That Fateful Day

because she was the first to read and comment on the story. Thanx love :)

Chapter 2

It was another Saturday and the November air was quite cold even though it was California, but Davontae had managed to drag her to the park. That son of hers had no mercy whatsoever, he didn’t understand that she was tired after an hour’s jog- he had gotten used to starting home alone for an hour by himself and was no longer frightened, but she herself couldn’t help but be a mother and worry about leaving him at home by himself. He also wasn’t slow to remind her that it was her choice to go jogging in the first place so she couldn’t ruin his fun.

Talking about jogging, she remembered her jog two weeks ago and the stranger that paid for her water. She was too embarrassed to stay back and talk to him or even shake his hand to thank him, so she ran away. But then again he seemed like he also wasn’t in the mood to talk. The whole thing was just too embarrassing to bear, how could she not be able to pay for a common bottle of water, she had almost wanted to bury her face in shame when he paid for her and acted like it was nothing. She would have stay and spoken to him (at least get to know him because he looked like he as new in the area) but humans especially men always wanted a payback whenever they did favours for you, and she hated that so decided not to talk to him anyways.

Plus what’s there to talk about. We don’t know each other so it will be strange and awkward, she concluded.

That was her trying to convince herself but she knew that her reason for not staying was deeper than that. He was handsome and she remembered coming out of the café flushed not because of the fact that she had previously been running but for a whole other reason. There was something about him that pulled her to him, she thought that maybe she should recognise his face from somewhere but she didn’t, yet she couldn’t deny something….

“Enough of thinking about a stranger, Naae” she told herself. She needed to make herself busy so she decided to look for Davontae. She was a paranoid mother she knew, but what else did people expect of her, her son dominated her life and she was proud to say that. Also the love she showered on him as her way of not feeling guilty that she abandoned him for the first few moments of his life.

***

Antwan was walking through the park he had been waiting for ages and decided to go to the park. Today was a Saturday, a beautiful Saturday at that, so he didn’t understand why he was here. His mother had told his cousin Serena to trick him to come to her house just so she could give him a lecture. So he had decided to come to the park to clear his head and be by himself peacefully.

He looked around him; there was a family here for picnic- why people will come for a picnic in winter he couldn’t understand, but he guessed it didn’t matter to them as long as they had each other and it wasn't like it evenb snowed around here anyway. There were also children running around, some playing sports whilst others played kiss chase, watching these people made his inside tight, wishing that he could sit down and have his own family, just like his mother always said. To his right near the slides was what he called the “mothers club”. The mothers club was a group of mothers with their prams, babies and other baby equipment who would gather anywhere (schools, parks, streets, and shops) to talk about the good and bad of motherhood, his mother was once one of them, she probably still did it, but certainly not as much since her youngest child is 23.

He continued walking, liking the peace and quiet, having a place where he could think; his week had been horrible but today was going to be a day of relaxation. Some people may wonder how it is that he can find peace in the midst of children making noise, he himself was once a kid, came from a large family and was used to thinking in the midst of chaos, having bucket loads of male cousins who he was always bundled with, so thinking in the midst of chaos came with the territory. He was busy thinking, his mind lost in another world when he heard a scream. His head snapped up and he looked in the direction of the sound.

On the grass holding his ankle with a somewhat pained expression was a young black boy. He ran to him and kneeled on the grass so that he was on the same eye level as the young boy.