Family is meant to build you up. Be the safety net you need in this cruel world, but sometimes the poison that started from the ancestors carries throughout generations. For Ebony Keys, being part of such a dynasty forces you to segregate for sanity. Not that you can find much of it anyway, especially when your supervisor is a micromanaging monitoring spirit. A girl just has too much on her left. But then to her right there's him. Kazmir. The man she seems to be bonded to - a connection held by an invisible thread. The Red String. They are destined to meet and profoundly impact each other's lives, finding each other regardless of time, place, or circumstance. This thread may stretch but it never breaks. It remains intact forever. The only downside to forever is... "You were never mine. Not back then and definitely not now." I half expected him to be throwing questions, weh mi mean? or why mi say dat?- but this time it was pin drop silent. His eyes spared me only a quick glance before he had to refocus, his breath remaining steady even with my declaration. "Ebony..." his voice was slightly elevated. "Kazmir?" Mines shook a bit afraid of what his comeback would be. "First is forever."

I can't bring myself to recognize the girl I'm staring at. Through her glassy eyes you can see that she's no foreigner to pain, whether physically, emotionally or mentally. Her hard expression warns people that she doesn't take their shit. But, her friends are the only ones to help her unravel and step out of the room that's trapped her with all her struggles and pains; they get her through all her enigma. They are all she needs. I stare at this girl, and I see myself. I see someone who is strong and determined, someone who needs to love herself and believe that she can be loved. The tears roll down my cheeks as I realize that 'this girl' is Amiane Alana Rochester, a girl who's been through a shit-load of fuckery. * In medicine pain relates to a sensation that hurts. If you feel pain it hurts, you feel discomfort, distress and perhaps agony, depending on the severity of it. Pain can be steady and constant, in which case it may be an ache. It might be a throbbing pain - a pulsating pain. The pain could have a pinching sensation, or a stabbing one. To Amiane, pain is all of the above. Can she handle any of it? [Completed Monday March 28, 2016]