Rosemary and Thyme | Mafia Romance

Chapter One

Chapter I: Pipe Dreams

Valencia Noor

        When I say I am trapped, it is not to be looked upon as prey having no options of escape from an ambush predator. Ambush predators rely on concealment, remaining motionless and mute. 

Prey rely on four escape routes. Number one, Confusion of the predator. Number two, physical defense. Three, Mobbing. Lastly, geometrical effects. 

In my case, the 'predator' is anything but. 

"Valen, why don't you make yourself useful and get me some iced tea and a TV dinner." 

Me, being the prey, my only way to escape is to bend my morals or sudden death of the predator. 

"Yes, mother. Also, how many times do I have to tell you? I don't like that nickname." 

I grabbed the glass, still cold from the last cup I poured her. Her eyes finally left the television, they were now looking into mine, disgust consuming her expression. "How many times do I have to tell you? I don't care. Get my stuff." 

I dropped my gaze to the cup and nodded, heading to the kitchen. I poured myself some homemade rose petal herbal tea and grabbed her some Lipton. She refuses to drink my tea because it is "bland and uninteresting." I looked in the freezer and saw only one more TV dinner left. "Great," I muttered and grabbed the magnetic pen on the fridge and wrote a reminder on the notepad. 

Chicken thighs

Parsley

Lemons

Coconut Water

Zebra Cakes

TV Dinners

After popping the over eaten spaghetti meal in the microwave I sat down at the island and just looked around. There's just something about being in familiar surroundings you no longer wish to be familiar with. 

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Shit," I stood up so fast I knocked over my Iced tea and the glass smashed on the floor. I took a deep breath grabbed her meal out of the microwave, along with a fork. The broken glass can be dealt with afterwards, I don't want to hear her telling management I am starving her. She's done it before. I was five minutes late giving her dinner because I was on the phone with the landlord after the neighbors filed complaints, all stating my mother screaming and her TV constantly too loud was bothersome. 

"Here you go," I set everything down neatly but was shooed away. Walking back into the kitchen I grabbed paper towels and laid them on the floor, grabbing the glass shards. "Oh, thank you my dear Valencia, I am so lucky to have you here helping me through this, I couldn't have had asked for a better daughter." How hard could that be? "No problem, mom, what is a daughter for?" I threw away the glass, which was my favorite.

 Pity. 

        I now have nothing to really do with myself. Her dinner is the last task of the day, and she forbids me from entering the living room after she is served. I gave in and poured myself a glass of Cherry wine, my most favored. I could make dinner tonight but what's the point? No one else is going to eat with me. I started walking towards my room but decided to take the entire bottle with me, for company. 

I turned on my lights and record player. 

I 

want

 a 

Sunday

Kind of love

I danced around the room with wine splashing around the rim. Being a hopeless romantic in this world was a whole different kind of lonely. I sat on my bed when the song finished. I've been told peoples rooms represent the owner. My room was filled with plants, books and crystals and lots of notebooks. I had a lot of recipes written down. Lots of languages. History. Mythology. Medicinal herbs. Phycology. Quantum Mechanics. 

I was a woman of many hobbies and passions but that is all they are.

Once I became an adult and my mother got sick, I had to separate fantasy from reality. My reality is here, helping my mother. 

She won't eat my cooking; she always has something to say about whatever recipe I make. I don't have friends to eat it either, I lost those once I took the job of looking after my mother. They went to travel or have gone to college. 

They tried to talk me out of my decision for my own future, but I truly believe it would be wrong of me to leave my mother when she could die any day. Despite how she treats me. I was used to it, basically immune to it at this point. It didn't hurt me, I expected it. Although I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. 

She was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure four years ago. She actually skipped my graduation to stay home and wait for the doctor call with the results. The life expectancy was five years. I've tried countless times to get her to eat a healthy diet and give her medicinal teas and get exercise, but she refuses. For some odd reason, this is the life she chose for herself. 

I went to culinary school in high school and my dream was to travel the world and learn about the collection of very diverse cultures, work at different restaurants and speak the natives Toung alongside them but sadly, the money I make looking after mother would not suffice all the expenses.

I spend most of it on the house and mother. After being held back almost five years, despite still being youthful, I just can't help but feel hopeless. I sighed, daydreaming about mountain tops I'll never get to reach, people I'll never get to meet and bodies of water I'll never get to swim in. 

Pipe dreams, huh?