Past The Mistakes

14 | hold me tight and don't let go

I HAD always found the sound of rain to be relaxing. The soft pittering of the droplets pelting against my window and the roof over our heads was a soothing lullaby on its own.

I rarely liked to keep my window closed while it rained, it would always be slightly open to allow myself to feel part of nature's watering cycle.

Sometimes I think I desperately seek home.

Rain was part of how Mother Nature took care of the earth and all her children and I found that to be very endearing. I had always wished I was taken care of in that way. That in an alternative dimension or something, both my parents were present in my life; caring about me in the ways I could only imagine.

Like a little plant that needed routine watering and tons of sunshine to grow. That way I would be able to plant my roots to fend for myself.

That's all I wanted; a little love.

But the sad truth is that my parents were never part of my life.

My grandparents had told me that they had walked out just a few months after I was born. My grandparents sat waiting for their daughter to return with their hearts shattered in their own hands. When she did come back 6 years later, my grandmother had hidden me in her bedroom. She thought they didn't deserve to see my face.

I had missed my own mother and father's return.

My grandfather told me that the reason my mother came back was because they were running low on cash.

They didn't even care about me. Their one and only child.

My grandfather and grandmother refused to give her the money she wanted.

She came for extra cash and when she didn't get it, that's when it happened. 

My parents left our whole town shaken, gasping for breath; robbing lower-income houses on the west, causing a small fire at a jewellery store by the lakeshore and stealing 15k from Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins.

It was still a mystery as to why the aged couple were still so nice to me and my grandfather.

My grandparents were ashamed. We didn't go out in public for weeks.

I remembered people trashing our lawn, and writing nasty, disgusting things on the outside of our house. My grandmother would never open the windows and would tell me to keep my head low so I wouldn't see.

Despite us staying cooped up in our house with our hands on our laps, praying for an end to our misery, my grandfather would have to head outside the house occasionally to wash away the words painted outside our house.

The whole town knew. The whole town suffered. The whole town was set aflame by the incident.

My parents were never caught.

I was the child of two convicted, wanted criminals.

Some people in our town forgot while some still remembered. Some are trying to get past it.

Tyra's parents even tried and that was until news got out that my parents called my grandfather again. That was 5 years ago, and the town went ballistic again, thinking we were still in contact with them and that's how we were hit into another downcast spiral.

It wasn't our fault but long after my parents left town, we still repent for their mistake.

They think we are the same; it runs in the blood.

We were not allowed to leave town. At least not until they were caught or found dead.

Despite the chaos at night we would open up our windows and unlock the doors and head out at night. The night brought calmness with it.