Blooming Blues

Chapter 1~ Leslie

Leslie's P.OV

         Black was underrated. Or simply misunderstood. It hurt that it was often referred to as nothingness when in reality, it absorbed and held every other seemingly valued colour without being recognised for it. That was why I loved black, because we were more alike in more ways than one.
          
         But unlike black, I was tired of absorbing everything coming at me and having to hold it in. In the beginning, Mother made me think it was my fault that these things were coming at me.

      Mother was different —for lack of words to describe her. She had a knack for finding herself around the wrong people and making the oddest decisions ever since dad disappeared from our lives when I was six.
            Our impromptu moving from New York to New Buffalo was because her bestfriend— who she had met at a club two months ago,— suggested that it would be great if she and mom could be closer to each other. Said best friend lived in Benton Harbour and sold her house here in New Buffalo to Mother for half the price. It helped to know that Mother was not the only one who made rash decisions.
             A groan reached my ears for the third time in five minutes, and I closed my door and locked it. The groans were not Mother's. Neither was the vintage Austin Martin parked in the driveway.
             I was almost asleep when someone tried the handle to my door. Once. Twice. One would have thought by the pounding of my heart that I was not used to strangers trying to get into my room. Truth is, it never got easier. The third time the person tried it, I heard Mother's voice, followed by that of a man in response.
             Seconds ticked by.Their voices rose. Mother was angry that he was trying to snoop around. He was pissed that she had just asked him to leave after getting her twenty grand worth of heroin and leading him on. There was a muted thud followed by Mother's shout. Silence. He had hit her.
               I closed my eyes to block it all out. I did not dare step out to intervene. Judging from the way they spoke, she was probably high and would resort to taking out her frustration on me. And that depended on whether or not her newest boyfriend decided I was fair game.
                So I just lay still on my bed and closed my eyes. I thought of 27 BCE when Julius Ceaser' adopted son became the ruler of Rome. It was something I always did when things like this went on ever since one night when I was ten. Drowning myself in someone else's past kept me from the claws of my present.
                 I don't know how long I do that for but when I look out my window, the ridiculously fancy car is gone. I put my ear to the wood of my door and heard my mother's ranting.
                 I sigh. It's going to take hours for her to tumble down whatever it is that she has flowing through her veins.In the meantime, I had to stay locked up in here to avoid being a punch bag. As if on cue, my stomach growled.
                    It was going to be a long night.

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