Never Go Home

Chapter 1

"How long will you be gone?"

"Only 3 days. I think my mom will try to get me to stay longer." I sighed after closing my suitcase and zipping it shut.

"She misses her baby girl. You should visit her more often. I wish i was able to go with you this time". I looked over at Erik, my long time boyfriend of 5 years.

I know what you're thinking. 5 years and no ring? That's what i thought, but we're happy with our relationship. After all he's a successful lawyer for the top law firm. While i'm an entrepreneur owning several successful businesses. We have two beautiful children, Alexander, who is 3, and Jacqueline, who will be two years old in a few months. Compared to my life while growing up, i'm doing pretty good for myself. Which is why i'm dreading this trip home. I will never forget where i came from and i will forever be grateful, but that place was hell.

Renshaw, Pennsylvania.

The place where if you don't leave straight out of high school, you'll never leave. The city is filled with either crackheads or wanna be drug dealers. Don't get me started on the on wanna be rappers that still live their parents' basements. The place is the definition of depression and i always dread going back. So many not so fond memories, memories that I wish to never relive. I just wish i could get my mom to relocate here. She could spend time with her grandchildren and have a life again.

She hasn't really been the same since my dad passed a few years ago. She has been really depressed and has become a hermit. I really don't like that she stays to herself since she use to be the one throwing all the parties. Her parties use to be so big that people talked about them for days on end. Now, she just sits in her favorite recliner and watches Maury and Joyce Meyers.

"I wish you could go with me too but Alexander has daycare and I don't want Dawn watching the kids again. The last time she did Jackie was in the yard in her diaper and Alexander was so hopped up on sugar it took forever to get him to crash! What did she feed him? Cookies and cake all day? She didn't stick to my strict food diet for them. I can't have my kids hating vegetables already." Erik pulled me into his lap and laughed. He kissed me on my forehead and gave me a tight squeeze.

"You've got to loosen the reigns a little. Alex is only 3. I promise you, he already hates vegetables. I know this because he gave the broccoli from dinner the other night to Duke when you weren't looking. As for Jackie, she is your daughter after all. She clearly has a mind of her own and doesn't like to listen to anyone." I playfully hit Erik on his chest.

"That's not funny. She is only a year old. You and I both know that you're the one that doesn't like to listen to anyone."

" I beg to differ". I gasped in shock

"Excuse me?! You're going to fix your mouth to lie like that? Who didn't listen to their smart and highly intelligent girlfriend, when she told a certain someone to make sure he saved his very important and career saving document after every paragraph, but that certain someone didn't listen and LOST said very important document and had to start over? Which took a week to do to begin with". I stared at Erik with questioning eyes.

He avoided eye contact with me, letting me know that I was right. He almost lost his job at the law firm because he lost that document. Erik and his partner at the firm was working on a high profile case. A woman was arrested for leaving her child with her boyfriend, who happened to be a registered sex offender and the child died due to him doing inappropriate things to her. His firm had to make this big presentation to some higher ups and when Erik told everyone he had lost the entire document, let's just say he was almost escorted out of the building. Good thing i got there in time with a new and improved copy of this document. I told his boss that he grabbed my USB saver instead of his own that morning because he was anxious about the presentation.