Wasted Chances ( Working Title ~ Republishing)

Chapter 1

I had hinted to Mama that Mr. Robinson wasn't a good man but she didn't listen. She just didn't listen! Not until he left her and moved on to Ms. Pikens down the street a few weeks earlier. Boy, do I remember that Thursday afternoon. I was inside laying on the couch in the living room when she stormed downstairs.

"Are you happy now?" She asked in a sarcastic tone I've never heard from her before. "That was CJ on the phone." She continued. "A fucking 14-second call is all it took for him to end us!" At this point, the tears were starting to well in her beautifully expressive hazel eyes. "14 damn seconds! What are we, teenagers?" She asked through the increasing sniffles. 

I didn't know what to say so I had just continued to lay there and look at her. As the seconds rolled by, I saw the embarrassment she was feeling starting to show by the way she was shifting her eyes around the room just to avoid mine. There must have been about 3 minutes of silence before she decided to go back upstairs to her room instead of addressing the elephant she had brought with her.

I think it was most embarrassing for her because she knew I didn't have any ill-will towards Mr. Robinson. I had only asked if she was sure about dating him considering his reputation as a manwhore very subtly one night at dinner and that as it.

She hid in her room crying endlessly over a man she didn't even love for 3 weekends back to back and after the third weekend, I decided that enough was enough. I stepped out of my room where I was watching an awesome Wetube vlog and started down the hall towards her room. While walking down the hall, the photos hanging on the wall managed to steal my attention for a moment. More specifically the photos of Daddy. My God, he was handsome. Looking at him, it wasn't hard to see why Mama fell for him.

Moving away from the memories, I started down the hall once again. Coming to the end of the hallway, I stood in front of Mama's door and knocked twice and there was silence. I knocked again and still, there was silence. I was about to knock a third time but decided not to as I was too far beyond the point of pissed to care about pleasantries anymore. I grabbed the handle and swung the door open in a clear display of anger. But once inside, I had to pause. 

Mama was laying on the bed with a photo of Daddy silently crying her heart out. All protests, all arguments, and all the anger I had prepared to unleash went straight through the window as I stared at her broken figure lying on the bed. It was then that I realized that she wasn't crying over Mr. Robinson, but instead, she was crying because she missed Daddy. Boy, do I feel like an idiot.

Silently stepping into the room, I closed the door behind me as gently as possible so I wouldn't disturb her. I knew she knew I was there but she didn't say anything and chose to stay silent. I started towards the bed and started to make myself comfortable under the covers on the opposite side of her. I don't know how long we laid like that but, I did hear sniffles now and then, let me know she was still awake staring at the picture. 

Sniff. Sniff. 

Her sadness started to seep itself into me and with it came the promise of tears I dared not shed. I wouldn't cry, I kept telling myself. You can't cry, I pleaded with myself. It just wouldn't be fair to her right now I reminded myself. So I continued to lay there in silence. 

Sniff. Sniff.

I knew a couple of hours had passed because the sunlight was getting low outside the windows and had turned into that beautiful shade of orange that I loved so dearly. Shifting my attention from the setting sun and back to Mama, I got up on my left elbow and reached over her to grasp the photo and gently took it from her hands. I put it on the night table to my right then turned back to Mama and enveloped her in my arms. I held her like that for a few moments until I felt the tension seep from her body and her breathing even out signifying that she has fallen asleep. After a few more minutes, I slowly detached myself from her, got out of the bed, and made my way out of the room.

Since the afternoon was gone, I decided to just get a quick shower and spend the rest of the night reading. After checking to ensure that the house was properly secure and all the alarms were set, I made my way back upstairs to my room, stripped, and made my way to my bathroom for the shower I promised myself. Thank God Mama decided to turn the small closet space beside my room into a personal bathroom for me. It wasn't huge, but it was mine and I loved it.

After my shower, I dressed and went to select one of the new books from my never-ending collection of new books to read and settled myself into my special little reading corner, a bean bag chair on a fluffy purple carpet in the corner if my room. 

Checking the time on my phone, I saw that it was 8:06 PM. "OK, so I'll just read until 10 and then go to bed,"  I mumbled out loud. Settling into the book, I got lost in a sacred world only a few dared to venture any more and the world slipped away.

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Knock, knock.

The noise took me out of my fantasy world and back to reality. I lifted my head and looked towards my door to find Mama's head poking in. 

"You not going to sleep?" She asked.

"Soon," I responded. "At 10."

She looked at me very confused and started to laugh.

"Where do you go when you read honey? It's 11:57, which is way past your bedtime" She said over her giggles.

"Really!" I exclaimed as my eyebrows shot up. I quickly searched for my phone, locating it at my feet, grabbed it, and pressed the power button. Sure enough, she was telling the truth. I took a bookmarker up from the pile of them I had beside the chair and marked where I had gotten in the book and set it down on the carpet for another day. "Sorry, I'm going now," I said as I made my way over to my bed.

"OK honey, sleep well." She said in the soothing voice she had been using since I was a baby. She turned her back to leave but I had to ask.

"How do you feel?" I whispered across the room.

She paused and whispered back to me.

"Better."  And then she left.