Taste It

Real Dreams (Prologue)

Prologue
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Nicole walks into the kitchen to see her mom, Grace, sitting in their all white kitchen with her elbows on the granite countertops propping up her head.

"Mom, where's dad?" Nicole asks, pulling her mom's attention from the papers that came in the mail. She looks up frustrated, moving her curly hair out of her way so she can see Nicole clearly.

"Uh? I don't know, why?" She scrunches up her small nose, a clear sign that she's overwhelmed.

"My report card came." Nicole says suppressing a smile that tried to creep on her face. Nicole places the envelope in front of Grace, and turns around to grab an apple from the basket. Nicole walks to the sink to wash the apple off.

Grace's freshly pedicured hands grabbed the opened envelope with the school's seal from the counter.

Nicole turns off the water taking a huge bite from the freshly washed fruit, "Mom I'm really sorry. I tried really hard this time I swear." She says with her mouth full, mustering up the best puppy dog eyes she could.

"Ah Nicky. I hope it isn't that bad. You have to buckle down. You know you need to go to college." Grace says pulling the paper from the envelope.

Grace looks at Nicole and smiles exposing her white teeth. "Straight A's Nicky? Oh my gosh. My baby is really smart isn't she?" Grace needed some good news. Today, she received some mail explaining that she has a week to pay her bills before repossession and eviction happens.

Nicole smiles at her mom and walks into her open arms. She knows her mom has been under a lot of stress lately, so she was happy to relieve some of Grace's worries.

"Go upstairs and get dressed. We're gonna have a girl's day out." Grace always does something for her kids if they do something like get good grades, win sports games, etc. She hates when parents expect everything out of their children because the fact is they could be doing worse. If you don't reward your kids, they're not going to see a point in the hard work they've put in.

A sixteen year old Nicole goes upstairs to get her outfit together and wash off the school day. She grabs a t-shirt, her undergarments, some white jeans, and some flip flops because she was going to get her feet done.

Once done in the shower and dressed, she hears the door slam close. She sighs because she figures it's her dad, Tyrese. She knew there was going to be arguing between her parents since he hasn't been home all week.

Her mom and dad have had relationship problems for awhile now so she's pretty used to it. It's the only thing her little brother know since they had him to try and save their relationship. Nicole, on the other hand, remembers a time when her parent's relationship was magical. It was everything the Disney movies promised. Now not so much and Nicole has no idea why.

She walks into her room, plopping on her bed, and plugs her phone into the charger preparing for the day out. She knows it's going to be a while so plugs in her earphones and blasts Stimulated by Tyga allowing her mind to wonder.
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She wakes up, removes her earphones, and looks out her window to see that it's dark outside and the streetlights are on. She knows her little brother, Anthony, is in the house by now, or at least she hopes because she doesn't have time to listen to his crying. He knows he needs to be in before the streetlights come on. If not, he will get his ass whooped.

She starts to wonder why her mom didn't wake her up while walking to Anthony's room. His  Lightening McQueen race car bed was neatly made and empty. That's weird, he's always in his room playing his game when he comes in from playing. The life of an eight year old.