soulful
/ˈsəʊlfʊl,ˈsəʊlf(ə)l/
adjective: soulful
expressing or appearing to express deep and often sorrowful feeling.
Glendale , AZ
Wednesday January 7th
Soraya Legacy Valentine | binkie
"Binkie get up c'mon." Soraya groaned as she woke herself up out of her slumber; an immediate mug took over her features.
She turned her head away from her older brother who was lightly shaking her. "Binks you got work. Hurry up and get dressed unless you wanna walk there, completely fine by me." That instantly woke her up disliking the idea of being around other people, with their endless amounts of germs and diseases.
"I'm up I'm up." She mumbled groggily wiping the dirt out of her eyes, "what time is it?"
"7, get up and ready quickly. I got work to get to too." She nodded as he left out her room and she went to her combined bathroom. She began taking care of all her hygiene including the basics like brushing her teeth and washing her skin.
"Binkie hurry up!" Her older brother, Trenton, yelled as she stepped out of her bathroom in a grey towel.
"Stop rushing me Tren, ain't gon make me any damn faster." She replied feeling a sudden whelm of irritation. Soraya hated when people rushed her, she stuck by her own rules wanting to do things at her own pace.
Soraya worked part time at a daycare for 9month - 8 year olds. She liked kids, which is a shock to some with her distant personality, she grew up with no love from anybody causing her to never want children to feel unwanted the same way she did.
"Man leave me, matter fact go. I will take an uber there." She waved him off putting on a white oversized tee with a snoop dogg concert ticket print and some casual ripped jeans with blue and white crossed stitch fazos.
"You ready to go now?" Trenton didn't like the feeling of leaving his baby sister alone at home, too much happened in his absence.
Soraya decided to ignore her older brother grabbing her airpods case and detaching her phone from the charging wire. Grabbing her lip balm she applied some to her full pink lips. Soraya wasn't too hype on lipgloss since she didn't like sticky substances on her lips or body.
"I'll be back around 8pm okay I gotta work late." Trenton was a plumber and he got paid well, he'd bought his own car at 18 and the house their currently living in at 20.
"Alright." She followed him out the door and to his white Lexus IS, "I get off at 7 and i'm not working an extra shift so I'll get something to eat then I'll head home." Soraya informed.
"Bet." Trenton plugged in his aux chord and scrolled down his apple playlist to the song he wanted , Black clouds by nba youngboy.
Soraya wasn't a fan of too much heavy music because she believed it promoted violence: rappers like lil tjay and nba youngboy gave boys the assumption - in her opinion - that they could go gallivanting in these streets because they were all hard and tough leading them to their own death or somebody elses.
She wouldn't deny that their music isn't good, because it was, however she just thought that their music got kids nowadays too rowdy and excited leading them to think that lil baby was going to come pay their bail when he wasn't, it was their momma's who would have to do that - their struggling momma's who weren't even being paid enough to keep the leaks out of the roof.
She did listen to some of yb's songs though, this one especially. Trenton hooked her on to it when he was playing it loudly in the shower a few months back. She liked the thpe of songs she could relate to.
Tell me why I got this pain inside of me
Certain phrases sunk in her mind, things that people said to her their words hurtful or kind were engraved in her heart. She wasn't one to forget and if you asked her to remember what you told her the other day, years could pass and she'd still be able to recall it all the same.
"Be safe, love you." Trenton unlocked the car doors as they pulled up outside the daycare, "take your pills at break Binkie." He added as she opened the door waving him off.
Soraya hummed in acknowledgement as she walked confidently into the building and to the registration point.
"Hello Soraya." Kayleigh the receptionist waved politely to Soraya as she wrote down her name and time of arrival on the clipboard. She read the other names of workers who had arrived earlier which were only 5 excluding her.
"How many kids are here?" Soraya asked bluntly, not one for small talk. She came to the daycare to work not to make friends, the other childcare workers were used to her behaviour by now though.
"Only 10 but we're supposed to be expecting a few new kids today." She nodded going into the main hall to see a couple kids having some breakfast which consisted of pancakes and chocolate milk.
"Rayaaaa."Gianni ran over to Soraya and latched onto her legs. Gianni was 5 years old and had joined almost a year ago. She had quite the attitude and was rather sassy, a little brat her mother called her. Somehow Soraya managed to pry Gianna's little fingers off of her mother's leg and get her to colour dinosaurs with her.
"Hello Gia." Soraya picked her up and carried her back to the table she was formerly sitting at; then sat down next to her as she continued to munch away.
"Hi pretty lady." Kaia greeted waving at the worker, Kaia was a very truthful toddler who was very blunt and would always tell you how it is - a trait most say she inherited from her older brother.
"Hello Kaia, how was your weekend?" Soraya knew of Kaia's living situation well. Soraya's mother was an insane mental woman who had kids without thinking leading her to be an unfit mother in her opinion.
"It was good, bubba came home after long time and took me to the park!" Kaia also had an older brother who Soraya only knew of as bubba as that is the only thing little kaia had referred to him as. Kaia spoke very passionately of her brother since she looked up to him and in her eyes her brother could do no wrong.
"That's good, Jalen how was your weekend?" Soraya asked the quiet boy who was cutting up his food into smaller pieces.
"Hate." He mumbled gruffly, Jalen was their oldest kid being 6 and he'd been with them the longest in fact since he was 11 months old. So it was safe to say Soraya watched him grow up and she was more of a mother to him than his real one ever was. Even when she was only a volunteer that would sneak in mcdonald's for the kids to eat.
"And what was wrong?" She pried trying to get him to open up more, in his eyes she saw herself - a broken lost child in need of loving.
"Her." She knew who 'her' was immediately and felt the need to leave the topic, she didn't like people prying in her business and wasn't about to do it to anybody else.
"Well I on the other hand had a great weekend, mommy took me shopping in the big town center and let me buy pretty frilly dresses with my pocket money." Adelina was a snobby stuck up 4 year old in everybody's eyes and Soraya could already tell how she was going to be when she grew up.
"Nobody likes show-offs." Acacia scrunched her face up gulping down her chocolate milk then wiping her mouth before continuing, "it's not cute."
"That's enough now calm down," Soraya could already see where the conversation would end up going. Hearing wails she turned around, not too surprised to see a little boy trying to drag his mother back to him holding on to the end of her sleeve. It was obviously a common occurrence in any daycare.
One of the few male workers - Kayson - tried his best to calm the little boy down as his mother sighed heavily. She then turned and stopped and got down to the boys level before putting her hands on either side of his face and kissing his forehead softly and then whispering something quietly to him, whilst wiping his fallen tears.
"His mommy looks nice." Kaia voiced softly and Soraya could detect the hurt behind her words, "I wish I had a mommy like him." She whispered quietly but Soraya could still hear it.
The boy let go of his mothers sleeve nodding at whatever the woman said. She kissed him one final time before turning on her heel and leaving the centre. The kid grabbed onto Kayson's hand as he directed them to Soraya's table.
The newcomer looked down sadly hiccuping every so often, "guys this is Samir, Samir this is another worker Soraya. You can introduce yourself to the other kids, okay?" Samir nodded his head as Kayson wandered off.
"Hi Samir, my names Gianni but you can call me Gia, but only if I can call you Sam!" Gianni greeted energetically.
"Ok." Samir had a small timid voice as he looked up at the group.
"I'm this many," Kaia said as she held up four fingers and Soraya put down her pinky for her, "thank you miss Raya. How many are you?" She directed her question to Samir.
"5." He grumbled.
"I'm Acacia," Acacia picked her head up looking at the small darkskin boy giggling to herself, "And this is Adelina and Jalen."
"I'm Kaia, You can call me Kay." She too giggled looking over Samir's features.
"More kids?" Samir queried.
"There's around 19 in total and the whole lot are expected to arrive before 12 only 5 others are here." Soraya explained. Kayson came back to collect the plates and small plastic cups with milk in them and then went away again.
"Soraya can we paint please?" Kaia asked sweetly, which she tended to do when she wanted something.
"You know we can only paint as a whole group but i'll get some colouring materials and the books." Soraya got up and went to the storage cupboard.
"Oh my god I would happily be Keizer's stepmom, his dad is daddy as fuck." J'elle threw her head back in exaggeration as she spoke to another worker about a child's dad.
Soraya thought that their behaviour was highly unprofessional and disrespectful in the workplace especially in a building full of children. Not to mention disgusting: toddlers don't understand the art of remaining where they are told to stay, any of them could've came in instead of Soraya.
"Soraya have you seen him? He's married but his wife so doesn't deserve him," Josephine - the woman whom J'elle was talking to - gasped at her presence as Soraya ignored them and pulled out some colouring books, "o-kay just act like you can't see us then."
Soraya proceeded to ignore them grabbing different materials to colour with.
When she came back to the table there was a crying Adelina and a chuckling Soavi, someone who'd been with the daycare for just over a month now.
"Miss Raya Soavi pulled my hair." Soavi stuck out his tongue to a wet faced Adelina.
"That's what she gets for being a snobby bitch!" Soavi yelled laughing and pulling her hair again.
"Soavi Owens you know better than to use that language, what do you say?" Soavi instantly melted fumbling with his fingers as his huaraches quickly became more interesting. Soraya patiently waited for his reply putting the colouring items down on the table.
She sat down and pulled a crying Adelina on her lap. She wiped her tears and fixed her blonde pig tails.
"S-Sorry Lina." Soavi stuttered, he came to find the childcare worker cute and always wanted to stay longer at daycare whenever his mother arrived to collect him, rushing to get up early so he could come see her.
"You don't use that language, ever. There is no reason for it." Soraya lectured wiping his watering eyes.
"Won't again." He said sitting down.
"A little birdie tells me that he likes you," Soraya whispered into Adelina's ear, "boys tend to pick on the girls they like."
Adelina pondered over the thought for a second before turning her body 180º and then jumping off her lap, "Soraya that is so silly no, boys are ew. 'Specially Soavi." She ran off to the corner filled with toys as the kids surrounding her began to draw.