BLAZE

02.

02.

As Chanel and Nikki pulled into the driveway of Chanel's mother's house, they were both shocked to see the "For Sale" sign planted prominently on the lawn.

"Umm Chanel, why is your mother's house up for sale?" Nikki asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

Chanel could only shrug in response, just as bewildered by this unexpected development.

"I have no idea," she replied, parking the car and stepping out onto the familiar pavement.

Nikki's eyes narrowed as she studied Chanel's face, sensing there was more to the story. "You mean to tell me that she didn't tell you she was selling the house?" Nikki pressed.

Chanel shook her head solemnly. "We haven't talked in weeks," she admitted, the strain in her voice hinting at the complicated nature of her relationship with her mother.

Nikki let out a heavy sigh, shaking her head in disbelief. "I don't understand y'all's relationship," she said, her tone laced with a mix of confusion and concern.

It was a sentiment Chanel could certainly relate to, as her own bond with her mother had grown increasingly strained and perplexing over the years.

Their relationship had once been a close, almost best-friend-like dynamic had slowly unraveled, torn apart by a dark secret that had come to define their lives.

That secret, a small packet of white powder, had triggered a cascading series of events that would ultimately shatter the foundation of their family.

It was a substance so innocuous yet so powerful, capable of tearing apart even the most unbreakable of bonds.

For Chanel, that packet of powder had become the root cause of her mother's indifference, the reason she no longer felt the warmth of a mother's love.

In the end, it would be the very thing that ensured she would never see her mother again.

Before the arrival of that insidious substance, Chanel and her mother had been inseparable.

They were more akin to best friends than a traditional mother-daughter duo, a dynamic forged by the unusual circumstances of Chanel's birth.

Her mother had given birth to her just six months after graduating from high school, a testament to the challenges she had faced at such a young age.

Chanel's father, a man her mother had never spoken of in any detail, was a mere footnote in her life story.

"He wasn't a very nice man," her mother had once explained, advising Chanel that it was best she never knew him.

As Chanel had grown older and became a little more daring, she pressed her mother for more information, curious to understand the reasoning behind her decision to be with such a man.

Her mother's response had been simple yet poignant: "I was young and dumb."

Chanel's early years had been spent in the semi-gritty neighborhoods of Miami, Florida, where she and her mother had shared a small, aging two-story home with her grandmother.

Before Chanel started school, her grandmother had been her primary caretaker, watching over her while her mother worked.

Chanel could still vividly recall her grandmother sitting on the couch, knitting her a hat as she lost herself in the melodramatic twists and turns of her favorite soap opera, "The Young and the Restless."

Her mother had been particularly wary of Chanel's interactions with the opposite sex, a byproduct of her own experience with an unplanned pregnancy at a young age.

She had jokingly insisted that Chanel was not allowed to date until she had graduated from college, and would frequently eye Chanel's male classmates with suspicion, determined to ensure none of them harbored any romantic interest in her daughter.

What her mother didn't know, however, was that Chanel's affections lay solely with fictional characters, the only boys she had ever truly been interested in.

But that all changed when Chanel's grandmother passed away, an event that took a profound toll on her mother's mental and emotional well-being.

The first week after the funeral had been the most difficult, as Chanel witnessed her mother's mood swings careening from one extreme to the other.

One moment, she would be yelling at Chanel for the most trivial of offenses, and the next, she would be begging her daughter to hold her as she wept uncontrollably.

After the funeral, however, the mood swings ceased, and Chanel's mother simply became... lifeless.

At just 13 years old, Chanel was ill-equipped to handle the profound shift in her mother's behavior.

She stopped going to work, barely leaving her bed, and Chanel was forced to take on the responsibility of ensuring her mother ate and cared for herself.

It was against this backdrop of sorrow and despair that the fateful packet of white powder had made its way into their lives, shattering the fragile bond between mother and daughter.

Chanel walked into the home to find her mother packing up boxes, preparing to sell the house.

"Mom!" she had called out, her voice tinged with a mix of confusion and concern. "Chanel!" her mother had replied, before Nikki had chimed in, "And Nikki!"

As they gathered in the kitchen, Chanel's mother revealed her plans to move, a decision she had apparently made without even informing her own daughter.

Chanel's protests were met with a dismissive attitude, her mother asserting her right to do as she pleased, as a grown woman.

"But I'm YOUR daughter," Chanel had argued, only to be met with a flippant response about the physical reminders of her birth.

It was then that the true nature of their relationship came into sharp focus. Chanel's mother confessed that she had never truly wanted her, that she had been forced to grow up and be a mother.

The revelation was like a knife to Chanel's heart, as she realized that the woman who had once been her closest confidante now viewed her as nothing more than an unwanted burden.

Chanel's desperate plea for an explanation, for any glimmer of maternal love, was met with a cold, dismissive response – a stark reminder that the mother she had once known was now lost to her, consumed by a darkness that threatened to consume them both.

As Chanel and Nikki walked out of the house, Nikki revealed that she had found a folder containing Chanel's birth certificate and two mysterious letters.

"We're going to find your dad, Chanel," Nikki declared, her voice laced with determination.

For Chanel, this unexpected discovery represented a glimmer of hope, a chance to uncover the truth about her past and perhaps, just perhaps, find the answers that her mother had so stubbornly withheld.

With Nikki by her side, Chanel knew that she was about to embark on a journey that would test the limits of her resilience, but one that might ultimately lead her to the missing pieces of her fractured family.