𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐍; 𝐁𝐄𝐘𝐍𝐈𝐊𝐀 𝟏𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐒.★

"𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐓"

(I hope you enjoy!)

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𝐎𝐧𝐢𝐤𝐚 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐣

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        Unbuckling Soma's seatbelt, I propped Soma down onto the ground next to the car, I was taking into the mall, it was his first time today. It was a reward for him since he had scored a 100 on his weekly spelling test, he was my adorable 1st grader and he meant so much to me. I could have taken him to the mall sooner, but I think that would be spoiling him, I didn't believe in spoiling children, I truly believed that it was a factor that could truly ruin a child's life.

"Mommy! I wan' Pretzel! Let go!"

       Soma yelled as he put his hands up and started pointing towards the mall. I rolled my eyes at his mention of this pretzel, he'd bene begging me for a pretzel for the longest time, all he ever talked about was this damn pretzel. I was going to buy him a pretzel, though, I don't think he's ever had one before, he just heard it on TV and he's been asking me ever since.

"Okay baby, let's go into the big mall, yeah?" Some jumped around and started smiling.

"Yaay!"

     I grabbed my purse and picked him up, situating him on my waist, after making sure my car door was locked, we walked inside of the mall together hand in hand, while Soma talked my head off about Syd the Science Kid and pretzels. I smiled at him, he was so adorable, he was my only child, as I was raising him a single mother, His father walked out on me about 3 months after I found out I was pregnant with him. Safaree was such a deadbeat and I rolled my eyes at the thought of him.

     Soma and I lived in the city, so naturally there was a lot of crime and drug involvement around those parts, We stayed to ourselves though, and we always made sure to keep quiet. Nobody really bothered us except this gang of blood that hung around our neighborhood. It wasn't necessarily all of them exactly, it was just one, per say, their leader.

   Some and I had gotten into the mall and we were looking around in the various stores shopping for all kinds of products, some for me and of course some for him. He asked me to go to LEGOLAND soon and I told him that as soon as he gets an A on the next 3 tests of his, I could definitely take him. It was eventually time to go get his pretzel, and he was jumping up and down, my little boy was so excited.

    As we stood in line at Aunt Anne's, I couldn't shake the feeling that somebody was watching us. Shrugging off the foreboding feeling I went up to the cashier and I ordered Soma and I a pretzel and cheese. The cashier smiled at m and my son as his eyes lit up at the big pretzel being handed to him.

  "Yay! Pretzel!" I shook my head at his antics.

"Is this your boy?" The cashier said, she had to be around my age, late twenties.

"Yes, he's my little boy.." I replied as I smiled at him, looking down. He was stuffing his face with the pretzel as he tried to eat it whole.

"Soma baby! Don't stuff it all in!" my baby was enjoying his food, he had cheese all on his face.

"But Pretzel good!"

"Baby! Please slow down for me.." He slowly took the pretzel out of his mouth and took slower bites. I nodded my head.

"Good!" I heard the lady laugh behind the counter as I guided him from the restaurant.

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     We shopped around for a while until we decided that it was time to go. I'm pretty sure we had been inside of that mall for hours at this point. Soma had fallen asleep and it was almost time for his bed time anyways. Dragging him and the bags out into the parking lot, I put everything in the car, put him inside of his car seat, and set out to go home.