The Dragon Princess

My Life

The weeks went by as our time in the shelter felt like a light break from reality and life's woes. Not to my surprise, my mother found herself spending more time with Gary, yippee. Bu I also felt a strange silence in my mind. Ever since what happened at the last shelter I hadn't heard a word from Mizzy, and at times I thought I dreamed the whole thing up. Until the news talked about the accidental death of a volunteer worker at the shelter we ran away from.

It was a few days after we came here that they must have discovered his body. They reported the pipes bursting down in the boiler room consumed him and that's what lead to his death. I wished that were the case. I wished Charlie died from an accident, at least then I could feel sorry for him, and cry. But deep down I rested with peace.

"Rai?" Hakeem snapped me out of my day dreaming.

I looked up putting on a smile of excitement. After my first day here, and nearly crushing his spirit I felt guilty. So I found him, apologized, and now we were friends. After school I would meet up with him at the YMCA and we would struggle to play basketball and video games with the much older kids who kind of took us under their wing.

I had never had time to build a relationship with another kid my age. As a shelter kid you never had time to, even in school I stayed to myself, distance was safety in my book. It gave me the opportunity not to get attached to anyone. But Hakeem was different, he was a shelter kid like me.

"You want to head down to Riverwalk?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Nothing else to do. Let me tell my mom and I'll meet you out front."

"Ok sounds good!" he rushed out the room.

I headed to our bunks where I saw my mom reading one of her boring romance novels. I blamed those books for her ability to seek after love and affection for another. Though she was much happier then I had seen her before. She seemed alive instead of existing like the living dead.

"Mom," she peeked out the corner of her book. "Hakeem and I are going down to the river for a bit, I won't be long."

"Rai, you know I don't want you straying too far..."

I sighed rolling my eyes. "We'll be fine mom, we're just looking for frogs."

She bounced her head on her shoulders with a hum thinking about it and looked over playfully. "Be careful, ok?"

I smiled and turned to run out the door.

"Wait," My mother shot forth like lightening jerking my arm. It scared me, especially when I turned to see her glare. "Be careful around water Rai..."

My stomach sunk deeply as I lost myself in her eyes. I had never received a warning from my mother before, never patronized, and never felt her grab my wrist as she did. I nodded and swallowed hard.

She laid back as the expression faded as she allowed me to go. I walked away swimming in confusion and looked back to see if she still stared at me, but she vanished into the silky red velvet realm of romance, that only fed her ideology of true love and finding "the one".

I took off to the front of the shelter. Hakeem waited with his hands in his pockets trying to avoid the busy populous of Rivard street. He wore slight baggy jeans, that looked to be donated and a black Nike hoody that he swam in.

"You ready?" I asked running down the steps.

"Yes, but!" he ran over to the side of a building and pulled out a plastic terrarium. "To make sure we provide the best home for our new crew members if we find anything by the river!"