Exposure

EX:1

Chapter 1

PART 1

Tiana's Perspective

"Life itself is a privilege, but to live life to the fullest well, that is a choice."-Andy Andrews

ONE YEAR LATER

•••••

SUMMERTIME every day had felt like the summertime. Where the weather is always sunny, the flowers are pretty and colorful with an engaging bloom, and it was just a time to be alive. If there were glooms they were temporary with a small place in my heart. I had gained a peace of mind and I was happy. There were no forced smiles or buried and deprived emotions. Life was my biggest blessing and I wouldn't trade that for any amount of riches and gold in the world. A year ago from today, my life had changed drastically and the day I decided to make a change for myself was the day I was born again as the new Tiana Woods.

The tight and itchy fabric stuck to the palm of my ass as I tried forcing it out of my behind. I removed the access amount of dark lipstick from around my bottom lip freshening up a little of the rosy blush on my cheeks. My long jet black box braids were pushed aside and placed on one shoulder as I put stud earrings into my ears. Once I was comfortable enough with the reflection in front of me I turned around to get another's opinion. Ally and Sixty sat on the couch behind me pouring up cups of Peach Ciroc clowning around.

"Okay so how do I look?" I strutted a serious pose like the models off of Project Runway as laughter consumed the living room.

"Stupid as hell," Ally joked taking a sip of her drink.

I pouted rolling my eyes, "you guys I'm serious I worked really hard on putting this costume together."

"And you look cute in it just don't do that pose ever again." Sixty laughed along with Ally.

Today was the thirty-first of October, or otherwise known as Halloween and we were all attending a Halloween party at some club Twon was crazy about. Going out every Friday night had been regular for us during the weekends. It's strange to think just a year ago I wasn't a huge fan of social events and now I loved them. My schedule was sort of busy now that I was working and a full-time student again at a technical school in Savannah, so the weekends were my time to let loose and have fun especially with Owen gone at the moment. He had been doing a training course in Virginia for the past two months to hopefully get a promotion at work and I missed my baby like crazy. We'd facetime almost every night, but nothing was like being in person so I tried everything I could to keep my mind off of him in my free time. Hanging out with my girls was the best distraction, most Friday nights I'd come home with Ally drunk off our asses miserably getting over a hangover Saturday morning and preparing for the same routine Saturday night. It was reckless but totally fun, after all I was only twenty-three.

"Whatever I'm still cute." I sat down on the couch with them taking a sip of the light liquor from my cup.

For our attire, Ally had chosen the theme of insects which sounded cute at first but I wasn't really into it after picking out a costume. I had chosen a ladybug, Sixty was a butterfly, and Ally was a bumblebee. The outfit was hard to move around in and my headband for antennas kept falling off every chance it could because of my braids.

"Twon just texted me saying he's outside," Sixty said standing up grabbing her purse.

He was our ride for the night which was cool but Twon liked to pregame sometimes and I didn't have time for that. We all got up getting ready to head out the door while Ally turned off the lights locking up the house.