Home was another prison, one where I was held without handcuffs because I had no other option, I couldn’t run away from that prison. Even if I did, my reality would still catch up with me and remind me about who I am. As usual, my first nightmare was seated on the door step, right in front of me. Things would have been better if I always arrived home to find some French fries and chicken on the door step rather than Sandra’s face. “Hey,’’ she greeted first as I stood at the bottom of the stairs at the front porch. “Hmm,’’ I replied nodding my head. “This is the part where I am supposed to pretend that I care, this is the part where I should run straight to you and hug you, welcome you back home and pretend that I am glad my sister did not die, isn’t it?’’ I asked genuinely. “Well, I don’t know, I was hoping you would, I was hoping you would come and see me in hospital, my mum came, then dad, then there were other people with their families and kids, I wanted to pretend that I had

“Sometimes, the job is a little bit hard, sometimes life is a little bit rough, we all want someone to care if we make it home tonight,’’ The whole room, nodded as my step mama gave her heart touching speech. “We all want to make it home, we all want to go home and sleep next to the people we love, we all want someone to care, and we care, I am happy that my girl made it, for a moment I was scared, but I am proud, I am glad that you are here, you made it home, just in time for your birthday.’’ A whole lot of gasps escaped the crowd. “This is not just a welcome back home from the hospital, this is a birthday too, happy birthday Sandra, happy seventeenth birthday,’’ she shouted as the rest of the crowd joined and a few party materials that I didn’t know flew up in the air. “Happy birthday Sandra, I whispered too, I didn’t want to say it loud. A cake was brought forward with the words happy birthday Sandra written. A statue of a Barbie girl was decorated on its edge, with the numera

“And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do anything that you want. What do you call it, Freedom or Loneliness?’’ -Charles Bukowski. Parties were awesome, a group of people celebrating an event in the world. Parties were great, they were an expression of love, of unity, of care, they are occasions where a group of people come together and become vulnerable as they laugh and drink wine. In my world, the way I viewed everything from my Lense, parties were a living hell, they were a space that reminded me of what I always wanted to become and why I was not all that. They drained my energy and space and right now was one of the best moments of my life indie my room, after the party that almost killed me. Why would I throw up all the cake that I ate? I kept asking myself the same question, a small headache was building up on the corner of my forehead. How could all this be happening to me, in a span of a moment, I would lick

Alice POV “Mommy, are you and daddy, okay?’’ “We are okay, why are you asking?’’ I asked Perez as I tucked her into bed. “What is a divorce?’’ she asked bluntly. “What is a divorce?’’ she repeated again lie it was nothing. “Where did you hear that word?’’ I inquired. My heart was racing, things had been bad between Michael and I and I had not yet thought about divorce. The thought that I might get one had been at the back of my mind for ages but I still didn’t know where I would go with two kids. Charles was a toddler and Perez was seven. I couldn’t tell when things in my marriage had gotten so bad, all I know is that one day I woke up and everything was different, I had two kids and the man next to me was a different person. The devil’s mutant. “I heard dad say that he wants a divorce over the phone,’’ Perez’ calm voice brought me back to reality and I felt my whole world crush at the words that she said. “What did you just say?’’ I thundered. “I am sorry, I wasn’t eavesdropp

I was seated quietly ,trembling, not knowing what to do. Was the bully secretly in love with me too? What could be the problem? What could have transpired. He looked confused today, her couldn’t decide whether to be sweet, rude or arrogant the way he was every day. It was unlike Vince to be anything other than rude, violent and abusive. He was a mixture of all three. All three blended at once to produce a very rude bully who didn’t want to see me win or succeed in life. The whole class couldn’t picture what was going on yet? They couldn’t find something to laugh about too. Everyone was looking at us, not at us but at Vince specifically, demanding answers, answers of why he hadn’t done something big yet, answers of why he hadn’t made a big super human move yet. My crimes were great, they were big, I doubted if Jesus himself would have agreed to die for me today, if at all he came back and God asked him to save Fatrez specifically, would he have died for me. Let alone die, would he ha