King of Hearts (gxg)

14. Feelings ♔︎

'Yes. I'm eating enough,' she lied once again. 'And everything is okay at home. I'm fine, really.'

I'm okay. I'm fine. She said those a lot, hoping that she could at least convince herself it was true because she wasn't convincing anyone else.

'Okay,' her teacher had nodded her head. 'Alright, you can go to your next class. That's all I wanted to know.'

Monie thought that would be the end of it, but she couldn't have been more wrong. She never blamed her teacher though. Well, she did, but only at first. The woman was just doing her job. She was just doing what she was required to by reporting what she was observing. If she didn't report it, she would've risked losing her job. She thought she was doing what was best for Monie, so she couldn't blame her for that.

Luckily, Monie and Marco stayed together for the next few years. They were lucky enough to be transferred to two different homes that were willing to take in the both of them. But when Monie got pregnant at 16, that's when things got a little bit more difficult- and her nightmare of a birthing delivery didn't make matters any easier. Everything was okay until she had the baby and their foster family decided it was too much for them and she was moved to a group home with other teen moms and wards of the state. She stayed in that home for a few months while she finished high school and worked so she could both move out on her own and file for custody of her brother so they could be together again.

Because through everything that was going on around her, Monie always promised herself two things. And those two things were: 1) she wasn't going to let the state call her an unfit mother and risk losing her child to the same system she was forced to grow up in. 2) she was going to get her brother back no matter how many sleepless nights and double shifts it took her to do it.

*

"You feel a little bit better?" Kiara asked. She was careful not to ask Monie if she was okay again because the answer to that was very obviously no. They were inside Kiara's house now, sitting on the couch while Kiara held Monie in her arms.

"A little bit," Monie sniffled. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm just here crying like this. I don't ever cry, yuh know. So I don't know why I'm doing this. I don't know why I'm crying to you like you don't have your own problems to deal with."

"You don't have to apologize, Monique."

"I just don't want you to think I'm crazy," she pulled away from Kiara. "I like feeling like I've got my shit handled. And crying... it don't ever solve shit. It doesn't help take care of my daughter or my brother. It doesn't erase my shitty ass past."

"Maybe not but you know what else helps?" Monie just looked up to meet her eyes, waiting for Kiara to answer her own question. "Talking... being honest with yourself and others about how you feel. How you really feel."

"I'm not good at that. Talking about how I feel."

"Yeah, that's kind of obvious. And I'll be honest, I'm not great at it either, but when's a better time to start than now? So... Monique, how are you feeling right now? And I want you to answer that question truthfully."

"I'm...," she hesitated because she wasn't quite sure how to answer that question. She was feeling a lot of different emotions, some of which she wasn't sure she even understood herself because she's spent half of her life suppressing them.

"I feel angry," Monie finally answered after a while. She could have gone with sad, or depressed, or mournful. But above all else, she was angry.

"Okay, and why do you feel angry? Or do you not know why?"

"Oh, I know why. I'm angry because... because why is life so fucking unfair? Why is it so good to some people and then so shitty to others? I'm angry because my parents were good, hardworking people who didn't deserve what happened to them. I'm angry because I was forced to grow up too soon. I'm angry because I wasn't able to finish college, even though I was really good at it. I'm angry that I didn't have my mom there for me when I was pregnant. I'm angry that Marco will never have a father figure in his life to show him what it looks like to be a good man. I'm just so fucking angry, Kiara, because why did I have to lose the only two people in this world who were supposed to be here to help guide and support me through this shitty ass bullshit we call life?"