The Phantom's African Rose

Chapter 30: Love and Healing

TRIGGER WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CHAPTER CONTAINS CONTENT THAT MAY BE SENSITIVE FOR SOME VIEWERS

Evangeline's POV

I got up from the bed to go back to the kitchen when Erik grabbed my arm, stopping me from leaving.

"You?" He said in a surprised voice.

I nodded as he suddenly pulled me closer to him, making me sit back down on the bed.

"How? Why?"

I just sighed. Despite living with him for almost six months, I hadn't really told him anything about my past, my family, or basically anything about my life. There were some things that I felt that should be kept secret. Some things that were just between God and me.

"I don't want to talk about it." I said as I began to leave again.

Erik held onto me tighter.

"Please, Evangeline. You know so much about me, yet I know very little about you. But I now know that you and I have something in common."

"And that would be..?"

"We both have been hurt."

I said nothing, just soaked in his words.

There was silence on both sides as the two of us stared at each other. After a few more minutes, I decided to give in and confess.

"Alright. I'll tell you."

FLASHBACK

It all started in high school. I was a young girl just starting her freshmen year and I was super excited to begin the four most important years of my life with my ex-best friend, Alexis, a light-skinned girl that always came to school with box braids in her hair. The two of us had been friends ever since 3rd grade and were inseparable throughout those six years that we've known each other.

Our lockers were right next to each other and on the other side of my locker was the locker of a fellow freshman by the name of Terrence White, a dark-skinned kid who had transferred from California to Georgia during the summer and had already gotten a reputation as a bad boy.

When we were first introduced, it felt like love at first sight and we hit it off right away. Soon, by the time we were juniors, I had basically considered us as future newly weds . Oh, how quickly things would change.

We were all enrolled in a predominantly-white school where minority students like ourselves were, well, the minority. And no one made that more clear than the Queen Slut herself, Kelly Jones.

She was ruthless.

She was vicious.

She was spoiled.

She was the most popular girl in school.

She was hated, but yet adored.

She was the poster child of the American Upper Class. Curly blonde hair, milky white skin, bright blue eyes, perfect teeth, skinny as a twig and a taste of fashion that screamed "I Am Richer Than You!" .

And for some reason, she decided to make it her lifelong mission to torment me in particular.

To this day, I still don't know why she hated me.

Maybe it was because she sounded like an old, dying cat getting tortured when she sang.

Maybe it was because I was black while she was white.