Link Up ✔️

Chapter 51

I missed my family so much and after two weeks with them, I contemplated staying home with them.

I could transfer to the University of Missouri St Louis, UMSL as they called it. I would have to drive to campus every day but then I could focus on my schoolwork more. I would be with my baby brother and my new sister on the way. I could work part-time at Angel's store, and even help my father's business out.

I would not be lost in the crowd there either. It was a smaller school. Though they had a residence hall on the campus, I would stay home and do the nearly thirty-minute drive every day. Or maybe, go to a more competitive school like Washington University or St. Louis University. Both of those were prestigious schools.

Closer to where my parents lived was Maryville University, which was maybe a ten to fifteen-minute drive. It was not my type of college, but it was an option.

"What? Are you crazy?" my sister Symone said when I told her I was thinking of staying at home. We were hanging out in my room watching TV, while she spent the rest of her winter break there.

"Why do you say that?"

"You have it made! Away from dumb parents trying to tell you what to do and how to live your life. I can't wait to turn eighteen, move out and do whatever the hell I want!"

My sister and I were opposite in so many ways. We have different mothers, maybe that was why. I looked more like my father, brown-skinned, his dimples, his eyes, his long eyelashes. None of his height, I was only five feet four inches. My mother's kinky, tightly coiled hair, not that I know what my father's hair looked like, he wore it clean-shaven all my life.

Symone was a lot different. At only fifteen, she was already taller than me at five feet six inches, and we all predicted she would be at least five ten in no time. She was light-skinned, thanks to her mother being an extremely fair bi-racial woman. She had thick, light brown, curly hair before she shaved off most of it. Her eyes were lighter brown, had no dimples, and overall looked nothing like my father. She looked like her mother.

Though we were different, and three years and some change apart in age, we were close. Even when we argued as kids, I always looked forward to seeing my only sister every other weekend. Symone had other siblings with her mother and stepfather. For the longest time, Symone was all I had.

And I did not get to grow up with her and see her every day. I remember first meeting her when I was almost five and my father was released from prison. My granny had a party at her house for him and Kendra, Symone's mother, brought her to the party. I thought she was the prettiest baby doll ever and I wanted to take her home with me.

I was confused about the situation and cried about it for days. It was one thing not having my father live with me because he was in prison, but now my new sister did not either. When I asked my dad why my sister did not live with me and my mother, he had to explain we had different mothers.

I still did not truly understand that till my teens. Was it wrong to crave a somewhat normal family?

"MoMo, I love it here. Daddy is the best and Angel is like my best friend."

"What?" Symone scoffed at that. "She's just another adult trying to tell me what to do. Like I'm dumb or something. I know right from wrong and I don't do anything wrong but they are always on my case."

True about my father, but Angel was not like that. She would sit and talk with me and we would work through any issue. Symone never gave Angel a chance to be her friend. Once upon a time, she adored Angel.

"They just care about us."

"Whatevs. When I leave, I am never coming back."

I did not want my sister to feel like our family was so messed up that she did not want to be a part of it. Her mother was a lot better than my mother, and she actually got along with Angel versus how my mother treated her.