O'Shaun

Chapter 2

O'Shaun ran towards the building, he was already late, it was 9:30. He saw the couple he was supposed to meet walking out of the department of child services front door.

He stood in front of them, "hi, I'm O'Shaun sorry I'm late. I got kind of held up." He lied.

They looked him up and down and smiled, "it's okay. Are you ready to go?" The lady asked him.

"Yea sure." He usually had to sign a document that says that he is going with his foster parents, but he really didn't want to deal with Michelle right now, he knew she was going to talk his ear off for being late. So, he decided to just go with them.

"I'm Janice and this is my husband Tony." Tony reached out and shook O'Shaun's hand. He was big and buff, balding in the front of his head and had a huge grin that softened his intimidating appearance.

"Glad to meet you." He said.

"Same here." O'Shaun answered.

Janice was a heavy woman with dark skin. She wore a dark brown curly wig and red lipstick. She dressed in a peach suit, matching skirt and jacket. Her dimples in her cheeks, made her look younger than her age. They walked over to their car and O'Shaun got in.

"Make sure you put on your seatbelt son." Tony said looking in the rearview mirror. The large Mercedes Benz they drove was an older model, probably costing more to fill up on gas then the repayments each month.

O'Shaun breathed out thinking about the day he would spend with these two strangers, he looked out the window as they drove into the neighborhood that he wasn't too familiar with. He had been to Inglewood before, but not this side of Inglewood. The houses on this side were mostly double storey houses, with huge front yards. The lawn were meticulous, and everything seemed to be in order. Most people in the neighborhood were black, they had nice cars, and everyone waved at each other like they were best friends. There were black people mowing their lawn and pruning their rose bushes, the kind of thing only white people did, O'Shaun thought.

They pulled into a double story home that had a huge driveway and a big front yard. There was a basketball ring by the garage and rose bushes that separated the neighbours houses from one another. They stopped the car and got out, "Welcome son." Tony said as Janice quickly walked inside. Tony tried to help O'Shaun with his bag, but he pulled it close to him as if it was his shield protecting him from whatever was awaiting him.

"That's okay, let me show you to your room." Tony said leading the way to the double doors that opened to a huge living room and marble floors.

O'Shaun looked around, he had never known any rich black folks like this before. He followed Tony upstairs and walked into a room, that had a bed and a computer at a desk. The floor was covered with cream carpet and the walls were light blue and had basketball paraphernalia all over it.

"This is your room son, make yourself at home and we can have a game of basketball if you want later. Michelle told us how much you love the game. There is a huge basketball court a few blocks down the way."

"Yea," he said quietly, as he sat down onto the perfectly made bed. The quilt cover was dark blue with basketballs all over it and the words NBA on the pillowcase. He sat down and imagined for a second that he could be happy here, that this was actually his real family. Then he realised how nothing ever worked out for him in his life, so why would this be any different?

Janice came into his room and placed a towel on his bed, "the bathroom is just in there," she pointed to the door to her left of his room. "Get cleaned up and we are going to have some lunch soon." She smiled at him. "There's some clothes in the cupboard, you can have a look and take anything you like. Our son won't be needing any of it anymore." She said smiling. His phone beeped, letting him know that it was running out of battery. He pulled out the charger from his bag and plugged it into the wall. There were two missed calls from Michelle from the department of child services. Im going to ignore this, I don't want to hear her nagging voice, he said to himself.