Frenemies-(Choni)

Chapter 13 (Part 2)

"What about your story, Cheryl Bombshell? Why do I feel like you've had one hell of a life?"-Toni said, as the girls were dealing with the final touches to the project before sending it for the last review to Malorie.

"Thought you forgot about this, to be honest. But yeah, I have indeed had a dramatic life."-Cheryl said.

Toni looked at her, waiting for the girl she liked to slowly unfold her story.

"I, too, am an only child. Sometimes I wish I had a sibling but honestly, I wouldn't want another child to suffer having my mother as a parent."-Cheryl paused for a moment to breathe then continued.

"My family has always been wealthy and living in the luxurious Blossom house. My dad didn't always do business fairly. He got involved with a lot of bad people and he was in quite some trouble for a long time. For a few months, he was really unstable mentally and tired, all the time. Until he took his own life, three years ago. He maybe thought that that's how you're supposed to deal with everything, taking the easy way out. I don't know."-Cheryl said, shaking as she was remembering the days when it all happened.

"That's awful, Cheryl. I'm so sorry. I wish he found another way to handle it all. Whatever it was that he got himself into."-Toni said, putting her arm around Cheryl's waist, pulling her closer to comfort her. "I'm scared to ask you something but I need to know...have you ever thought about it? Doing what he did?"

Toni was terrified to hear the answer to this. From the day that Cheryl had told her that she was depressed and dealing with a lot of other things, that thought never escaped Toni. She was scared that Cheryl might do something like that, seeing how low she could feel sometimes. She didn't even want that thought to cross Cheryl's mind, let alone go through with it.

Cheryl took a heavy breath, looked at Toni then nodded.

"Yeah, I have. Several times. I was barely a teenager the first time I tried to take my own life. I lost hope and I was looking for a way out. I wasn't thinking clearly."-Cheryl said.

Toni's eyes were filled with tears, looking away from Cheryl. It her hurt, knowing what her friend was going through.

"But, I never think about it anymore. I'm focused on getting better and I see a bright future ahead of me."

Cheryl said those words seeing how sad Toni had gotten. She got her attention and smiled at her, letting her know that she was going to be fine.

"Your dad would've been proud of you. I am."-Toni said.

"My father wasn't a good parent either but he was less of a devil than my mother."-Cheryl said.

"Do you think what happened affected your mother on becoming so bad?"-Toni asked.

"No, she was always bad. I had a girlfriend in high school. She was the first person I really ever loved. I was so scared of feeling that way for a girl and I was definitely not going to tell my mother about it. My parents only knew her as my friend. But, one night she..."-Cheryl said, kind of chocking on her own words. "..she caught us in the same bad and saw us kissing. She called me deviant. That was my name for a few weeks. She told my girlfriends parents and they moved away, making her change schools. She took away the one person, the only person I ever cared about and that cared about me."

"God, I can't imagine parents like this exist. But, you are not deviant, Cheryl. Not by a long shot. And you are loved by so many people. You don't even need your mother. I can't wait to see you living alone or with someone else one day. Far away from her. I despise her, honestly."-Toni said.

"You're telling me?"-Cheryl said and the girls laughed. "I can't wait to see us both happy and far away from here. We deserve it."

"I hope I'm around to see you thriving, though."-Toni said.

"You will be. We've been strangers for far too long."-Cheryl said.

There they were. Two girls with awful backrounds. Coming from broken families and having traumatic childhoods, still able to love and look at life with excitement. That's what strong women look like. Like Cheryl and Toni. And little did they know, when they talked about happy futures outside of their town, they were both picturing themselves in each-others arms.