Cleo Blaine, older cousin of Rue and Gia Bennett comes back to town after leaving years ago.
There were reasons for that...
Now she's back in the one town she learned to push to the back of her mind. Can she sustain old history that continues to st...
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Cleo Blaine was always excellent. Or extravagant. Literally, that would always be her response when asked about her well-being. But that was not entirely true, I would know that better than anyone...considering that we are related. Cleo was three years older than us, just like Fez and always knew what she wanted and went for it.
She was the niece of my mother, my mother's baby sister, Rachelle's child. Aunt Rachelle had a segregate (who happened to be uncle Casimir's sister...I know it's a little strange but you'll hear more about Uncle Casimir's fucked up side of the family soon) carry Cleo due to Aunt Rachelle's health issues. From what I can remember, Auntie Rachelle and Uncle Casimir always treated Cleo like she was God's gift to them and she was. For a good fourteen years of her life. However, Cleo felt like she couldn't have been the best gift if the darkness her parents had inside of them won.
Auntie Rachelle and Uncle Casimir couldn't have thought that highly of her if they didn't think about how all the fucked up shit they began to do, would ruin Cleo. And how everyone that knew what happened, would blame her to the point of suicide and finally leaving the country to live with our grandfather.
Cleo was what you would call an absolute sweetheart. She tried her best to do anything for you but that didn't mean she was a pushover. Nope. Not at all. She knew not to take shit from anybody, so it was best to not get on her bad side because she turned into a person you did not want to see. And perhaps that was anger built up inside of her due to not speaking up earlier on the signs. The signs that her parents became deranged.
See, Cleo had a dream. She loved film, no matter what type she wanted to learn all about it. She had her first disposable camera at ten and later got some old vintage one for her twelfth birthday. She learned how to develop film too. And Uncle Casimir always brought her to some ran-down theater on Sundays and Friday's to watch all sorts of films, where she learned the process of emotions and conflicts that resonated well on screen. Soon, Cleo would feel that her life felt like a horror film. Uncle Casimir and Auntie Rachelle liked to keep Cleo sheltered from everyone else, it wasn't always like that but in the middle of the year, Cleo stopped coming around.
I missed having my cooler, smarter cousin around and voiced that to my mom who also noticed that her sister had been acting off. Suddenly, Cleo was being "homeschooled" and neither Gia or I could visit. Text messages from my flip-phone, ("for emergency purposes only," my mother said) would go undelivered. The whole thing just became odd. I started suspecting that something was up, since Cleo loved being around family...that family including me, Gia, our mom, my dad, and Fez...
Cleo was not the type to stay cooped up in the house for weeks. She had to be one with nature and shit, which was funny since she wasn't down with smoking trees but that whole photosynthesis shit had always been her vibe.
Then, one night we got answers.
But it was not the answers we wanted.
Cleo, Auntie Rachelle, and Uncle Casimir lived across town. It usually took about ten-fifteen minutes—if traffic was light, to get to them. I was out one night, eleven years old hanging out with Lexi at the roller rink...which was five minutes away from Cleo's. We were sharing a peppermint milkshake outside, since Lexi had to pay for it and I didn't think I could finish a large one myself.
We heard the sirens and something inside of me, just knew. Lexi came with me on our bikes to Cleo's where there were at least five or six cop cars surrounding the house I spent many cook-outs at. I could not explain the emotions I felt seeing that many body bags coming out of the house I spent time growing up in.
It didn't make any sense. I don't think it ever will but things always happen around here. Mostly shitty things...
Thankfully, Cleo was not in one of those body bags.
But the response to what happened on 627 McCrea's road, made Cleo Blaine, wish she was.
