Attracting Hearts (Chresanto August and Jacob Perez Love Story)

Prologue

I sat in the living room of the small three bedroom apartment that my parents rented in the ghetto. I tried covering my two small ears to block out the loud screaming and yelling that my mother and father were making back in their room. I hated when the fought. The walls in our apartment were so thin that the next door neighbors could hear everything that was going on.

I wasn't embarrassed or anything. It was just annoying to sit here and listen to them argue back and forth about stupid stuff. Everyone on the block just thought of us as the normal ghetto ass family.

"I'm sick and tired or your bullshit, Jermaine! I don't want to be with you anymore! I hate you!" I heard my mother scream.

She rushed out of the back room with two very small suitcases; each held onto by her hands.

"Where you goin', ma?" I asked my mother.

"Away from you damn kids and that bastard that you call daddy back there." She retorted with lots of attitude in her voice.

"So you just gonna leave us?"

"Yeah, that's about right. At least one of y'all around here ain't stupid."

"You can't leave us, ma. We need you!"

"What do you need me for? I gave your ass life. Be grateful."

"Leaving your kids? What kind of mother are you?"

"Starting now, I'm not a mother." She responded, closing the front door so hard that the picture frame that was hung up next to it fell to pieces.

I waited all night in hope that my mother was putting up an act and wouldn't leave us. Who was going to cook? Who was going to clean? My dad doesn't know how to and neither did I.

But after three weeks, I gave up waiting for my mom to comeback and tell us that everything was going to be okay. But instead, she never did.

At the age of twelve I was suppose to be hanging out with friends and enjoying life; having no worries at all. But instead, I had to learn how to change diapers, cook breakfast, lunch and dinner and clean around the apartment.

Thanks a lot, mom.