had meant one more day with her daughter, one more day with her princess. But she knew that she was being selfish, and that she had to let her precious sweetheart go.

As rain bounced off the umbrella that covered the baby basket she was carrying and into her already soaked her hair, her legs gave way, and tumbled to the ground, protecting her baby in the process. She leaned against the dumpster, knowing that it was time. She stroked the soft black hair of her beautiful baby and she cried until you could no longer distinguish her tears from the rain. She held her baby one last time before whispering in her ear and placing the dark-haired angel back into the basket. She lowered the basket until it sat just in front of the black dumpster, away from harm and rain and slowly began walking away, turning back one last time to look at her daughter. Her sobs fading as the rain pounded harder.