Roots [Completed]

Chapter 2 - Part 1

I look nothing like either of my moms, even though Mom actually gave birth to me.

She had discovered she was pregnant with me a week after my father died. She met Momma under a year later, and, according to them, they both fell in love with me, and shortly thereafter, with each other. They got married when I was 2.

Even though Mom is my biological mother, I don't look anything like her. For one thing, she's white. My dad was black. So, while her hair is dark, mine is darker, and mine coils into curls where hers is flat. I used to wish I had blue eyes like her, or green eyes like Momma, but when I was five Mom told me that my brown eyes are just like my father's, and it's been hard to hate them since.

On my 17th birthday, Mom had taken me to the place she met my father. It was a small, scenic cafe that "used to be the cool place for teenagers to hang out," according to Mom. Mom had walked in, and Dad had been new in town, and they flirted over scones and small town conversation.

My birthday was months ago, but I still remember asking her if she ever misses him.

"I think," she had sighed, "that it's very hard to stop missing someone. But I'm a different person than I was when I met him. I'm happy. I used to think I couldn't be that, anymore."

"But you still miss him?" I pressed.

"But I still miss him," she answered, holding her coffee cup tighter. When we got home, I watched Momma twirl her in a circle in the living room, both of them laughing.

So, really, I don't mind how I look, because my looks are one of the only things I have from Dad. I don't think I miss him, really, because I never knew him, but I can't help but think of it as a loss - he should be in my life, but he isn't. But I have Momma, and that lessens the blow considerably.

Still, I have been missing. Not - not missing someone, I think. Just missing. Something is missing, and I feel it ache in the hollow of my chest, sometimes. That sounds dramatic, I know.

But the feeling doesn't fade.

-

"Jane, Jane, Janey Jane Jane," Tana says, faux-patronizingly, "if you wanted eyeliner on your cheek, you could have just asked for that. You don't have to fidget and force me into it."

"Sorry!" I say, trying to still my body. Tana sighs and leans forward again, liquid liner in hand.

We're in her room, both of us sitting on one of the endless pastel-colored poufs that cover the floor.

"Damn, Tan," Preston says, sitting on an adjacent pouf, "you do this by yourself every day?"

Preston holds another liquid liner to his left eye, trying to replicate the wing on the other side. He's perched on the very edge, looking intently at the mirror on Tana's vanity.

"Yeah, I'm sort of incredible," Tana replies, handing him her concealer.

Preston's attempt at eyeliner, while shaky, is far better than mine, but I don't give him the satisfaction of verbalizing it.

Preston sighs, "I better go, any way. Dinner's at 6. Where's the makeup wipes?"

"You should show it off - that eyeliner is passable at least, Pres," Tana says, instructing me to purse my lips as she holds up a dark lipstick.

"Nah, don't think I can stand Dad's 'gay' comments any more," Preston says with a grimace of distaste, scrubbing at his eyelid with the wipe.

My lips curl in disgust. "You should just move into my house. Trust me, my moms know the difference between 'wears makeup' and 'attracted to men.'"