More Than Politics {Book 1}: Editing

68

And like she came, the girl was gone like the wind.

"Saskia is my secretary." She answered, before Graham had the chance to ask.

"So who looks after this place when you're gone."

"Maman and Mamie drop by on work days to check on everything." Ama said, half distracted by the papers on her desk.

Graham stood on the other side. Using his hand to lift her head to face him.

"My love, you haven't even gone back to work and you already look stressed." He said, sliding off her shades and pushing a loose curls behind her ear.

"I can't help it. There's just so much to think about."

"Well don't think then." Graham looked around the room finding the stereo. He connect it to his phone and put on some latin music.

"Dance with me Mi Amor." He urged, pulling her into his arms.

"How could I resist that accent..."

"You can't. That's the thing. Come on baby, it's just you and me. No need to be so stiff."

Smiling stupidly, Ama moved more freely, moved her hips and shoulders more.

"That's my girl." Graham praised. "We gotta practice them moves for that gala."

It had been quite for about ten minutes now. Beth hadn't reacted at all to what Chris had confessed. He was starting to wonder weather she'd heard him or not.

She didn't stop, she didn't speak. She was still walking at the same pace as before. He wanted to run and hide. The longer she stewed the more he had a feeling the reaction would be negative.

She probably thought he was horrible. She was disgusted by him. Because not only did he kill, but he killed his own flesh and blood.

Suddenly, she came to a stop Infront of a tree. A large, old oak, it's trunk cover in engravings.

"This is Oakley, the honesty tree." She finally said "It's an nice quiet place to talk, with no secrets between us. My siblings and I come here when we have arguments with eachother or with our friends."

She turned round to face Christoph.

"You can say everything you need to. I'll listen. And I'll share something about myself too."

"Wait, so your not mad or anything. I just told you I killed my own father. On perpose might I add." Chris blurted, confused at her reaction.

"I heard what you said. That's why we're here. If there's anything I've learnt growing up, it's not to judge too quickly. I've grown up around people who've killed before, I've seen a man be shot down right on this estate. I'm not going to hate you because you killed someone. But I'm intrigued to know why it was your dad."

Silence fell between them again as Christoph took in her words. There was no going back now, and clearly no point in lying to her.

"My mother was a prostitute. She got overwhelmed when her parents died and ran away from her responsibilities, leaving them to my Aunt May, Graham's mom. While she was away, she supposedly fell in love with a regular. A black haired green eyed Venezuelan man named Guillermo Fernandez. He was a druggie.

"She moves out with him and soon got pregnant with my brother Frank. It all seemed good untill she got pregnant with me. My mom had obtained from drugs when she got pregnant with, but Guillermo started to get abusive. He'd got it into his head that since my mother was a prostitute before, she was still sleeping around with other men. It wasn't true, but Guillermo was convinced.

"So she ran away from him and went back to the brothel where I was born. But leaving her one love had hit her hard. She started talking drugs again almost as soon as I was born, she overdosed for the first time and was sent to rehab for six months.

"When she got out, she swore to have a new start, so we traveled back to New York where I met my cousins for the first time. She stayed for a while but then left after a few weeks. Said she couldn't look after us.

"My mother went back to Dallas, still in prostitution. She never forget about us though. She'd come to visit, or we'd go to her. It wasn't the best, but I cherished ever moment of it. But she was keeping a secret.

"She and Guillermo were back together, and she was taking drugs again. Guillermo was more abusive this time. He was mad that she gave us away. He constantly punished her for it. Raping her, bearing her. She was so depressed, and drugs was her only way out.

"One time, when we'd gone to visit her, she was highly and badly beaten. She looked at us. She said she loved us. She had a needle in her arm. The last thing she said to us was, 'Make him pay'.

"It didn't take long to find and arrest Guillermo. But I still wasn't happy. I started to research, obsessively, on drugs. I wanted to know which one killed my mother and make it a hundred times worse for him.

"It was three years ago, when I was about 16. I went to visit him in prison, with a gift. I'd gotten a take out for him, but I'd poisoned everything. It was a poison much worse than any of the drugs my mother had overdosed on. And I watched him. I watched him eat everything. I watched as his eyes widened in realisation. I watched as he tried to scream with a singed throat.

"For two hours, watched my father go through a slow and very painful death. And when it was over I felt nothing. I sat in the room for an hour more, just staring at my dead father. It wasn't until the police called my family to tell them what happened that I started to cry. I was ashamed by what I'd done. And I knew that my mother was too. I knew she never wished for any of us to turn into him. And I did. I was so consumed by hatred and revenge, that I didn't think of the consequences."

"Were you arrested?" Beth asked.

"No, but I wish I was. My uncle didn't want me in prison and didn't want me in a correctional facility either. So he put me in the cadets with Graham. That's when I shaved my hair off and got the tattoos behind my ears. Since I didn't get sent to jail, this is my punishment."